Just Like You Said It Would Be

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  “What about your eye?”

  “It smarts a little,” he admits. “Maybe we can get our hands on some ice.”

  So we walked to the deli and while ordering I asked the guy behind the counter if he could give us something cold to put on Darragh’s eye. His female co-worker handed us a package of frozen peas. We sat down together, Darragh pressing the package to the area around his left eye for about fifteen seconds before laying it on the dining counter in front of us. “You need to leave it longer than that if you want to keep your eye from swelling up too much,” I told him.

  “Bossy,” Darragh said lightly, but he smiled and picked up the peas again. I sipped an enormous latte while he alternated between eating cannelloni with a plastic fork and humouring me with the first aid peas. His bright blue eyes drove me crazy in the light. His wavy dark hair was curling into ringlets at the back, begging me to dig my fingers into it like Ursula had earlier. I felt light-headed. Like I was the one who’d knocked back a speedy succession of whiskeys.

  “So how’s the screenwriting coming?” Darragh asked, grazing my wrist and nearly making me jump. It was such a before question that I had to jog backwards in my head to get a grip on the answer.

  I started telling him a bit about class but, stunned as I was, I knew I didn’t trust him enough to open up about my dysfunctional family idea. Actually, I didn’t trust either of us at the moment. What were we doing here? What did it mean?

  “You can try your script out on me first when you’re ready,” he offered, looking distinctly sincere. “I’d love to read it.” He set down his fork and looked into my eyes, turning my face warm. “How’s your friend? Has her brother’s case gone to court yet?”

  I shook my head, trying to distill my thoughts. “It starts in about ten days. It probably won’t take long—he’s pleading guilty. She’s still…” My mouth scrambled for words that would articulate my concern without revealing Noah details.

  “Worrying you,” Darragh filled in.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Did you tell her about that night in December?”

  “Not yet.” How could I? Joss was under enough stress at the moment without me complicating things. I swallowed my guilty conscience along with a mouthful of coffee and jumped back to the present. “I can’t get over what happened with those guys in the street.”

  “Stag night. They were obviously off their heads.” Darragh picked up his fork. “Thanks for coming to my rescue, but next time don’t, okay?”

  “You can rescue me, but I can’t rescue you?”

  A grin pinched at his cheeks. “You’d fight with me about anything, wouldn’t you?”

  “Would you want it any other way?” The words rolled flippantly off my tongue.

  Darragh leaned forward with an appraising stare. His fingers skimmed the inside of my wrist again and I wanted to kiss him again so badly that the impulse made my mouth tingle and the rest of my body shiver in sympathy.

  “You’re wrecking my head you know,” he said. The trace of a smile formed on his lips, but I couldn’t smile back. I don’t think I’d ever in my life felt such concentrated confusion. He was wrecking my head too. The North American equivalent, screwing me up, didn’t begin to cover it.

  “We can call a truce, can’t we?” he asked, knocking his arm amiably against mine as I stared at him. “Start over?”

  Could we really? Was there some way to simplify my feelings for him that I hadn’t conceived of? Something that would magically make it okay that I liked talking to and kissing him way too much given that he had a thing going with someone else?

  No, I didn’t see how we could start over.

  I glanced at his arm on the table. Even his wrists were perfect. Not thick like Matias’s. Just right. Then I caught sight of Darragh’s watch. Digital, so I couldn’t help but read the numbers: 1:17 a.m.

  “Shit.” My voice carried in the near empty deli. “Oh, shit. I have to get out of here.”

  “Now?” Darragh said, dazed.

  “I’m not even supposed to be here in the first place. My aunt and uncle think I’m at the movies with Gloria.” If I needed a reminder that he’d been drunk this whole time, there it was. He just kept staring at me like I was speaking in tongues.

  “I have to go,” I repeated, jumping to my feet.

  “Don’t panic,” he said, pulling out his phone to text Zoey.

