Page 32 of Verses Of Us

Her friend’s foolish optimism never dwindled.

But a few weeks later, Ciarán called and Alexis believed there might be a chance for them, after all. Phoning from Toronto, Los Angeles, then from a few cities in South America, he would call and they would chat about everything and nothing at all. After his last show in his hometown of Dublin, he bragged about performing to a crowd of over fifty thousand people—a record not set since The Beatles. His well-deserved success pleased her, but no amount of phone calls shrank the distance between them and, soon, what they had shared disintegrated.

When the first days of fall rolled in, Ciarán had all but stopped calling. Their conversations rarely lasted more than a few minutes and he sounded mechanical, as if he wasn’t at all interested; as if speaking with her had become a chore. Her schoolwork, her volunteering at the library, her part-time job at the store, nothing distracted her enough from what was happening.

One day in early November, Alexis counted the days on the calendar—Ciarán hadn’t called in over three weeks. Though her gut told her not to, she picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” a woman with a thick British accent answered.

“Um, hi,” Alexis said, her voice shaky. “Is Ciarán there?”

“He’s unavailable right now.” The woman’s tone was soft, but direct.

“Who is this?”

“Who isthis?” The woman chuckled. “This is his fiancée. Who are you?”

Captured by an iron fist, Alexis’ heart stopped beating. The breath rushed from her lungs and after managing a paltry ‘nobody’, she hung up and broke down.

CONSEQUENCES

Ciarán

TheshowerranoverCiarán’s body, drowning out all the other noises, but he was sure he heard his phone ring. He shut the tap and listened, then heard someone speak. Hurriedly, he wrapped a towel around his waist and, still dripping wet, walked out.

Laurel stood by the bed withhisphone clutched tightly to her chest.

“Why you on my phone?” he asked, ripping it from her hand.

Snapped from her daze, Laurel peeled her blue eyes from the ground. “It was a wrong number.”

The fury in her stare faded with her unconvincing smile. She tugged at his towel’s knot, letting it drop to the floor, but Ciarán paid no mind, his thoughts thousands of miles away. He scrolled through the recent calls and read Alexis’ number, his stomach turning to lead.

He hunched down, grabbing the towel. “Why did you answer my phone, Laurel?”

Insulted, she rolled her eyes with a huff and fell sideways onto the bed, stretching her half-naked body.

“Who is she?”

“What makes it any of your goddamn business?” he snapped, while changing his pass-code.

Laurel jumped up and raised her hand in front of his face. “This! This makes it my goddamn business.”

The gold and diamond ring flashed in front of Ciarán’s eyes like the sun’s glare, scolding, reminding him of his mistake and his eyes fluttered to her belly.

He turned his back to her. “Get ready. The car will be here soon.”

After slamming the bathroom door shut, he leaned against it, throwing the towel across the room, and stared at his phone, wondering if he should call Lex back.

They hadn’t spoken in weeks. He shouldn’t have called her months ago, but his need to hear her voice, to hear her low, sexy laugh, had become too unbearable and he’d given in. But as with the other times he’d given into the needs spurred by Alexis, the consequences were ready and waiting.

From the moment they’d kissed, he’d faced the downside of letting her in: his heart felt weak and vulnerable, his body ached for a release he couldn’t get, and his mind wouldn’t rest, incessantly battling with itself.

In every phone call, he heard her uncertainty, her unspoken wishes. And as the tour ended, as his commitments grew, he once again knew he had to end it because he couldn’t keep breaking her heart. So, he’d stopped calling her, cold-turkey, trying to cleanse his mind of her. It was for the best.

Then, in a moment of drunken insanity, he’d ended up with Laurel, his ex, and had it not been for his stupid, selfish mistake, he wouldn’t be stuck with this heavy rain cloud hanging over his head. Raised a good Catholic boy, he could hear his mam screaming down at him from Heaven to do the right thing. So, he’d proposed. He’d hoped it would help him move on. But it didn’t.

He should have known better than to assume someone like Alexis would let go without a fight. He’d never been more wrong. He still thought of her, day in and day out, even if having Laurel around was the constant reminder of his obligations in this life.

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