The barb is meant to wound, to make me doubt, to drive a wedge of insecurity between Cillian and me. Six months ago, it might have landed. Might have fed the quiet fears that sometimes whisper to me in the dark—that I’m not enough, not right, not the kind of woman who belongs in Cillian’s world.
But not anymore. Not after watching Mary’s desperate performance all evening, her frantic attempts to resurrect a relationship that never truly existed outside her imagination.
“I think that’s for Cillian to decide,” I answer. “Not you. Not me. Him.”
I understand why Cillian has largely remained quiet. Aside from gray rocking his mother, he’s shown strength in silence and allowed me to fight my own battles. He’s said, “you’re here, and you’re enough, and you don’t have to take this. I haven’t engaged, and you don’t have to either.” I appreciate it. It’s worked for us.
I turn slightly, meeting his eyes directly for the first time since he came to stand beside me. The warmth I find there steadies me—the same warmth that drew me to him at that gallery opening, that kept me talking to him for hours over coffee afterward, that makes our mismatched apartment feel like the only home I’ve ever truly wanted.
Mary gasps. “This is absurd,” she announces, rising from her chair with rigid dignity. “I’ve opened my home to you, included you in our family traditions, and this is how you repay my hospitality? By undermining me at my own table?”
The accusation hangs in the air.
Chapter 7
The crash comes while the dining room freezes.
Cillian smacks his own hand so violently on the dinner table that every plate rattles. The perfect stillness shatters—wine sloshes in glasses, a butter knife slides from the edge of Arthur’s plate and pings against the floor. The echo reverberates.
No one moves. The interruption has rendered everyone mute.
I stare at Cillian from my isolated position, his body is rigid, hands braced against the table edge, knuckles white with tension.
When our eyes lock, something electric passes between us—a current of understanding that needs no words. I see everything in his expression: apology for bringing me here, determination to end his mother’s abuse, resolution about what comes next. His jaw works beneath the skin, a muscle jumping in rhythm with his pulse.
Nearby, Arthur shifts in his seat, the movement small but deliberate. His eyes dart between his son and his wife, fingers adjusting his emerald sweater collar as if it’s suddenly too tight. He knows what’s coming. He’s seen this breaking pointapproaching for hours, maybe years, and has done nothing to prevent it.
Meanwhile, mousy Bea stares down at her barely touched meal, her face flushed with secondhand embarrassment. Her fingers trace endless circles around the rim of her water glass. She reminds me of prey animals that freeze when danger approaches. Minus that nervous finger movement.
Mary’s triumph begins to falter. The certainty in her expression cracks slightly as seconds pass and Cillian remains standing. Her eyes narrow, recalculating, reassessing. She doesn’t understand what’s happening.
“Cillian, darling,” she begins hesitantly, “what are you doing?”
He turns to face her before she can finish. The movement is deliberate. His jaw is set in a hard line, eyes cooled from their usual warm brown to something darker, more dangerous. I’ve seen glimpses of this Cillian before when fighting for a project he believes in, but never with this intensity or anger.
Mary’s words die.
I should feel uncomfortable witnessing this family rupture, but instead, I feel strangely calm. Perhaps because I recognize the inevitability of what’s happening. Mary has been building toward this moment with every dismissive glance, every strategic seating arrangement, every story about Cillian and Bea that erased his actual feelings. She constructed this confrontation brick by brick, never realizing she was creating the very weapon that would dismantle her control.
Cillian draws a slow, measured breath, his chest expanding beneath his shirt. When he speaks, his voice will shatter more than just silence.
And I’m ready for it.
“Bea and I finished years ago,” Cillian says, his voice low. The control in his tone is more devastating than rage would be. “Star is all I care about now.” My breath catches at his words, notbecause they surprise me, but because he’s saying them here, now, in front of his mother, in this family tradition where truth has suffocated under politeness for generations.
Mary’s face goes through a complex series of micro-expressions—shock, disbelief, calculation, and finally, a desperate attempt to regain control. Her lips part, but Cillian continues before she can speak.
“You’ve been trying to do God-knows-what all night,” he says, each word measured, weighed, delivered with quiet intensity.
“It stops now,” he continues, his gaze never leaving Mary’s increasingly pale face. “Not just tonight. Forever.”
“You’re being ridiculous, darling,” she attempts, her voice aiming for dismissive but landing closer to desperate. “I’m simply trying to remind everyone of happier times when—”
“They weren’t happy. Not for me. Not for Bea.”
At the mention of her name, Bea’s posture changes. Her shoulders, which have been curved inward all evening under the weight of Mary’s expectations, straighten slightly. Her fingers stop their nervous tracing of her water glass. She exhales a breath that seems to have been held for years, not just minutes.
“You’re afraid,” Cillian continues, his voice dropping even lower, forcing everyone to lean in slightly to catch his words. “You’re terrified of losing control. So instead of letting me grow, you’re strangling me. Instead of embracing who I am now, you’re desperately clinging to a version of me that never really existed.”
