I scrunched my eyes tightly, trying to block out any other possible distraction, and fought hard to piece together the missing parts of the previous night.
It struck me in a flash; Papa Bear. I had a horrible feeling I proclaimed my love for his son.
Cringe.
No, wait, that wasn’t exactly right.
I tapped my fingers repeatedly on the side of the bed, a horrible habit I caught myself doing whenever I felt anxious. The rhythmic drumming of each finger allowed me to feel some sense of control when that awful rush of anxiety invaded, which frequently occurred after consuming one too many fermented grape juices.
The memory returned in fragmented pieces.There had been others, but he’d not looked at them the way he looked at me.
I beamed like an idiot, despite my alcohol induced war wounds, and wriggled closer to John, who lay on the other half of his enormous bed. Tucking my knees in behind his, I placed my arms round his waist and buried my face into his back. He exhaled a small sigh and locked his fingers through mine.
The last twenty-four hours had been an eye-opener. I was head over heels in love with him, but that was nothing new at this stage. I’d felt it almost instantly. But in the darkness of the long nights when I was home, I knew the rational part of my mind would question if this was real.
Was he too good to be true?
How could I be in love with someone I’d only known a few short weeks?
How could I have fallen so hard, and so quickly?
And the most troubling one of all – was I setting myself up for the biggest fall of my life?
We lived in two different worlds, after all.
Thinking too long about it troubled me.
For the first time in my life, I’d followed my gut instinct. That overwhelming, burning urge in the pit of my stomach that willed me to go with the flow – to see where it led me.
And it led me to love.
Being in love was the most fabulous feeling in the world. I was ecstatic each time I saw his photo flash up on my mobile with an incoming call. He took up so much space in my head.
But alongside that intense ecstatic excitement also came an undeniable vulnerability.
Every day I fell further, meaning he had the weapons to slice me that bit deeper, if he should choose to do so. If he decided the distance was too much, or if he were to see something in me he didn’t like, as he had done before with my many predecessors.
With thoughts like these swirling round my head, troubled by worries about our future together, there was zero chance of falling back to sleep.
No matter how much I loved John, I couldn’t ever picture myself living there, in that tiny community. It wasn’t me. I would suffocate in a place like that. Everybody was entwined in one way or another, compared to the reassuring anonymity of the city.
Mind you, I nearly drowned in a sinking marriage before I realised I was the one holding the life jackets.
Maybe there was another way.
It was early days, but I toyed with the idea of looking for a job in Dublin. I could rent somewhere in the city, at least we’d be in the same country. It was less than a three-hour drive. And John seemed to be in Dublin regularly enough.
That was, if he ever wanted to see me again after I spewed up my steak and red wine, redecorating his beautiful, previously untouched countryside.
I crept out of bed to escape the horrors in my own head, pulled on his grey hoody and my dark jeans, and quietly exited the room on tiptoes, careful not to disturb sleeping beauty.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, the gleaming counter tops reflected my shameful hungover face back at me.
I pulled on my new pink Hunters and a body warmer I found hanging in the utility room and made my way out the back door into the fresh air.
The morning was overcast and breezy. I felt naturally drawn to the beach, to the rugged emerald of the unruly land and the familiar smell of abandoned seaweed, just as I was physically drawn to John. I wondered if this path had been mapped out for us by a higher source.
What were the chances of meeting the man of your dreams at three o’clock in the morning of a hotel bar while on a hen and a stag? Unlikely, but undeniable.