  We hurried back towards Enda Corrigan’s, reality catching up with me along the way. Now I really was just like everybody else. I couldn’t be in a room with Darragh without looking in his direction, couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t stay away from him, couldn’t act like an ordinary person within ten feet of him. Congratulations, Amira, I said silently. You’re making yourself sick.

  Back in Crown Alley Gloria and Nick were standing in front of Enda Corrigan’s, staring down the street towards us.

  “You ready to go?” Gloria called as we approached. “We’re giving Nick a lift.” She was as laid-back as anything, like I hadn’t breathed a word about Darragh. That changed the second she noticed the state of his eye. “Jesus, Darragh, what happened to you?”

  “Amira picked a fight with me,” he quipped, already sounding more distant.

  I buried my hands in my pockets, smiled tightly and told Gloria I’d explain on the way home. Then I turned towards Darragh doing an impressive imitation of someone who wasn’t spinning out about what’d happened between us during the past hour. “See you,” I said.

  “See you later, Amira,” he said casually.

  I spun around and walked away from him, Gloria on my right and Nick on my left, Darragh an invisible form behind me that I could feel with every step.

  Chapter 9

  Obviously a perfectly respectable place to have a conversation.

  My aunt and uncle had no choice but to dole out a punishment. Their idea of laying down the law was to declare I had to be home no later than seven o’clock for the next two weeks. I couldn’t blame them for being angry and didn’t bother trying to cover up for myself, instantly confessing about going to Enda Corrigan’s while swearing up and down that Zoey didn’t have anything to do with it. I said I’d also lied to Gloria—that I’d told her I had my aunt and uncle’s permission to be at the contest. Aunt Kate and Uncle Frank took it badly at first, but two days later they were back to acting approximately the same as always. Having four kids of their own, I guess they’d been through similar disappointments many times before.

  Unsurprisingly, when I saw Zoey the next morning she wanted to know what’d happened after Darragh and I had gone off together. He’d told her about the run in with the stag night revellers but not much else.

  “We were trying to iron out our differences,” I said vaguely.

  “And did it work?” she asked.

  I grimaced into my hand. “Not entirely. No.” I was feeling keenly humiliated about having been such an easy target for Darragh. I didn’t know how I’d be able to face him again after that, and Zoey was too close to the situation for me to comfortably discuss it with her.

  My cousin’s eyes stared piercingly into my own, maybe believing if she looked hard enough I’d cave under the pressure. That didn’t happen, but I composed a long, disjointed email to Jocelyn telling her about my arguments with Darragh, the punch, the kiss and every minute detail I could remember. I didn’t hold anything back and seeing all that melodrama on the screen made me feel like somebody else. I’d never felt as freaky about anything as I had about Darragh during the past few weeks and I needed someone to explain me to myself.

  We were a week and a half from Ajay’s court date and that made what I had to say seem frivolous, but I couldn’t hold my feelings in any longer. Besides, lately Joss was always saying she wanted to talk about anything but the trial. At the tail end of my message I asked if she’d seen Noah again, promising no lectures.

  When I woke up on Monday morning Jocelyn’s reply was waiting. There wasn’t one word focusing on
herself, Noah or even Ajay—it was all about Darragh and me. She gave him points for trying to defend me but said that it sounded like he was messing with my head.

  He must be really something to have you wound up like this, but it’s not worth it. You’re better off staying away from him. It sounds like you already know that. Get out before it becomes any more complicated.

  After what Jocelyn had told me about tracking down Noah at his apartment I couldn’t believe she’d brush off my Darragh problems so readily. If I were at home I’d have called her up straight away to find out what was really going on with her.

  But I didn’t entirely disagree with her assessment. I’d been stupid to kiss Darragh and had made a fool of myself in the process. Being grounded would guarantee I stayed away from him. Really, I should’ve been able to accomplish that on my own, only every time I played that Saturday night over in my head I ended up furious but filled with a yearning I couldn’t purge.

  It was scary to have such little control over my feelings and I tried to channel my anxious energy into my screenwriting homework, but after class on Monday I ended up having lunch in the IFI café with Clare and telling her everything.

