by Sienna Blake
But Darren thought the same thing about his buried truth. He thought he was protecting his family. He thought he deserved his loneliness, his guilt, his pain. He thought he was making the right choice.
But he was wrong.
I would be wrong too, if I didn’t open my mouth.
If I didn’t tell the truth.
If I didn’t fight for what I wanted.
“Eoin, I can’t marry you,” I blurted out before I could second-guess myself, before my lips paralysed with fear. My chest heaved as I stared down at my hands. For a second, I grew paranoid that I only imagined saying the words because Eoin had yet to say anything.
When I built up the courage to look up at Eoin, I saw, clear as day, that I had indeed finally admitted the truth. One look at Eoin’s face confirmed what I was afraid of: yes, it was going to hurt like hell.
Eoin’s eyes darted between mine with a mix of confusion and the inklings of heartbreak. “Is this some kind of joke?” he asked, voice faint. “Because if it is, I’m not sure that I get it. I…I don’t get it.”
My heart split in two at the sight of hope still lingering in Eoin’s eyes: hope that this was a joke, a terrible, terrible joke; hope that he misheard me, that he was dreaming and this wasn’t really over.
“I should have been truthful earlier.” I slipped the engagement ring, which I’d taken off right after the wedding dress appointment, from my pocket and placed it on the cushion between us. “But I was trying to convince myself I knew what love was. I was trying to convince myself that it was what I had with you, Eoin.” I paused so I could steady my breathing. “But I’ve learned that I’ve had it all wrong. I’ve learned what love is. What love truly is.”
Eoin’s face had gone blank. It seemed he stared not at me, but through me. I wasn’t sure he was still listening, but I had to say what I came here to say; I had to at least try to make him understand.
“I thought that love was never fighting,” I said, my voice shaky. “But I’ve learned that if it’s love, it’s worth fighting for. It’s the only thing worth fighting for.”
I felt my heart racing, but I realised I wanted my heart to race. I wanted it to race and leap and throb and ache and sting and tense and hurt so terribly because it was full: full of passion and desire and lust and longing and contentment and joy and love.
And love.
“For so long, I was afraid of speaking up for myself, of being loud, of creating waves,” I said. “But love, true love, has given me the courage to demand what I want. It has given me the strength to let the consequences be damned and seize what I want. Above all, it has made me feel heard—whether I’m screaming from the top of my lungs or whispering in the faintest voice. I’ve learned love can always hear me.”
I remembered Darren and me bent over the engine of a car beneath the greasy hood, our voices sounding like the only voices in the world in that hot, crammed space.
I continued, my voice steady, even if my hands weren’t. “I’ve had this fairy tale view of love, that it’s easy and simple and perfect. But it’s not. Pretending is easy. Pretending is simple. And perfection isn’t real. Love is messy and complicated and dirty and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I tried not to fidget with my hands as I bit my lip and stared at Eoin’s far-off gaze. I’d gotten through what I thought was the hard part, but it seemed the hard part was just about to begin.
At first I didn’t even hear him when he spoke.
“What?” I asked, leaning in a little to catch the wafer-thin sound of his voice, as if I’d sapped everything else from him. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, is it someone I know?” Eoin blinked and his eyes found mine again. I could almost see the anxiety in my own eyes reflected back at me, his were so wide and clear.
“What?” It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard him this time; it was that I wasn’t expecting to have to tell that truth. Not yet. Eoin’s eyes moved to stare at the discarded engagement ring sitting on the couch cushion between us.
“You don’t talk like that, with that much…emotion,” Eoin said, “unless you’ve experienced this first hand. I know people think I’m thick sometimes, but even I know this.” His eyes darted over to mine and he repeated his question. “So who, Kayleigh?” he asked. “Who is it that you love?”
I could have lied to Eoin. I could have told him it was no one. I could have told him he didn’t know the person. I could have told him anything to avoid this train wreck, anything but the truth.
But I had to stop running from confrontation. I had to stop sealing my lips, hiding away the truth in the silent depths of my heart. I had to open my mouth.
“Darren,” I said. “It’s Darren.”
It was the first time I’d admitted it aloud. The words felt strange. They tumbled from my lips, half sweet like peppermint sticks, half burning like whiskey. They seemed to hang suspended in the air like frozen snowflakes I could almost reach out and touch with the tip of my tongue.
“And he loves you?”
At the sound of Eoin’s question, I blinked and my confession turned to stones tied to my ankles that threatened to drag me under the dark waters.
What if I had said all of this, blown up my relationship with Eoin, and Darren didn’t love me back? What if all of this was for nothing?
No.
This was my truth. And Darren’s feelings didn’t change that. For once in my life, I was speaking for me.
“I love him,” I said, voice steady. “I love Darren and that’s all that matters.”
Eoin tried to hide it, but I could see pain in his eyes as he reached out and plucked up the engagement ring. I never wished to cause him pain. I hoped one day he would see that we weren’t right for one another, though I knew that wouldn’t be today. Or tomorrow. Or perhaps any time soon.
