Page 95 of Fall for Me

Chelsea

The man at the podium finished his speech, then said, “To Reilly and Sons.”

“To Reilly and Sons!” the crowd cheered.

Jude’s friend Nora, a diminutive woman with straight red hair and thick, coke-bottle glasses, flicked on the music from the system next to me, and Bob Seger streamed from the speakers. The crowd went back to their jovial chattering.

I let out a shuddering breath and finished sweeping the rest of the shattered glass behind the makeshift bar—a broad counter hastily but well-built by Jamie last week.

“You okay?” Nora asked, unwrapping a new bottle of champagne for Mia, who was out waiting tables. “You sure I can’t help?”

“I’m fine, really,” I said, though my heartbeat still hadn’t gone back down to normal. My hands were slippery on the dustpan and broom, too. “It’s the last of it.”

Nora didn’t look convinced, but hurried out to meet Mia anyway. We were busy—slammed, really. This crowd was active and happy and couldn’t stop talking about how special the night was.

Even as everything had seemed to go wrong.

Nora and Mia had gone around putting tags on each of the tables according to my seating chart. They stuck them to the tables with tape, but then that breeze that kept coming and going… came. It ripped the tags up, tape and all, and sent them fluttering to the floor or sticking against the stage at the back of the roof. After that, one of the very first guests to arrive sprained her ankle coming up all those stairs. She was on the other side of the roof now, on her fifth bag of ice I’d made her and still assuring me she wanted to stay. Then, just as the man who’d been speaking walked up to the podium, I’d managed to knock over a whole flat of champagne flutes. They’d exploded, every single one of them shattering. A few people had let out various shrieks and gasps, and I’d wanted to sink straight through the floor.

Damn you, Seamus Reilly. Damn you.

After Seamus had walked out of the office downstairs, I’d been frozen. Then I’d heard Seamus talking to his dad and was spurred to sprint to the restroom, where I slumped onto one of the toilets and held my head in my hands, willing myself not to sob.

Seamus said he loved me.

Then he said he was leaving.

Both of those things had landed like successive bombs. The first sent me into a panic. And Seamus knew it would, too. That infuriated me. But the second thing—him leaving? That tore everything away. I’d wanted to hide in there, but I hadn’t. I’d straightened up, smoothed my hair down, and washed up as best I could.

I was a professional. I could do this. I had to do this.

I remembered that after I smashed all the glasses. Though I’d wanted to shrink into nothing, I’d forced myself to quip, “nothing to see here, folks!” sending a pressure-releasing burst of laughter through the crowd. I’d been immediately self-conscious of my scar but realized no one could likely see it from back here in the low light of the bar. Then I realized this was the first time I’d been self-conscious of it in a long time. That was Seamus’s doing, always making me forget it was a thing until I was around other people who stared.

Always making me feel beautiful. A fresh surge of anger rose.

The guy at the podium, who I realized earlier was one of our local town councilors, had leaned into the mic and said, “I always like to make an entrance. I’ll pay you later, miss.”

Eli had come over and wordlessly helped me pick up the pieces of glass as quietly as we could during the councilor’s speech. I think he knew something was up between me and Seamus.

Of course he did.

I’d given him a grateful look when he left with the first trash bag, and he’d given me a smile so sad I nearly fell apart again.

I wanted to ask him what the hell his best friend was thinking. I hadn’t run away when Seamus said he loved me. Sure, I couldn’t say it back—I couldn’t even sort out my feelings about any of this. But that’s because they were everywhere all at once: Before tonight, I didn’t know how much I’d been wrestling with them. I knew if I stayed with Seamus, I’d have failed at being on my own, no matter how great he was. I’d have lost the chance to build my life for me alone, the way I wanted to, without considering what other people wanted for me. No matter how supportive I knew Seamus would be, I’d still be thinking of his needs. But leave and I’d lose the person I’d grown so dependent on his leaving felt like losing a limb. The one who made me feel like I was beautiful inside and out, even if no one else did.

I’d shared more with Seamus than anyone since my Mom. Actually, by telling him the stupid story about my art show in the woods, I’d told Seamus more than I’d told my mom.

Love—don’t get me started on that. The thought was too overwhelming. I wasn’t in love. I’d just enjoyed, for the first time, being close to someone, that was all. Opening up for him. It had tricked me into believing I had feelings bigger than I did. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I couldn’t do that to Mom.

This isn’t the same, peanut.

I heard that in her voice. Great. Of all the times to hear Mom. Now, at Seamus’s party. I gripped my head, whirling with overwhelm and confusion, and still that spike of anger.

What the hell, Seamus?

I scanned the crowd for him once more, but other than seeing him a few times in the center of crowds of people—he might as well have been a million miles away—he was conspicuously absent.

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