  “Do you reckon you’re craving drama?” she asked. “Or do you think you really like him?”

  I played with the veggie moussaka on my plate, spearing a chickpea and then allowing it to drop back into place. “I’m not really the drama type.”

  “Everybody’s the drama type at some point in their lives,” Clare said knowingly.

  I scooped up a forkful of cheesy eggplant. “Maybe.” Maybe that’s all it was. A blip, just like Matias had been. Only I’d never felt that I couldn’t control myself when it came to Matias.

  I headed home shortly after lunch and watched three hours of the most boring TV shows known to man—talk shows about sex-crazed thirteen-year-olds, strange phobias and people living double lives, quiz shows only university professors could’ve hoped to win, and cooking programs which made me ravenous despite the lasagna I’d had for lunch.

  Eventually Zoey and my aunt and uncle arrived home and the four of us had dinner together. Aunt Kate had been alternating between vegetarian and meat meals to avoid disappointing anyone. She was a half-decent cook but lately my mouth watered at the mere thought of my mom’s koshari laced with baharat, the mix of spices that never seemed quite as tasty when I blended them as when she did.

  “I talked to Fiona this afternoon,” Aunt Kate said, stacking the dishes Zoey and I had just washed and dried. “She wants to have you over there for dinner on Friday night.”

  But wasn’t I grounded?

  “It’s grand,” my aunt confirmed, seeing the doubt in my face. “Family’s different. Of course you can go. It’ll be good for you to spend some time with them.” The doorbell rang as Aunt Kate slipped a teacup into the cupboard.

  “Band practice,” Zoey announced. She raced off towards the front door, leaving me and my aunt to put away the rest of the dishes. There were only a few left and soon I was standing nervously in the kitchen, wondering which band member was at the door and whether it was safe to go into the hall.

  “That’s grand, Amira,” Aunt Kate said, making further debate impossible. “Thank you.”

  I stepped swiftly into the corridor, heading for my bedroom with a sense of purpose that heads of state would’ve envied. Darragh and Zoey were near the front door, the two of them poring over an open vinyl album in his hands. Being more screwed-up about him than ever, naturally now Darragh would be everywhere. One of life’s little jokes. Okay, let’s see how she handles it this time.

  “Hiya, Amira,” Darragh said, looking up from the album. “How’re you?” His left eye had turned a stormy purple that paused my breath.

  “Ouch. The peas didn’t help, huh?” I sounded more casual than I felt. Funny, considering last time I saw him we’d had our tongues in each other’s mouths. “I hope it doesn’t feel as bad as it looks.”

  “I’ll live.” Darragh was grinning underneath and as soon as I noticed that I felt a grin creeping under my skin too, completely against my will. “Are you coming down after practice?”

  “I can’t.” I motioned to Zoey. “She’ll fill you in on the details.”

  The black eye did nothing to cancel out his good looks—it just made him seem sort of rough around the edges. He smelled good too. Faintly of citrus mixed with something smoky sweet. But being in Darragh’s proximity was a recipe for confusion. If I gave in to temptation again I knew I’d regret it. I was just another girl to him. Someone to come running when he smiled her way. My stomach sank every time I reminded myself of the facts.

  “Come down,” he said, touching my arm and sounding like he meant it.

  “Seriously,” I told him, my tone so nonchalant that I made myself proud, “I can’t. I’m grounded.” Because of you.

  Darragh studied me for a few seconds, like maybe he was trying to figure me out or maybe he’d heard that last bit despite the fact that I hadn’t said it out loud or, who knows, maybe he was just relieved I’d stopped trying to fight with him. Whatever. I was going to spend the night watching TV with my aunt and uncle, end of story.

  “Okay,” he said, snapping the album closed and brushing past me with his guitar case. “See you later.” Zoey raised her eyebrows at me as she turned to follow him.

