Just Like You Said It Would Be Read online

  It wasn’t worth answering. I’d just fucked up our chances.

  “Not with us,” she continued. “Not after this.”

  “You say after this like it was something worse. Nothing happened except that it was late.” I was on the verge of tears. It was like Matias all over again only a thousand times worse because this time my parents’ disappointment meant Darragh wouldn’t be able to come see me in Toronto.

  I felt a presence in the room and looked up to see him standing in the doorway. Darragh had put his clothes on and the resignation in his face made me sadder. He must have heard enough to get the gist of the conversation and when I glanced back at him he turned to walk away.

  “I hope that’s the case,” my mom said.

  “It is,” I insisted. “You don’t believe me?”

  My mom paused. “I think something happened. But if I understand what you’re trying to tell me, you didn’t have sex. Is that right?”

  “Yes.” She’d grasped the truth behind my words. “We didn’t have sex. You don’t have to worry, I swear. Can’t you at least consider letting him visit? Talk it over with Dad? Take some more time to think about it?” I’d do whatever it took to get her to change her mind. Pull straight A’s all semester, scrub the house clean with a toothbrush every weekend and never once stay out past seven o’clock.

  “There’s not going to be any talking it over,” she said. “You know your father will feel the same. He was just as disappointed at what he heard about last night as I was.”

  “So, what, you expect me never to have another guy in our house again? I can’t have a boyfriend?” I’d let anger seep into my voice along with the sadness and my mother clearly didn’t appreciate it.

  “You have to be kidding me,” she snapped. “Something like this happens and the next day you feel you’re entitled to have this boy stay in our home? How can we trust you to have him there when this is the way you act?” Before I could get another word in she added, “He won’t be visiting you and that’s final.”

  I stopped arguing with her. I stopped talking period, afraid to make things still worse. In my silence Mom declared that she and Dad expected me to be at home with my aunt and uncle by dinnertime for the remainder of the trip. If I was out during the afternoon and early evening Aunt Kate and Uncle Frank were supposed to know exactly where I was and be reachable by phone. This wasn’t my official grounding, which would begin when I arrived back in Canada, because, as my mother explained it, she and my dad weren’t entirely unsympathetic to the fact that I had less than two weeks’ vacation left. On the other hand, they didn’t want a repeat of what’d happened last night and the shed key would no longer be accessible to me.

  “I understand,” I said. “And I’ll be home early from now on, and do whatever else Aunt Kate and Uncle Frank want, but what about Darragh?”

  “What about him?” my mother asked. “You’re leaving shortly. There’s no future in that.”

  “A week and five days. That’s what I’m talking about. Can I see him until I go? Before dinner, like you said. Please. It’s important. I’ll do anything you say. I just need these next few days.” It felt like asking for the moon and when my mother hesitated for so long that I had to say it again, my voice broke, my heart shrivelling in my chest. “Please, Mom. I can’t leave things like this.”

  “He really means something to you.”

  “He means a lot to me.” There was no chance she’d bend on the visit, but I gave it a final shot. “That’s why I wanted him to come to Toronto. And for you both to meet him.”

  “You’re too young to be that serious about someone,” she chided.

  I’d run out of words—was too sad to say another thing. In the end it was my mom who jump-started the conversation. “If your aunt and uncle don’t object, he can visit you there while they’re at home,” she added sternly. “And don’t make me regret it.”

  “I won’t,” I vowed. “Thank you.”

  For a few minutes I was relieved, but by the time Mom said goodbye I was already back to feeling deflated. I sat on Zoey’s bed for at least another two minutes after we’d hung up, trying to get it together enough to face Darragh.

  When I joined him downstairs he was sitting on the couch with my aunt and uncle’s TV tuned in to a digital channel that was playing Radiohead. He looked up at me with a nearly neutral expression and said, “They might change their minds. This just happened. It’s still fresh.”

  “They’re not going to change their minds.” I sank down onto the couch with him. “Not about you coming to visit. I’m sorry.”

  Darragh was silent, his face changing as he digested the news. “What exactly did they say?”

