“Come on, Darce. Look at all the shit you’ve made me do over the years. So what if I finally got even? If I know you, you’ll stew over this for a few days and ignore me. But you’ll eventually get over it. And when you do, you’ll realize that I really didn’t intend to upset you this much.”
She spun around to face him. “If you know me, huh?” Her voice quivered with anger. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Sean McKenna.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, completely confused. “I’ve known you since we were ten years old.”
“And before that?”
He frowned. “Before that, you didn’t live in Ballagh.”
“So I just didn’t exist then? Since I didn’t live in Ballagh?”
He was seriously baffled at her questions. How many drinks had she had? Was she fucking high?
“You’ve never once asked me about where I came from. Because if you had, then you’d know what you just put me through was the worst thing you could have ever done to me.”
She was being serious. And for all that was holy, he couldn’t understand what she was talking about. He felt like he was in someone else’s dream. Like this angry woman yelling at him wasn’t his Darcy. Like this whole thing wasn’t real. She’d blown up at him in the past, but never like this.
“Before I met you, I lived a completely different life. A horrible life. And that,” she said through clenched teeth, pointing back at the bar, “made me relive it.”
“Jesus, Darcy. I didn’t know.”
He felt like he was spinning his wheels trying to catch on, but there was no ground under his feet to get traction.
“Of course you didn’t know. It’s not something I talk about. And you never asked. You never ask anything! It’s like you don’t care at all about me. And that kills me.”
Fuck confusion. Anger simmered now.
How could she go around throwing out accusations like that? She was one of his goddamn best friends, for Christ’s sake. She was right up there next to Ewan on his people-he-cared-most-for list. He sure as hell didn’t know what had started this whole thing, but he was pretty goddamn sure it wasn’t karaoke.
“You need to calm down. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but you’re overreacting. Honestly, are you PMSing or something?”
“PMSing? You know that only women have PMS, right? And here I thought you’d overlooked the fact that I have a vagina.”
The sarcastic humor in her tone was pissing him off. “Christ, woman. What the fuck?”
Darcy shook her head, pulling in a deep breath. “Forget it. I don’t have the time or the crayons to explain this at your level.”
“Well, throw me a fucking bone, Darcy. Give it your best shot. Tell me what my tiny, insufficient brain is neglecting to understand in this whole fucked-up conversation.”
“That I’ve loved you since I was ten years old!”
The sounds of the busy street and noisy sidewalk melted away to silence. Sean’s whole body went numb.
“I’ve been torturously in love with you for eighteen impossible years!” Darcy continued. “Since that first day at school when you stood up for me. When you became the first person I’ve ever met who did something nice and didn’t expect anything in return.”
He openly stared at her. His slack mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. The ringing in his ears hadn’t been there two seconds earlier.
What did she just say?
“You may not remember that day, but it’s imprinted into my memory like it happened yesterday.” There was still bright, hot anger behind her eyes.
He remembered that day she spoke about. He remembered the boys who were picking on her. They were idiots, for sure, but his intentions hadn’t been quite so noble.
It hadn’t hurt to help her out. You never knew when someone might be able to help you out with your homework at a later point.
Even back then, Sean had had a reason for everything he did. And most times, since he seemed to be the only one looking out for himself, his motives weren’t usually altruistic.
“Did you have no idea? This whole time, did you have no idea what I felt for you?” She looked at him incredulously. “God, how is that possible? Everyone had to have known. You just never cared enough to notice.” Her voice grew quieter, but every word was enunciated to shoot him straight through his chest.
Darcy loves me? Like, loves me loves me?
A sudden bout of light-headedness made him realize that he wasn’t breathing. His inhale was shaky as his brain was coming back online. Sean tried to make sense of what she was saying.
“Fuck,” she muttered to herself, closing her eyes and grimacing. “Just forget it, Sean.”
She saw another taxi, and this time she got it. Sean watched as she pulled the back door open before turning to look at him. His feet were still frozen to the sidewalk, and his brain and his mouth were still on opposite pages.
“Don’t call me. Don’t text me. I’m done.” Although her voice was firm and cold, pain simmered in her eyes.
Darcy slammed the car door, and the reflection of the lights off the surrounding buildings blocked his view of the back seat as her taxi pulled away. Minutes passed after Darcy had left and Sean still didn’t move. Ten minutes crept by, and he still stood there staring at the empty street.
And even then, he still had no idea what had just happened.
Chapter 10
Darcy opened her sleepy eyes just enough to see the blinding sunlight sprayed across the bed. The curtains billowed gently in the chilly breeze drifting through the open window along with the muffled murmur of traffic.
She had every intention of rolling away from the sunlight to continue her blissful oblivion when her brain locked on to the purple duvet and sheets she was cocooned in.
It was that moment when you wake up and want to hold on to the tail end of a wonderful dream.
Darcy snapped her eyes shut, willing her brain back into a REM submission. But reality had dug its talons in, and she had no choice but to recall exactly why she was waking up in her bed in her apartment in Providence.
