‘Yep.’
‘And when I ignored your phone calls and told you it was best to forget me.’
‘Yep. I remember,’ Carli said, flatly.
‘Well, I didn’t mean a fucking word of it.’ Niall was aware how pointless it was saying this now and wasn’t surprised at Carli’s deafening silence and the shifting flutters on her face of what he decided was fury. ‘It was my way of dealing with something so shameful I had no clue what else to do except pretend I didn’t care anymore. To protect you from me.’
The fire crackled and spat. Still, Carli said nothing, so Niall continued.
‘Loving you was neverhard, Cass. Not when we were together and not when we were apart either. What was hard was liking myself and believing that I deserved you.’
Carli searched his face, as if looking for an answer as to where this was heading. ‘But we talked about this all the time,’ she said. ‘What changed in the time we were apart?’
‘Aye, when we were together it was fine because you were here. You’ve no idea how much you saved my life when you were seated next to me in maths that day. Although it was a stay of execution. Fourth year was the best year of school because of you. But fifth year, with you gone, was an absolute shiteshow.’
‘Why? You never mentioned anything at the time.’
‘I didn’t want to tell you. Didn’t want you knowing howmuch things had gone down the toilet since you’d left. All the teachers kept telling me I should be more grown-up now I was sixteen and doing my highers, but I couldn’t get it together at all, no matter how I tried. I got Mr McInally, again, for maths and that was the worst. Dickhead telling me you’d been holding me up and the usual “you’re Archie Butler through and through” chat that boiled my blood, and how I needed a good woman to make anything of my life, but I’d be lucky if I could hold on to one.’
‘Jesus! Niall. Did you not tell anyone? Teachers can’t go around speaking to kids like that.’
‘Nope. You have to understand it was all subtle bits of a package delivered piece by piece, lesson by lesson, and I didn’t have the confidence to go up against him. I wasn’t keeping a diary of it all. If I’d gone to anyone, it would’ve been his word against mine. Plus, the sad thing is, I kind of believed him.’
‘Oh, Niall. The man was evil. What about the subjects you liked?’
‘Liking and being good at them is two different things. My head was mince. I was missing you, I couldn’t get it together, I was distracted in class, distracted at home. Everyone thought I was “being a big huffy jessie” since you left, but it was more than that. I can’t properly explain it, even now, but I got into fights and eventually they asked me to leave because I was a disruption.’
‘I don’t get it.’ Carli seemed to be mentally calculating something. ‘Was this before or after we broke up?’
‘Before,’ Niall clarified, knowing how close they were getting to the dark of the matter. ‘It was before we broke up.’
‘But… I don’t… You didn’t…’
‘I didn’t tell you. And if I give you the full story now, you’ll understand why.’
‘Niall. Talk to me.’ Carli angled her chair closer to his. ‘Please. I need to understand.’
‘I will. But please understand how sorry I am for this. It was donkeys ago, but sitting here with you, it all takes on a new life again. I’m a big lad, but when it affected the one person I loved more than anything, it hits different.’
‘I get that, but I’m a biggirl. I can take it, if that helps one side of the equation.’
‘Aye. We’ll see about that.’ Niall scrubbed the rough planes of his jaw. It wasn’t even like he’d scrawled this in letters to her or practised telling her out loud. He’d assumed it was unforgivable, and that was it. And now it was time to go back in time to the crashing disaster that was his past and discover what that outcome would be.
Chapter 17
Niall
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO
‘Look after your wee brother. And don’t get drunk.’
Jimmy Butler’s words rang in Niall’s ears as loudly as the Katy Perry song blaring through the speakers at the party. The nearest neighbours to this giant country pile – where the parents were away for the weekend and the eldest sibling was in charge – were a good half mile off, so there were no holds barred on the music.
Nonetheless, Niall was trying to honour both of his dad’s requests. Sean, at fifteen and a year younger than Niall, wasn’t all that wee, though, and he was perfectly safe. In fact, his younger brother seemed to be living life to the max, snogging some girl’s face off in the kitchen. A far cry from the board games night their dad believed they were at, but there was no harm done.
Niall rolled the bottle of whisky he’d managed to get past his parents between his palms. The trick was to hide it down the driveway a few days earlier, then when you left the house and they gave you that glance over to check if youwere carrying any contraband, it looked like you weren’t. It was amazing his parents hadn’t cracked onto it since Cal and Jamie had been up to the same trick for years themselves, passing it down like a family heirloom that to teenagers, seemed more valuable than the distillery itself.
Three swigs was all he’d had, yet the bottle was three quarters gone. Sean wasn’t getting anywhere near the rest of it. As long as they both went home to bed quietly, then their parents would sleep through it and be none the wiser in the morning. Fuzzy heads might be clocked, but nobody could take back the memories.
