49. Self and Identity #2
“No version of you has ever been selfish, but the daughter I left at the beginning of summer is not the same daughter who came back to me.” Mom turned to face me and pressed a hand against my cheek.
“And the daughter who came home, she isn’t selfish either.
She is so beautiful and confident and kind and strong, and she is the furthest thing from selfish.
She’s made impossible decisions, often at her own expense.
She’s faced impossible adversaries. Wren, I’m so proud, but damn if I didn’t cry that first night back from the Rift thinking about that tiny baby I held in my arms eighteen years ago. ”
I wrapped my arms around her. It was strange to hear her talk about how I was always changing when she’d always been my constant. Reliable, steady, and willing to wreck lawn ornaments in my defense, she’d always just been Mom.
“I’m sorry everything keeps changing,” I whispered.
“No, don’t be. It may be the worst part of being a mother, but it’s also the best.” Mom’s laugh was watery and weak. “But I’m going to be honest. I don’t know how to do this without my mom.”
Sorcha’s words—the ones I hated, the ones I’d heard all week—came back to me.
“She would be so proud of you,” I said.
“I hope so.”
Changing was easy, I decided, when there was someone there to be the rock. The difference between me and Mom now was that I still had mine.
We arrived at the memorial reception as it was in full swing. Siobhan’s freezer was still broken thanks to Fana, but the local pizza shop and bakery had both brought plenty of food for everyone.
It was exactly how Gams would’ve wanted it. All her closest friends and family shared food and laughed. The drinks flowed as easily as the tears, and jubilant, grieving voices joined together in music. It was the perfect reception and the perfect homecoming.
Sorcha pulled Mom into Gams’s usual group of giggling old women within moments of our arrival, but I lingered by the door. I’d never been one for parties.
Someone joined me at my side, but I didn’t have to look to see who it was. His presence had become as familiar as my own, and his thoughts swirled against mine.
He knew better than to ask if I was okay. Instead, he stood silently and waited.
“I would like to go somewhere quiet,” I whispered.
Ciarán took my hand and led me out of the tavern and down the empty street. When he stopped in front of Gams’s shop, I shook my head.
“It reminds me too much of her.” The words felt cruel as I said them. Why would I not want to be reminded of Gams?
Ciarán nodded, however, and we continued to the bagel shop instead.
I froze at the top of the apartment staircase, staring at the forty or so porcelain chickens set out on the kitchen counter.
“My aunt and uncle’s,” Ciarán explained when he followed my gaze.
“And have you—”
“No.” He pulled a glass from a cupboard. “You should drink some water. I’ll see if there’s anything to eat.”
“Is it because of me?” I asked.
Ciarán set the empty glass on the counter and looked out the window to avoid looking at me.
“It’s my own issue to figure out,” he said. “I’ll take care of it when I’m ready.”
“You’re still jealous of Liam.”
He shrugged, but his smile was sad when he leaned against the kitchen counter to look at me. He’d found a black button-up in Liam’s closet for the memorial, and it reminded me of his Grimguard armor in a strange way.
He was handsome, with his hair pulled up neatly and the freshly pressed shirt. I hated that Liam still haunted him in a way that made him feel less-than.
“For what it’s worth, I never kissed Liam.” I folded my arms at him, daring him to challenge me.
His smile turned sly. “Only because you never had the chance.”
“Guess we’ll never know.”
I’d missed him lately. We alternated sleep schedules, each of us watching over the other’s dreams to keep out the nightmares. In those hours where we were both awake, there wasn’t much to say and we’d taken to giving each other privacy to grieve.
“Tell me about Liam,” he said.
“Sorry?” I laughed, certain I’d misheard him.
“I told you to tell me about Liam once and you refused. I want you to tell me about him now, and then I’ll decide if I want to remember.”
I sighed and shrugged. “He was nice.”
“That’s not going to cut it.” Ciarán’s face had turned stony, and I realized he was serious.
I glanced around the apartment, trying to remember, but it was hard to separate the two parts of Ciarán in my head. It wasn’t Liam. It was all Ciarán.
“Jonquil liked him more than she liked me, which was annoying,” I finally said.
“Jonquil is perfect,” Ciarán interjected.
“Which is exactly the sort of thing Liam would say to annoy me,” I laughed. “Which he loved to do, by the way.”
“But why did you like him?” Ciarán stepped closer to me, his face falling into shadow as he stepped away from the window.
“I was an ass to him,” I admitted. “But he was kind in return. Whenever Galahad called me to Skalterra, Liam would worry because I’d pass out and he had no idea what was happening.
But he’d put me to bed and leave me water.
He’d check on me and fuss, which was annoying, but sweet too. I think I secretly liked it.”
Ciarán shook his head. “So he’s nothing like me.”
“I tried to kill you on the ice,” I said. “When we fought on the frozen lake, I had every intention to kill you. But when I almost turned into a rotsbane—”
I fumbled to a halt when Ciarán’s face paled in the dark.
I didn’t have to finish the thought. He knew he’d saved me from turning into a monster, and he had intimate knowledge of how much worse than death that fate would’ve been for me had he not.
“Liam died for me,” I continued. “I betrayed him, but he still ran back into the woods when he heard me call for him.”
“I remember this part already,” Ciarán said, turning away.
“Then you know there was absolutely no way Liam should’ve been able to hear me from the train station, but he did. Do you know why?”
Ciarán paused.
“I don’t,” he finally admitted.
“Because you and I are tethered.” I closed the distance he’d tried to put between us, taking his face in my hands so he couldn’t look away.
“And when I called for Liam, he heard me through a connection that only exists between me and you. You heard me. You came into the woods for me. You died for me.”
Ciarán bowed his head, letting my hands slip from his cheeks. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeated the word too loudly, and Ciarán flinched away. “Sorry. Right. You mean it?”
“There’s only one way to know for sure if Liam is actually a part of me and not a delusional aspiration fueled by magick, and I’m tired of wondering.”
He took my hand in his and led me to his bedroom.
I closed the door behind us, leaning against it to click it shut as Ciarán took careful steps towards the desk. He hesitated with his hand reaching halfway for the drawer.
“Whatever happens,” he said, “thank you, Wren, for loving both of me.”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘all’. I love all of you.”
He gave me a sad smile over his shoulder, as if he didn’t believe me, and opened the drawer.