She gets up and pads barefoot around the room, looking for her clothes. She slowly gets dressed, in agonising silence. This time, it’s a silence I can’t fill with any of my bullshit. I’m too tired of it; tired of hearing it, tired of talking about it. Tired of how it makes me – and everyone around me – feel.
I’m tired of being me.
When I watch her leave the bedroom and head for the living room, I realise that she’s really doing it; she’s decided to go, to leave me behind. I get up and run after her, the sound of my movements stopping her, as she grips the door handle. She turns to face me, almost crushing me with the hope I can see etched into her face.
“What can I do? Tell me what I have to do to make you stay.”
I’d get down on my knees and crawl to her; but I don’t think even that could help me now.
“Tell me the truth.” She steps towards me. “Just tell me the truth. But no bullshit, no jokes. I want to really believe you.”
She waits there wordlessly, her eyes welling up. But I don’t say anything. I don’t move a muscle; not even when I see a tear slide silently down her cheek.
There are a thousand things I could say right now, but I simply choose not to say anything. This is the easier option: and I’ve always taken the easier option in life.
So I don’t tell her that I’ve loved her from that first day she came to the training ground with her dad. I don’t tell her that, every time I was thrown to the ground, it was because I was distracted, looking at her.
I don’t tell her that, when I left her in that swimming pool, I called my brothers, almost hysterical; I was ready to give up everything. That contract, my future as a rugby player, the chance to have any sort of life at all. Just to go back and tell her that I wanted to keep kissing her, all night, and every day that followed – if she’d have let me.
I don’t tell her that I thought about that kiss every night, as I closed my eyes and kissed another woman; that I imagined her body underneath mine every time I slept with someone; that I dreamed about coming back home to her every time I checked into another lonely hotel room.
I don’t tell her about every time I picked up the phone, ready to call her. Every time I came back to Dublin and had to physically restrain myself from going near her house.
I don’t tell her that I’ve always loved her, and that I always will, even when she leaves me here. I don’t tell her that I’ll never love anyone else for the rest of my life.
I don’t tell her that, for eight years, I’d hoped that she’d wait for me to come back; and I’ll keep hoping, even though I have no right to.
I don’t tell her that I believe all her lies.
I don’t tell her that I’m terrified to be left alone with myself.
I shake my head and lower my gaze.
“You’re the only one who’s been left behind, Nick. But you won’t hold me back with you. I’ve decided to move on, even if that means I have to move on without you.”
She turns, opens the door, and disappears, as I crumble to the floor, my eyes glued to the place where she vanished. I sit there, maybe all night. Maybe into tomorrow morning.
I’m frozen there, doing absolutely nothing, waiting for her to come back.
68
Nick
Almost twenty-four hours after Casey left, I finally decide to leave my apartment and go to my parents’ house. Ian called me, asking me to go. I didn’t want to, but I need a few hours to take my mind off everything. I attempt to scrape myself into looking somewhat presentable, trying to avoid another family discussion about the disaster that is my life.
“You look awful,” Ian comments as soon as he opens the door.
“You think?” I snap.
“What happened?”
“Nothing I want to talk about.”
“Shock,” he mumbles, closing the door and stepping aside to let me pass.
I go through to the kitchen and find Mum there with Riley and little Jamie.
“Look, sweetie, here’s Uncle Nick,” Riley says to her.