But one day, one day I hoped he would see.
“Please leave,” Eoin said in a whisper, eyes ducked to avoid my gaze.
I nodded, though he didn’t see it, and pushed myself up to walk as quietly as I could toward the door. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t look back.
I had to look forward.
Darren
On the desk in the little office at the back of the garage was an old crumpled yellow invoice flipped around to the blank side, smoothed out as best as possible. I had labelled it at the top: How to Apologise to Kayleigh for Severely Fucking Up.
My pen tapped nervously on the side of the desk as I sat stooped over the ideas I had so far:
1.
After several anguished minutes of pen tapping and lip biting and staring, I leaned back in my desk chair with a defeated sigh and dragged my fingers through my hair. How could I ever apologise for what I said to Kayleigh? How could I ever tell her to come back when I’d so obviously pushed her away for good? How could I ask to break off her engagement with Eoin?
It seemed hopeless. All so terribly hopeless.
I stared up at the square-tiled ceiling and tried to come up with an elaborate apology. I could buy her roses, dozens upon dozens of roses. I could take her on a romantic trip to Switzerland, to France, to Japan, even. I could find her the most perfect diamond necklace to try to win her back.
As I considered all of these ideas one by one, I couldn’t help but see Ma with her hands crossed over her apron, shaking her head at me in front of the stovetop. I couldn’t help but hear her ask me, “Darren, son, are you really that thick?”
The chair squeaked loudly as I sat up, snatched up the pen, and wrote just a single item on my list.
Tell the truth.
Blowing out a steadying breath, I reached for the phone to call Kayleigh before my heart started pounding too loudly for her to even hear me on the other end. But before I could pick up the receiver, the phone rang, echoing harshly in the small back office. After an irritable sigh, I answered.
“Kelly’s Garage, this is Darren.”
I was reaching for a new customer information sheet to fill out when I heard
her voice.
“It’s Kayleigh.”
My stomach lurched, jumbling with fear and nerves and anticipation. I cleared my throat and tried to remember the words that had been so clear in my mind just moments before.
“Kayleigh, hi, I, um, I was actually just going to call you. I—how are you? I mean, are you—um…” I smacked my forehead as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pull myself together.
“Darren, I need to tell you something,” Kayleigh said.
“Wait,” I blurted out. “Before you do, just please give me a chance to say something first.”
“Okay, but you should know that I—”
“Please, let me go first,” I insisted. If I didn’t say what I needed to say now I might lose my nerve.
“Alright then,” Kayleigh said. “You go first.”
I tried to push back my desk chair so I could stand, pace back and forth, move about, but the wheels got caught in a run in the carpet and I was stuck. I sucked in a deep breath. I couldn’t run any longer. I couldn’t hide or pretend or escape on my motorcycle. I was going to sit right here and tell the truth, no matter how scary, no matter how difficult, no matter how many times the receiver slipped in my sweaty palms.
“Kayleigh, I said all those terrible things to you on Stephen’s Day because I was hurt,” I said, feeling uncomfortable and accepting there were some things in life more important than feeling comfortable. “I was hurt and I lashed out in anger because I was afraid of feeling more pain.”
I swallowed heavily as my fingers itched to slam down the receiver, my palms ached to shove the desk away from me to free myself, my feet bouncing uncontrollably, desperate to run away from what I was saying to Kayleigh—dying to run away from the truth.
I wouldn’t let years escape me like I did with Ma: wasted years of love and affection and connection.
Kayleigh remained silent on the other line as I continued. I would have thought the line had gone dead if it weren’t for her quiet, unsteady exhales.
“But I want to risk more pain right now,” I said, uncertain of every word and yet never more certain that I just had to keep going. “I want to risk the pain and heartache that what I say might not be enough, that I might not be enough.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my fingers at my temple with my head bent, as if this was a last-ditch prayer.
“Kayleigh, the truth is that I don’t want you to marry Eoin,” I said, heart racing. “Because the truth is, Kayleigh, that…”
Every part of my body was shouting at me to shut up, shut up, shut up! Don’t risk it. Play it safe. Protect yourself, protect your heart. Walls, walls, walls; don’t let them fall.
“I’m in love with you.”
I hardly recognised my own voice when I confessed those words aloud. It didn’t sound the voice of a man who had spent the last almost ten years shuttering up his heart. It didn’t sound like the voice of a man tortured by guilt, haunted by ghosts of his own making. It didn’t sound like the voice of a man who would pick anger over fear.
It sounded like a new man.
A new me.
A new me who loved and forgave. Who had let go of the past and looked toward a bright, happy future. A me I liked. A me I liked for the first time in far, far too long.
I was so awash in this warm glow that pulsed suddenly in my heart that I almost forgot about the woman who’d instilled these feelings in me in the first place. A wave of doubt and uncertainty threatened to leave my chest icy cold. Because there was nothing.
Nothing on the other line at all.
Silence.
Silence.
And more silence.
After checking the receiver to make sure that the call hadn’t dropped out during my profession of love, I said a tentative, “Kayleigh?”