  I darted upstairs to scoop up my notebook and then joined my aunt and uncle in the living room for EastEnders, followed by an Irish documentary on maternity hospitals and finally a British murder mystery set in one of those picturesque seaside villages where people are always getting bumped off with croquet mallets or antique riding crops. While an unlikely suspect was being interrogated, I slipped into the kitchen to grab a drink and stumbled upon Zoey heating up something in the microwave. She grabbed two big bottles of Coca-Cola from the fridge, cursing under her breath.

  “Kevin is a bottomless pit,” she complained, sliding a pile of French fries out of the microwave and heaping them onto a plate. She raised her voice as she turned towards me. “Would you do us a favour and carry the chips down?”

  “Sure.” I reached reluctantly for the plate as she clutched the bottles.

  “Pity you’re grounded,” she commented as we strolled down the path together. Grounded and safe. I couldn’t wait to deliver the fries to Kevin and return to the house.

  Inside Darragh, Rory, and Kevin were lounging around on the floor, listening to a radio call-in show. Kevin happily patted the spot in front of him. I set the plate down on the carpet as Zoey said, “Why is it I always end up feeding you?”

  “I offered to go for a takeaway.” Kevin wrapped his arms protectively around the plate as Darragh and Rory ogled it. “Everybody off my chips—neither of youse wanted food.”

  “That was before I could smell them,” Darragh said, scooping up a handful. He stretched his legs out and leaned back on his elbows, the picture of relaxation.

  In the background a caller was saying, “From my experience, right—and the experience of all my mates—it’s always the little fellas that start the fights. They have something to prove, you know, because of their height, and it’s usually a few of them that’ll give you a bit of aggro, make out like they’re really hard.”

  “This is the biggest load of shite I’ve ever heard,” Kevin declared, suddenly looking up at me. “Are you not going to sit down?”

  “No, I gotta go.” I motioned to the door. “I’m under house arrest.”

  “Ah.” Kevin nodded like he’d had his own experiences with that. “Condolences, Amira.”

  “Thanks. See you guys.”

  Zoey, Kevin, and Rory called out their good-byes as Darragh shot up next to me. “Back in a tick,” he told them.

  That weary, inexplicably sad feeling filtered into my veins and I glanced at him sideways but said nothing. Did he have to prolong this? Couldn’t he tell I was no longer in the game?

  We strolled silently out the door and onto the path together, our footsteps
in sync. I didn’t plan on saying anything except goodbye but then Darragh stopped, blinked into the night air and said, “You left in a hurry on Saturday.”

  “I left two hours late,” I told him. “My aunt and uncle were freaking out. Now I’m grounded for the next two weeks.”

  “Shit.” He scrunched up his face. “That long?”

  Honestly, I thought they’d been fairly understanding in allowing me a grace period after class. “Yeah, that long.” My hands disappeared inside my sleeves as I looked up at him. “I have to be home by seven every night. I told you they didn’t like me hanging out late. I should’ve left when I was supposed to.” If that sounds like an accusation, I guess it was.

  Darragh rolled his eyes. “You didn’t say anything about your curfew until it was too late.” He focused on the trees swaying in the breeze and shook his head. “I don’t want to argue with you, Amira. Just give me a minute, all right?” He put his hand on my back and guided me over to the side gate, where there was no chance my aunt and uncle could spot us. A large puddle had gathered under the recycle bins and there was a strong smell of sour milk. Obviously a perfectly respectable place to have a conversation.

  “Okay,” I told him, my shoulders tight. “What is it?”

  “You know what it is.” Darragh curled his hand around my waist, sending me into shivers. “Do we have to go through this every time?” He focused on me hard, the two of us breathing into each other’s faces. Then he leaned in and kissed me, his hand snaking under my top to connect with my bare back. I buried my fingers in his hair—soft like I knew it would be—and let him back me up against the fence. His other hand curved around my neck as his tongue slipped against mine.

  “Hey,” he said slowly, his voice low. “When can I see you?” He sounded so sexy that I tingled in spite of the smelly recycle bin.

  “You can’t,” I mumbled, turning my face away. Never mind how he kissed, there were more things wrong with the scenario than I could count. “I don’t want to.”