“I stood outside and…replayed it all.”
“Replayed what?” she asked, praying to God it wasn’t what she imagined.
“Mia,” he whispered.
“No,” she said softly. “No, Paddy. That’s why I didn’t want—”
He was still lost to her, still too deep in his own thoughts. “Only this time, it wasn’t her. It was you. Your face, your pain. Your death.”
Emmy clutched her neck, fighting hard to swallow, her throat closed. It was hard to breathe with her tears choking her. “Please, Paddy. Everything is fine. I’m fine.”
For the first time, his eyes flashed with anger, his gaze singeing her. “It’s not fine! None of this is fine!”
She jumped, startled by the vehemence behind his words. She’d never heard him so angry. Emmy tried once more to talk him off the ledge, even though she knew it was hopeless. “Let’s just wait for the results of the second test.” She heard the pleading, desperate tone in her voice, but she didn’t know what else to say, how to stave off what was coming. It was as if she was standing on the tracks, facing down the train but helpless to step out of its path.
“I thought I could do this, Emmy. I thought…”
“Please,” she said again, terrified to hear what he might say next. “Please don’t.”
He was silent as he held her gaze, his eyes awash with anguish and desolation. She recognized the look from the reflection she’d seen in the mirror right after her mother—and then her father—died.
“You’re leaving.” She didn’t pose it as a question. She didn’t have to.
He stared at her for a long time. So long, she wasn’t sure he’d speak again.
Finally—horribly—he said, “I need time.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what he needed time for. He already knew what he was going to do. But she held her peace.
“I need time to…”
He didn’t finish. Because like her, he knew what was coming too. He just wasn’t ready to say it.
She tried to nod, fought like the devil to make her head go up, then down again…because she got it. Or at least the still-broken part of her that had spent years grieving her beloved parents did.
The rest of her didn’t understand at all. Those parts were tattered, ripped to shreds, dying a million deaths.
The irony of it was rich.
He couldn’t be with her.
She couldn’t be without him.
“Please,” she whispered once more, her denial running strong, refusing to believe what was coming. This couldn’t be happening. “Paddy, I love you.”
Neither of them had said those words yet. They’d known they were there, so she wasn’t sure why they’d gone unspoken until now.
He closed his eyes, his head bent, as if her words physically hurt him.
“I’m sorry, Emmy. So sorry.” He spoke so quietly, she almost didn’t hear him, especially when a crack of thunder pierced the night.
She forced a sad smile, hating that she couldn’t hide her tears, that she couldn’t make this easier for either of them.
She was shattered.
Destroyed.
Instead, she offered him what little comfort she could manage.
“I know,” she said. “I know you are.”
Padraig held her gaze for a second longer, then he looked away, reaching for Seamus’s leash. He clipped it onto the dog’s collar and then…he left.
Without another word.
Not even goodbye.
Padraig walked back to his apartment, numbness setting in. The rain had stopped briefly, a temporary reprieve. The clouds overhead weren’t finished yet and he expected another deluge any minute.
His brain had gone blank, every thought, fear, emotion muted. All he could see was Emmy’s face as he walked away. As he broke her heart.
He tried to convince himself it was better this way. That he’d made the right decision, the smart one. She should understand after all. He wasn’t the only one who’d loved and lost, who understood the unbearable pain of grief.
He couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she needed, so he’d set her free. Free so that she could find the love, the life, she deserved, if she…
While he…
“Fuck,” he muttered. He should never have asked her out, given in to…all these feelings. Love came with too high a price tag. He’d paid it once and it had bankrupted him. He wouldn’t go through that again.
No. He’d done the right thing. This was the right thing.
Unfortunately, that self-assurance only lasted until he reached the door of his apartment, then the pain set back in, crippling him. Seamus, typically energetic, seemed to feed from his depression. The dog was quiet, sitting next to him as Padraig struggled to withdraw his keys from the pocket of his wet jeans.
Once he retrieved them, he unlocked the door and walked in, unclipping Seamus from the leash. He shut the door behind him, then fell back against it, as the barrage of emotions he’d been holding at bay collapsed down on him, an avalanche of agony.
He slid down the door until his ass hit the floor. He rested his elbows on his knees, scrubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands, trying to beat back the tears.
“Emmy,” he whispered miserably to the empty room.
He recalled the last time he’d been on his ass by this door, the memory provoking a shadow of a smile.
He’d gotten extremely inebriated at his family’s Halloween party the year before last. Baltimore had been submerged in darkness, thanks to a blackout, and Sunnie had proposed some silly game that involved tequila. A lot of tequila.
Padraig had over-imbibed, upset over nearly losing Seamus in the park earlier in the day and overwhelmed with loneliness. His depression over the past three years seemed to ebb and flow like the tide—sometimes nonexistent, other times overwhelming. The holidays the first year after Mia’s death had been brutal, Padraig lost in a downward spiral from Halloween to St. Patrick’s Day.
So when Halloween arrived again the next year, and he’d felt himself being swallowed by the void, he’d been helpless to climb out, resigning himself to months of exhaustion and misery. That night had been a bad one for him, and if he hadn’t agreed to a partner costume with Emmy, he probably would have sent his regrets and stayed home. Instead, he’d gone and actually had a good time.
After the party, Emmy had driven him home, helped him take Seamus out for a walk, and then gotten his staggering ass back up to his apartment.
“Whoa,” Padraig said, bumping his arm on the doorframe as Emmy led Seamus inside and took off his leash. The walk in the cool night air had helped sober him up a little bit. Mercifully. Then he realized he didn’t know how he’d gotten from the Collins Dorm to here. Or how the party had ended. Had it ended?
“Shit. Blackout.”
“I know, but the power’s back on now,” Emmy said.
“No. I think I blacked out.” He’d made the mistake of shaking his head as he spoke, the action making him dizzy.
She studied with an amused grin. “You okay there, big guy?”
“Yeah, but is the room swaying? Feels like we’re on a boat.”
Emmy reached out to take his hand, pulling him into his wobbly apartment. “Apartment is holding steady. You? Not so much.”