She groaned and pulled the covers over her head. An ache settled in her chest, and it didn’t matter how hard she squeezed her eyes, she couldn’t escape the nightmare that had happened on the crowded sidewalk outside Dirty Heron’s.
Sean knew everything.
From the moment she’d left him standing there like someone who’d just been cryo-frozen until she slammed her suitcase shut after packing all her clothes in her hotel room, she’d thought of a thousand more things to say to him.
I don’t know why I’ve wasted two thirds of my life on you!
I’m such a competent, confident woman, yet when I get around you, I can hardly stand on my own two feet!
I could have been married with fucking kids by now if it weren’t for you!
Damn you and your goddamn perfection!
Her anger rose to a rolling boil, and she was ready for round two of her emotional cage match with Sean. The hotel clerk who worked the midnight shift had cleverly decided not to waste time arguing about the additional night on her reservation. She would have waxed the floor with him if he would have replied with anything but a polite smile and an understanding nod.
When she’d made it close to Ballagh, her anger hadn’t dissipated. There was no consideration of stopping at her grandmother’s. She wasn’t in the mood to be coddled.
The only thing that had felt remotely calming was pressing the gas pedal on her Volkswagen until the dial reached the red warning lines on the tachometer. Those lines existed to alert a driver that no rational person ever should drive that fast. But she hadn’t felt very fucking rational at the time.
Over the last ten miles, her fury had gradually evaporated, leaving behind an exhaustion so welcoming she knew she would crawl into bed and sleep for days. Her swollen, dry eyes had made it difficult for her key to locate the lock after she’d hauled her suitcase up the four flights to
her front door. Drained of all resources, she’d fallen into her bed seconds after kicking off her shoes and peeling off her jeans.
Now there was no more anger or exhaustion. With the ugly truth that a morning after usually revealed, she knew two things for certain: first, she was going to be fucking lucky if she escaped blemish free from a night of sleeping in her makeup, and second, last night she’d ruined everything.
The astonishment on Sean’s face after her big grand finale was permanently burned onto her retinas. But there wasn’t just shock there. There was panic. Like he was watching a horrific car crash with the words falling from her lips, and he was powerless to stop it.
Dullness grew in her chest as she painfully replayed her entire raging monologue. Crying had never really worked for Darcy in the past. In fact, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d broken down. If a crying jag would help take this godforsaken numbness away, she’d cry buckets of tears. But no sobs came to her rescue no matter how much she concentrated on forcing them out.
“Darcy?”
She rolled over to see Quinn standing in the doorway. Her roommate was fully dressed for the day with her school messenger bag slung over her shoulder.
“I’d ask you if everything’s okay, but I can tell it’s not.” Quinn’s compassionate gray eyes blinked as her brows pulled together.
“What time is it?” Darcy’s voice broke barely above a whisper.
“Three o’clock.”
She looked at her roommate. “In the afternoon?”
Quinn nodded. She slipped into the room and leaned against the side of the bed, resting a reassuring hand on Darcy’s calf through the duvet.
“I got your text yesterday afternoon saying you got the project. Did the client rescind his offer?”
“No, we still have the project.”
“What happened, then?”
Quinn was the only one she could talk to about this. No one else besides her grandmother knew of her feelings for Sean. And besides, Quinn was her best friend. She couldn’t run away from this one.
Darcy sighed deeply. “I told Sean.”
Quinn’s lips came unglued and her eyes widened. “You told him? About how you—?”
Darcy nodded.
For a moment, her roommate sat motionless. She started to speak but hesitated before quietly asking, “And?”
Darcy stiffly pushed herself up into a sitting position, the covers falling in a heap at her waist. She would have loved to brush it off like it wasn’t the most idiotic decision she’d ever made. But she couldn’t.
“Mind if I shower before we get into it?”
Quinn watched her carefully but nodded. “Sure. Are you hungry? Do you wanna go out for an early dinner?”
Darcy blew out a big exhale, her lips vibrating as she did it. Eating sounded about as enticing as getting her nipples pierced. However, getting out might ease the knots in her stomach, so she nodded to Quinn before throwing back her covers to crawl out of bed.
An hour later, they found themselves sitting in a corner booth of a small neighborhood bistro. Darcy was grateful for the darkness of the corner booth.
She felt hungover with a pounding headache and sensitive eyes. Except the only thing impairing her at the moment was an awful notion that she was probably going to have to move to another country to hide from the torment she felt.
She gave Quinn the entire unabridged version of events from the day before. Starting with the presentation and ending with their fight outside the bar. By the time she got to the end of it, she was nauseated. Quinn listened quietly, letting Darcy get the whole thing out without interruption.
“So that was it in a nutshell,” Darcy finished with a sigh.
She’d completely mutilated the straw in her soda during the retelling of her story. There were bends and creases all over it.
“How do you feel now?”
“Numb? Stupid? Like I want to crawl into a hole and die?”
“You don’t feel relieved at all? Like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders?”
Darcy shook her head. “Nothing good can come of what happened.”
Quinn huffed. “How do you know? How do you know he doesn’t feel the same way, and this might give him the courage to face how he really feels? Guys are cowards when it comes to love. They’d rather run into Leatherface than be rejected by a woman.”