  I told him about the dinnertime curfew and how my mom had said she couldn’t trust me enough to have him stay at our house. Basically we were back to the same place we’d been before last night: Darragh and I were a dying thing. I felt so low sitting on the couch there with him that I didn’t even want to talk anymore, but he wouldn’t let me stay quiet.

  He said, “They didn’t say we couldn’t see each other, right? If this is the way it has to be, I don’t want to be sad already.” He kneaded his forehead. “Can we just not do that and save it for later? If I’m going to be in bits after you go I don’t want to feel that way now.” Darragh furrowed his brow as he stared at me. It felt as if he was lecturing me and in my head I was saying, excuse me for being sad about you.

  “How do you switch yourself off like that?” I asked, furrowing my brow back.

  “At least try.” Darragh stood up and pulled me up with him. “We have to go out. Do something. I’m not going to sit on the sofa like this with you for the next week calling your parents heartless bastards and whinging about our hard luck.”

  I wasn’t even sure if I should leave the house—whether my aunt and uncle knew about the dinner curfew already or what—and I was a little pissed off that Darragh had made me sound whiny, but then he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close. “Come on, sex goddess,” he whispered. “Either take me out or take me back upstairs.”

  I smiled despite everything and what ended up happening was this: I made us Greek omelettes with feta cheese and frozen spinach from the fridge (neither of us had eaten since the night before) and then we made out against the counter until I told Darragh maybe we should take a walk. It turned out I couldn’t throw myself back into being physical after my devastating conversation with my mom, no matter how I tried. Darragh and I walked for so long that we ended up by the canal on Lower Dorset Street and then, at approximately the same time that I felt ready to make out with him again, I started to get nervous that my aunt and uncle could be calling the house looking for me. So we walked hand in hand back to my aunt and uncle’s place, stopping, at various points between Dorset Street and Swords Road, to kiss like there was no tomorrow.

  Chapter 20

  What’s there to be sorry for?

  Those last days in Dublin were a crazy time. My mood flipped constantly—from horny one minute to mopey and withdrawn the next. There was so much left to do and such little time to do it. One morning Jack’s boyfriend, Gavin, came up to Dublin for the day and Zoey and I met him and Jack in town for coffee. Gavin was a stand-up comedian, sharply intelligent yet sweet-natured, and delicately gorgeous with milk chocolate brown hair that hung in his eyes. Jack and Gavin were so clearly excited to be in each other’s presence that I hoped they’d find a way to make things work until Gavin could move to Dublin. When they headed back to the house together Zoey and I stayed in town to give them some time alone.

  Darragh took some afternoons off, like he’d said he would, and we spent them up in Jack’s room, fooling around and talking to each other about everything from politics to our childhoods to our fears about the future of the planet. It seems like a no brainer that to really like a guy he needs to be someone you can talk ,to but before summer it had never seriously occurred to me that a guy could be your friend as much as he was your lust obje
ct. At thirty maybe that could be true, but I hadn’t expected it to be possible at seventeen. Every moment we were together made it harder to say goodbye.

  By then it was understood that we’d never sleep together. After my parents vetoed Darragh’s visit, I couldn’t do it knowing I’d never see him again.

  My aunt and uncle took pity on us and let Darragh come over for dinner a few nights. Whenever that happened we hung out in the front room until ten o’clock, barely touching each other while Aunt Kate and Uncle Frank watched TV on the other side of the wall. They didn’t hold a grudge and I thought that was pretty great of them; I’d made enough mistakes to ensure they could’ve been justifiably pissed off with me.

  On my last full Saturday in Ireland, after coming home from watching Zoey and the boys busk on Grafton Street, I got teary in the kitchen with my aunt and she rubbed my arms like I was a child who’d been out in the cold.

  “Once you get home and into your regular routine things will start to fall back into place again,” she said, her steady gaze flashing me encouragement.

