I just had no idea what the right choice would be.
I didn’t know how you made that decision.
I felt like I’d barely closed my eyes before I was awake again.
I still didn’t have an answer, but I knocked on Mike’s door anyway. I needed to talk to him about this. Or at least see him.
But he didn’t answer. I didn’t find him downstairs, either. So I pulled on my running gear, ran through my stretches and headed outside. The mist hung over the hills, fading out the swaying Cypresses and the sea, and raising goosebumps on my arms and bare legs. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the fresh, grassy air, and started jogging. I’d be warm soon.
But I’d barely started when I saw a figure obscured by the fog.
It was Lauren, coming in from the path to the village. She still wore last night’s black dress, her hair piled up in a messy bun. My mouth parted. “Oh.”
She flushed furiously and lifted her chin. “I was out for a walk.”
Hey, if that was her story I wouldn’t challenge it. “Sure. I’m just...going for a run.”
I couldn’t help it. My mouth quirked and a snort slipped out.
She scowled at me. “What?’
I shook my head.
She jutted out her chin. “Go on, ask.”
I didn’t really need to ask. “You slept with Paul last night?”
She stared at me, and then she laughed until she pressed her hand to her head. “Yes.” She fished a clip from her purse and put up her curls. “It’s not that weird, is it?”
“No. I mean...you’re not that related.”
“Oh, God.”
I smiled wryly.
She let out a breath. “So, did Mike calm down?”
“Um. That’s something we’ll probably have to talk about later. I haven’t really talked to him since last night.”
She made a face. “I sort of forgot that this might, uh, have ramifications for you too.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
Actually, maybe she did. His whole family seemed to think we were a thing. “Hey—I just wanted to say, Mike really does care about all of you. And I don’t think it’s fair to say he isn’t trying, because he loves you all.”
“How can you defend him after you just—figuratively—stuck a knife in his back?”
Now, that was a bad analogy. Much too strong. Besides— “You were standing right there, Longinus.”
“What?”
“Um. Longinus? One of Brutus’s co-conspirers. Helped him assassinate Julius Caesar?”
She snorted, and then it dissolved into helpless laughed. “I’m surrounded by crazy people.”
They didn’t let you into grad school unless you were crazy. “I guess, because even though I’m, um, clearly in Mike’s bad grace’s right now—I really like him.”
Lauren shook her head. “You’re even more screwed than I am.”
“Trust me.” I stared out at the hills. “I know.”
When I came to the coast, I stopped. I stared out at the water, watching the waves roll in from the south, white crests so far below they appeared as pencil lines. I could understand where the fair folk came from when I stood here, in a small corner of the world where humans seemed foreign and strange and unnecessary. I closed my eyes, breathing in the salt and sea, the coolness of rain on the way and freshness of wind combing through the grasses.
I needed to let it all go.
“Nice view.”
I spun around. Mike stood there in running shorts and a Notre Dame sweatshirt. My chest spiked and swooped, unprepared and defenseless, and the raw emotion jolted straight through my body. My voice came out uneven. “I thought I might find you here.”
He fit here, in this wild place. This man who played by rules and regulations, who wore the same outfit as dozens of others, who was almost indistinguishable on the field with his gleaming hair hidden away. Here, he looked like an elemental part of the landscape.
He shrugged and walked up to the edge of the bluff.
I could have Kilkarten. Mike would sign, I knew he would. I could have everything I’d worked for these past six years. I could have Ivernis.
He was asking me to choose him over Kilkarten.
How could I choose him over my work?
My chest felt light and heavy all at once. A bubble formed inside it, too much oxygen, and my blood raced until my skin tingled and my thoughts flew in every direction. I tried to keep my breathing from escalating, but instead ended up taking lots of short, quick breaths.
I could hear the rush of the ocean, but it didn’t drown out his slow, steady footsteps behind me. I closed my eyes and breathed in the salt and earth. I licked my lips. “Okay.”
“What?”
I forced myself to turn, and I spread my hands. The wind whipped his hair into a maddened mess, and his eyes shone like polished bronze.
I swallowed. I felt sick and hollow. “Okay. I...withdraw my request.” It took everything in me to say that, and even so, a large part of me wanted to suck the words back in, to disavow them.
He searched my eyes. For once, there was no mask at all, no charm or stone, just a strange vulnerability. “Really?”
I nodded, hands squeezing my opposite elbows as I hugged my arms to myself. “I promise.”
He closed his eyes and seemed to expel all the worry and tension in his body. “Thank you.”
I nodded.
He looked back at me. “Why?”
“Why?” I repeated.
“You’re right. I would have signed. So why’d you give it up?”
I shrugged. “I, um. I thought I was choosing between Ivernis and you. And I could never choose a guy over my career. Over something I’d worked on for so long. Over what made me me. Because I wouldn’t want a man to somehow define me more than I defined myself.”
Before us, the waves crashed, a low, dull roar. Above, gulls screeched in a sharp counterpoint, swooped in and out of the moving fog. “But that’s not what the choice was. It wasn’t about me. It was about—being a good person. Being a good friend. And—I don’t know, I guess I thought about the pain. The pain you’d suffer versus the pain other people suffer if this went through. And if it doesn’t, my pain, Jeremy’s pain—yes, it will be personal, but it will be personal about a thing. A place. Not a loved one. And it will affect our professions—but not our families.” I shrugged and tried to swallow, but the soreness and tightness of my throat made it difficult. “And I don’t want to be a bad person.”
He looked at me for a long time, his hands shoved in his pockets, and then he nodded. “Okay. I have a story to tell you.”
I cracked a grin. “Once upon a time?”
He took a deep breath. “I think there are guns buried on Kilkarten.”
My stomach convulsed and I twisted to see him. “What?”
“During the Troubles. There were guns kept there for the nationalist movement.”
No, the words still weren’t making much sense. “The—what, like the IRA?” Weren’t the Troubles about Northern Ireland, whether they were part of the UK or the Republic of Ireland? Protestants vs. Catholics? What did that have to do with farmers in western Cork?
“No.” He rolled over, too, and gripped my hand hard enough to hurt. “God, no. He just...supported a united Ireland.”
“He.” It started to sink in. “You think your dad buried guns on Kilkarten?”
“I don’t know. I just—” He closed his eyes. “He never talked about it. You know how some people want to tell you every last detail of their lives? Not my dad. He’d tell you about his childhood, and about moving to Boston, but there were two or three years in the early eighties that he never mentioned. Like they didn’t exist.