“Who’s Leatherface?”
Quinn looked incredulously at her. “Are you serious? You’ve never heard of Texas Chainsaw Massacre?” When Darcy shrugged, Quinn rolled her eyes. “Whatever, sorry, bad metaphor. What I’m trying to say is that maybe Sean cares for you and might never have said anything about it because it would be the ultimate rejection. His best friend telling him she’s not interested in him, when he can pretty much have his pick of who he wants. It would crush his ego.”
“Right. So now it’s me who’s set up for the ultimate rejection. My best friend telling me I’m not good enough.”
“Darcy, this is not about being good enough or not good enough. This is love. And love is anyone’s guess. Maybe he’ll come back and say he doesn’t feel the same way. Then look at it this way, you’re free to get on with your life. Your feelings for him have caged you in. You won’t even consider other options because you’ve placed all your hopes on Sean. This might be the best thing you could have done for yourself.”
Darcy flicked her straw and it ricocheted off the opposite side of her glass. “Forgive me if I can’t feel good about that option just yet.”
Quinn reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I know. And I’m not trying to be pessimistic. I haven’t known Sean all that long, but he acts differently around you. Almost like it’s his goal to make you smile or to ruffle your feathers. In grade school, guys act that way around girls they have crushes on.”
“We aren’t in grade school.”
“I know, but the theory still might apply. I think Sean seems kinda lost, except when he’s around people he feels comfortable with. Especially you.”
“Lost?”
“Yeah, like he thinks everyone expects him to be charming and funny all the time. But that’s not really how he wants to be.”
“So in other words, you think he acts fake?”
“No, no. Not fake. Guarded maybe. Like his charisma is a shield he puts up when everyone else is around. But with you, he’s more comfortable. And when he’s trying to make you laugh, it’s not because he’s playing a role. It’s because he really wants to make you laugh. As an outsider looking in, it’s clear to me that there’s a natural affection there.”
Darcy looked away from Quinn and around the empty bistro. Dust motes danced in the rays of the early-evening sun shining through the thin-paned windows.
Oh, how she wished Quinn’s observations were true. Wishful thinking.
“Why haven’t you ever said anything about that before?” Darcy refused to allow herself to believe he had feelings for her, but it would have been nice to have the encouragement from someone else. Even if it was just blowing smoke up her ass.
“I didn’t want to say anything to get your hopes up. And like I said, I’ve only been around you guys for a year. You were already so twisted up in your feelings for him. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
Darcy nodded. It probably would have made it worse. She rubbed at her eyes and pressed her temples.
“I wish I wouldn’t have said anything. I wish it had just been a normal night where I admired him from afar, and he ended up going home and fucking the trampy waitress.”
“You don’t mean that,” Quinn said with a frown.
“I do. That’s familiar territory for me. I know how to deal with it.”
“Are you telling me that you’d rather live the rest of your life in love with Sean and he not know? That you’d be okay with him marrying someone else, and you’d sit at his wedding with a smile on your face because it’s familiar territory? That you are okay with settling for second-best without even giv
ing your first preference a shot?”
Darcy took a deep breath and closed her eyes. No, she wasn’t okay with any of that.
She’d been able to shield her heart from Sean’s man-whoring because she’d always known that the girls he went out with didn’t mean anything to him. But her whole being would crumble if he finally ran into “the one.” He was her soul mate, regardless of whether she was his. And it would incapacitate her to watch him love someone else.
But there were only two things to guard against that. One, if she was able to sever this hold that she allowed him to have on her. If she was able to let these unrequited feelings go and move on with her life. And two, if she were his “one.”
Polar opposite scenarios. There was no in-between.
Their waitress delivered their meals while Darcy stared at the reflection of the dim overhead lighting in the steak knife on her napkin. More of the stools were occupied along the café’s counter as the usual evening crowd started to stumble in.
“I’ll admit that right now I regret what I said last night,” she started slowly. “I don’t know the best way to tell someone that you’ve known since you were a child that you love them. But when I was up on that stage last night, I felt so lost. And angry. Not just a little angry. I was furious. Furious at my parents and at all the fucked-up shit they put me through. And furious at Sean.”
“You know he never would have made you go up there if he would have known about your parents.”
Darcy nodded, staring at her untouched salad. “I do know that. It was ironic, but I actually even thought of that while I was standing in the spotlight ready to piss myself. I was completely livid, yet some part of me was still trying to make excuses for him.” She sighed. “So I sucked it up and I sang. I closed out everything just to get through it. But when I came back to the present, it was like this flood of emotions crashed into me and I was going to drown if I didn’t get out of there. I had no other thought in my head but to get the hell out of that room. But when I heard Sean’s voice, all the emotions turned to this irrational fury. I realized that he would always be more important to me than I would be to him. I’ve put my life on pause for the off chance that he’ll notice me as more than a friend. Fuck, Quinn, I’ve never even had a real relationship with another guy because I can’t stop comparing them to Sean. I’m still a fucking virgin, for Christ’s sake.”
Not In My Wildest Dreams (McKenna Series Book 2) Page 13