  As in, I’d start to forget Darragh’s existence, or at least being apart wouldn’t hurt so much. My feelings for him, along with my memories of us, would grow dusty and dim. I couldn’t imagine that, but I nodded like it was possible, my fingers still clutching a CD Darragh had given me in town—Brash Heathens demo tunes mixed with some of his solo stuff that he thought I’d like.

  Thankfully Zoey didn’t try to talk to me about the significance of my upcoming departure. I think she understood that I was trying to block out the future. Whenever she was around she kept the atmosphere light and focused on the here and now. One night, around one o’clock, the two of us watched a documentary about oral sex on one of the specialty channels. At first I was worried that it might inspire Zoey to get more personal than I wanted, but that didn’t happen either. Instead, she kept rephrasing the advice in a chiding but intellectual tone that broke me up. No grabbing of the balls, ladies! They are not durable like footballs and you should not attempt to detach them. Teeth frighten penises, turning them into timid little bunny rabbits. Have you ever tried to make love to a bunny rabbit, ladies? They run and hide in the long grass.

  I was howling with laughter by the time the show was through and afterwards Zoey said, “I don’t know about you, but I feel like a blow job expert now.”

  “Totally,” I agreed in an infomercial voice. “I have the utmost confidence in how to romance the penis.” It was a phrase they’d repeated throughout the documentary—one that made Zoey and I smirk every time we heard it.

  “Dinner and a movie just doesn’t cut it,” Zoey quipped. “Who knew?”

  Even with Jocelyn, I didn’t want to talk about the ramifications of leaving. Darragh’s name popped up in conversation, but I made it clear I wasn’t going to touch the subject of our soon to expire relationship. I was trying to save it for later, like Darragh had advised. Postpone heartbreak.

  The last time I was alone with him we wrestled in his bed. Darragh pinned me down and launched an all-out tickle attack, an easy victory for him because every inch of me is ticklish.

  “No fair,” I gasped, giggling as I tried to wriggle free. “You’re stronger than me.” He took pity on me and allowed me to go for his lone weak point, his waist. He let me pin him underneath me and continue to playfully pinch at him until I’d worn his defences down. Then he threw his mouth open and erupted into a stream of laughter that made me giggle uncontrollably and let go. He had me jammed back under him again in an instant, tickling the small of my back until I could hardly breathe and was spluttering, “Okay, okay—you win.”

  It’s funny the way you can still laugh when you’re unhappy deep down. Darragh folded his hands beneath his head then and lay down next to me. I turned on my side, touching my History of Ireland necklace and telling myself I couldn’t be in love with him because it was too soon.

  At that point we had roughly an hour and a half until Darragh’s brothers were due home and with a face full of hurt I propped myself up on my elbow and said, “I can’t just be casual friends with you after this and text or chat online like everything’s cool. After I leave, we’re never going to talk again are we?” Darragh was coming over for dinner the next night and the following morning I was flying home, but that afternoon in his bed was really it for us in a lot of ways.

  “What are you asking?” Darragh said quietly. “You just said we couldn’t be friends.”

  “Do you think we could?”

  “I know we couldn’t.” He looked up at me and it was like staring into a mirror—in his face I saw all the unhappiness I felt. “I know I couldn’t anyway. Before we had these last couple of weeks together maybe, but not now.”

  “Me neither.” It would make everything that happened between us seem less than what it was. I didn’t want to make small talk with him and eventually have to hear about some other girl. “But I’m going to miss you so much. You’re amazing.” My voice cracked. “I don’t know how I’m going to stop thinking about you.”

  Darragh stroked my hair and pulled me close. “I won’t be able to stop thinking about you either. Promise me something.” My head was buried in his chest so I couldn’t see him. “If your parents change their minds or if you think you can come back sometime, ring me and we’ll make sure it happens, whatever it takes.”

  I promised him and I tried so hard not to cry, swallowing the heavy lump in my throat again and again, until it felt like I was swallowing stones. What made it worse was that it seemed like Darragh was trying not to cry too. We nearly accomplished it. We made it through that day and the family farewell dinner the next too. There were enough of us in attendance (Aunt Kate, Uncle Frank, Darragh, Zoey, Jack, Rory, Fiona, Andy, Caitlin, and Matt—minus his girlfriend this time) to temporarily distract us.