I cursed my decision to open up my heart over the telephone because I couldn’t see her reaction at all. But I simply couldn’t wait, could I? I just had to tell her. I cursed my impatience. But that was Kayleigh’s fault; she did this to me. So then I cursed Kayleigh, the woman I wanted to devote my life to.
Love was confusing.
“Can I speak now?”
I tried my best to read her tone, but it was next to impossible. Maybe she found that she couldn’t forgive me for how cruelly I’d treated her in the garage. Maybe she had called to get closure and my profession of love was an awkward interference. Maybe she simply didn’t feel the same and she was, after all, happy with Eoin.
Maybe I was wrong.
I cleared my throat and practically croaked out a, “Sure.”
“Alright then…”
Kayleigh paused. I found myself nearly at the edge of the desk chair. I’m certain it would have tipped over at some point if the back legs weren’t tangled in the old fraying carpet.
“Darren…”
I almost couldn’t bear it when Kayleigh again paused to suck in a deep breath. I needed her to speak. Whatever it was that she called to tell me, I needed to hear it. I was going insa—
“I broke up with Eoin.”
These were the words I prayed to hear from her and yet when I heard them aloud, I simply couldn’t believe them. “What?”
“I broke up with Eoin,” Kayleigh repeated. I stared dumbfounded at the receiver. “I told him that I loved someone else…you. I love you, Darren.”
I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of my lips. I covered my mouth with my hand, because I feared if I didn’t, my smile would just keep growing and growing. I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped the phone to bury my face in my hands, shaking my head in disbelief. My shoulders were practically shaking as I started to laugh, I was so happy.
It took me several moments to hear Kayleigh’s voice calling out to me from the dropped receiver. I fetched it and held it again to my ear.
“Did you just say you love me?” I asked, still not certain this was real.
“Yes.” Kayleigh laughed, and I could hear the tears in her own eyes as she did. “Yes. I did, you big eejit.”
We laughed and cried together over the phone and it was the best moment of my entire life.
“You love me,” I said, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.
“You love me, too,” Kayleigh laughed.
“I want to see you,” I said. “I need to see you.”
Kayleigh’s voice caught, emotion thick in her throat, when she whispered, “I need to see you.”
There only seemed one place fitting for us to meet.
“The garage,” we both said at the same time.
We were laughing and crying and laughing some more when another call came in on the receiver. I glanced over, slightly annoyed at the interruption.
“Kayleigh, um, hey, hold on,” I said. “Noah’s calling. I’m going to take it real quick.”
“Alright, alright,” Kayleigh said, sniffling.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
“Promise?”
I smiled, still unable to stop myself. “Promise.”
I pressed the button on the receiver to switch the call. “Hey, Noah, I’m kind of busy right—”
“Darren, it’s Eoin.” The sound of Noah’s voice made my blood run cold. I knew immediately he wasn’t calling because of the news about Kayleigh. This was something else.
Something worse.
“Darren, he’s in the hospital and—”
I didn’t hear the rest of what Noah said. The phone clanged against the side of the desk, but I didn’t care because I already had my coat and I was out the door.
Darren
The elevator doors seemed to move just as slowly as they did that cold, dark night, as if they hadn’t been greased in years. The screech of my boots on the yellowed linoleum was the same. The low whisper of nurses, the beeping of frightening machines, the ringing of phones and crying of babies all the same. The door was even the same: simple brown plywood with a simple silver doorknob.
I prayed the sight inside the room was far different from the on
e the night Jaime died.
I rushed into the room, my lungs burning and my heart racing. The door swung back and crashed into the wall. I gasped as my eyes tried to focus on something, anything. There was the array of monitors and equipment along the back wall. There were the curtains over the window, drawn tight against the glare of city lights. There was the bed with those sickeningly white sheets.
And Eoin.
There was Eoin, sitting on the side of the bed with his back to me, facing the viewless window with his head bent, his left arm in a sling. When he turned to look over his shoulder at the noise, I noticed a black eye and a small line of tidy stitches above his eyebrow.
“Eoin, thank God you’re—”
I was about to say “Eoin, thank God you’re okay”. That was the relieved exhale on the very tip of my tongue. But the moment Eoin recognised it was me standing just inside his hospital room, his face went pale, paler than the white sheets of the bed he sat on. This only made the blue and black around his eye look more stark, more severe, more painful.
There was no way I could say that my little brother was okay. He was far from it. His body might be alright, despite a few aches and pains and a little bit of healing. But he was not okay. He was in pain, terrible, terrible pain. And there was no way I could place the blame for that on a sneaky patch of black ice or a buzz of alcohol or an iron lamp post.
It was because of me.
Me and me alone.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Eoin growled under his breath, his voice quaking. “I don’t want to see you right now.”
I swallowed heavily and took a tentative step closer to my brother. “Eoin, please, I—”
“Get. The fuck. Out of here.” Eoin’s face was no longer pale, etched with deep lines of pain. With each inch I moved forward, it turned redder and redder with anger.