Page 42 of Promise Me This

The room is filled with groups of people chattering and drinking away the worries of their weeks. I let the hum of noise fill my ears for a moment, not trying to decipher any of it but rather letting it all form a steady roar that makes me feel less empty. My gaze flits from face to face, not settling on a particular one for more than a heartbeat. Looking at all these people, I wonder who they miss and if those people miss them back. I wonder what they’re sorry for, and if any of us deserves to be redeemed in the end. I certainly hope so, for all our sakes.

“Leona,” Padraig asks, his voice cutting through my reverie. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I don’t want you to shut it down right away. I want you to humor me, if only for a moment.”

I nod. There’s another drink in my hand. I don’t remember it arriving, but I’m grateful it’s here.

Padraig’s eyes dance around my face, searching for something. “Do you still love Callum? Did you ever?”

There’s no judgment in his tone, no hint of a challenge or test. He’s not measuring my worth by my response. He won’t think less of me, I can already tell, no matter what the truth is.

It’s for this reason that I decide to share it with him, this tiny piece of my truth.

My eyes fill with tears, and this time blinking doesn’t work. They fall just as the words do, tumbling over my lips. “I never stopped.”

He nods once, as if this is what he suspected, and then offers me his bar napkin. I blot away the tears, embarrassed to be crying in public, and then I wave Dermot down at the other end of the bar.

“Can we get a round of shots, please?”

Chapter Eighteen

Callum

Idrive for what feels like ages, though there aren’t enough roads in Cahersiveen for that to be true.

For a while I let the full range of ugliness unravel from within me. Every color of jealousy, the entire spectrum of anger. My knuckles turn white from clenching the steering wheel. Just when I think I’ve felt it all, grief like an extended epilogue brings up the rear.

My glasses fog over. I tell myself it’s from the heat flowing out of my car vents, but then a bastard tear rolls down my cheek. I try to blink the moisture away, determined not to crash on this single-lane road that winds between vast fields of farmland. The sun has set, and twilight arrives on its heels, turning the world to a delirious shade of purple. It feels wrong, the way the sky swirls and flows into darkness. All that beauty grates against me like a pad of sandpaper. Or maybe I’m just projecting my own discontent onto it.

Bingo, my inner monologue snipes. I stop the car.

The disappointment—in myself, in this entire situation—hits me like an avalanche. Buries me beneath snow and debris till I can no longer breathe.

For what feels like an eternity, I sit in my car and stare directly ahead, unseeing and suffering. This morning I was certain all I wanted was answers so that I could finally be rid of her. Now just the suggestion that she might be seeing someone else has turned me into a complete neanderthal. I can tell her to go back to America all I want, but the aching in my chest—a sickness that nearly turns my stomach—is rooted in the desire for her to stay.

I was kidding myself. I will never be free of her, nor do I want to be.

My phone rings, slicing the silence of the night in half. I scramble for it, hoping beyond hope that it’s Leo. Even if she’s just calling to tell me to go to hell for being a jealous prick, I’ll take it. I’ll take it in a heartbeat over never hearing her voice again.

Everything inside me sinks when I see that it’s Padraig.

“Hello?”

“First of all,” Padraig slurs. “Do you know that you’re an idiot? Like, the king of all idiots?”

I remove my glasses and run a hand over my face. “Glad the word is getting around quickly about how much of a fuckup I am.”

He hiccups and then giggles. He’s well and truly drunk. “Just had to make sure you knew.”

“Was there a ‘second of all’ coming, or did you just call to make me feel worse than I already do?”

“Well, I definitely wanted to do that, so I’m happy that came across.” There’s a dull roar of chatter in the background. I hear Dermot’s voice asking if the two of them would like another round.

Two of them?

“Podge, who are you drinking with?”

“Second of all,” he shouts, ignoring me entirely, “we need you to come pick us up. We’re very, very drunk.”

“We?” I ask, but I already know.

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