  The next morning Jack had an early interview and couldn’t come with us to the airport. Although we hadn’t spent much time together, I’d gotten fond of Jack quickly and turned blubbery when he hugged me goodbye at the bottom of the stairway. He sensed the real reason and whispered in my ear, “You’re going to be okay no matter what. I promise.”

  He sounded so definite that I nodded and told myself I wouldn’t shed any tears at the airport. It would only make leaving harder.

  My flight to Toronto was scheduled to take off at 12:25 and we had to be at the airport three hours earlier. I was light-headed as I checked in my bags at Dublin airport. Sleepy but on high-alert, scanning the area for any sign of Darragh and hoping he’d decided against coming so that I could make it safely onto the flight without losing it. Aunt Kate, Uncle Frank, Zoey, and I ended up in the food court where my aunt and uncle ate full breakfasts and I nibbled on fruit, feeling nauseous. Across the table from me, Zoey chugged down coffee and punched at her phone, texting with Gloria.

  “Here’s Darragh now,” Zoey said suddenly, glancing over her coffee cup.

  It might sound strange, since we were talking about someone I didn’t want to leave behind, but Zoey’s words sent me crashing. My legs were shaking as I got up and stalked away from the table. I could hear my aunt’s voice from behind me, urging me to sit down. I don’t know where I was going. Somewhere Darragh couldn’t find me. Through the security screening area and to my gate number, I guess.

  I didn’t want it to be like that, running away from the people who’d been good to me. But I was emotionally overloaded. Heartsick and acting on instinct. Pressure built up behind my eyes as I rushed upstairs and high-tailed it towards the security area. Once I got safely through to the other side I’d call my aunt and uncle and apologize for running off on them. Hopefully they’d understand.

  Aer Lingus was making an announcement over the P.A. as I neared the zigzagging maze of ropes that would dump me into the hands of security screeners. Two look-alike blond women were hugging each other goodbye near the otherwise empty line and I seriously thought I was going to make it through. A single tear bolted out of my left eye and swam down
my cheek, but I was almost there…almost. In a way it was like that night at Enda Corrigan’s when I couldn’t steer clear of Darragh. Something about our energies constantly pulled us together. Or maybe it was just that he was more familiar with the damn airport than I was because he suddenly materialized out of nowhere, cutting right in front of me and asking, “Why are you running away?”

  I stopped on the spot, looking at him from head to toe. He was wearing a navy Manchester United sweatshirt and black cargo pants and he stared at me as if he’d seen a ghost. “Talk to me, Mir.”

  No one in Dublin had ever called me that, and I felt my face freeze. Darragh stared at me like he could see straight through me, all the way down to the parts that counted most, and that only made me cry harder. Tears leaked out of from between my lashes like a monsoon as I wiped my face on the back of my sleeve and mumbled, in a voice that sounded like it was made of salt, “I don’t want to say goodbye to you. I don’t want it to be over.”

  “Do you think I do? It doesn’t seem like we have a choice.” Darragh’s eyes were bloodshot, making them appear even bluer, and his hands were deep in his pockets. I’d never seen him so intensely serious. “If you know a way around this for Christ’s sake tell me what it is.”

  I shook my head, my chest threatening to collapse. Tears were fighting their way out as fast as I could brush them away and Darragh stepped closer, leaning in to kiss me. I tasted my tears on his lips and felt them on his skin. Our mouths moved slowly against each other. He closed his arms around me and buried his hands in my hair. I wanted to stay just like that, feeling his heartbeat against mine.

  “Stop crying,” he whispered. “Stop crying.” We stood locked together for a long while, not kissing or talking or anything, my head rising and falling slightly against his shoulder. The pain didn’t go anywhere. It flowed back and forth between us, feeding and fuelling itself at once. “Remember what you promised?” he asked. “Maybe this isn’t goodbye forever.” He touched my waist under my shirt, laid his hand across my back. “Maybe there’ll be some way for us later…”