Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ciara
Less than a minute after Sam leaves, I stand at the window, watching the crowds outside.
I’d been trying to play it cool beforehand.
I don’t know why. It’s not as though I needed to impress Sam with how blasé I am.
I just didn’t want him to worry about me.
Something which I obviously failed at, seeing as how he looked as if he expected me to have a breakdown as soon as he closed the door.
I mean, he’s not far off.
I shouldn’t have come here.
I should have stayed at home and said my goodbyes. I should be finishing my book. I should at least close the hotel curtains.
Any one of those options would be better than what I’m doing now. Standing eating dry Ravian cookies while I watch some of my father’s most ardent readers funnel across the road. All to celebrate him. All while I stay away.
My phone buzzes in the pocket of my shorts, and I take it out, hoping for some distraction, only to see my second official text alert of the day.
Status Orange Wind Warning.
Storm Bessie is well and truly on her way, and the Irish meteorological service is taking no chances despite the innocent-sounding name.
Probably as bored as we are by reporting nothing but sunshine for the past three months.
I’m not too worried, though. It’s not supposed to hit Dublin until the early hours of the morning, and Sam’s flight will already have left by then.
So, you know. That’s great.
Laughter draws my attention back outside, and I watch a group of teenage girls grab at each other before dashing between stationary traffic.
“I used to have fun once” are words I actually say out loud, and then I make myself step back from the window, brushing cookie crumbs from my chest as I stare at the wig on the bed.
I don’t know what it is that’s chipped away at my usual wariness when it comes to his fans.
Maybe I’ve been subconsciously readying myself for events like this, or maybe all these weeks working on the book have started to rub off on me.
Perhaps it’s because freaking Sam out just by showing him a pencil belonging to my dad has become my new favorite hobby.
Or maybe I’m just tired of hiding myself away.
Before I can second-guess myself, I stride over to the bed and upturn the gift bag. More snacks and stationery tumble out, joining the long mass of plastic hair.
It would have been better if they’d given us a soldier’s costume. At least that would just be a mask. But no.
I get the wig.
Ten minutes later, I’m in the convention center. No one gives me a second glance, and I just show one of the passes that was included in the gift bag and then I’m through.
It’s more than a little overwhelming. It’s the largest one I’ve ever been to, but it’s not my first. Dad took me to one or two when I was younger, but I grew bored of them.
The large, deafening spaces, the standing on your feet for hours.
I would sit in the back room and play video games on my phone.
It’s been years since then, so I forgot how intense they could be. How loud.
Everywhere I look, I see my dad. T-shirts with his face on them, with quotes from him.
There are even a few people dressed like him, and, while I guess some might find it flattering, it borders on weird for me, and so I try instead to focus on the booths where they’re selling everything under the sun.
Posters and figurines. Umbrellas and sweaters.
Shoes. Stickers. Pajamas. Anything that could be branded is branded.
I even see the discontinued Maeve makeup line they launched when the film came out.
There are smaller stalls, too, where people sell homemade artwork and everything from recipes to pottery based on my father’s world.
It’s times like this where the whole thing still boggles me. How vast his reach was. How many people he inspired.
Not bad for an English teacher scribbling at his kitchen table at five a.m.
I feel a wash of pride as I take it all in, one so strong that it overpowers any nerves, and I smile when I catch the eye of a young woman behind one of the booths, and purchase a woven bracelet of the kind described in the books.
I make a mental note to include one in mine, and head toward the back, where there’s a sign for the panels.
I find the nearly full room where Sam’s one is supposed to start, but there’s no one onstage yet.
On a whim, I keep going, heading down a side corridor where there are far fewer people.
There’s no one to stop me, and I pause by a door with a handwritten sign taped to it saying Guests.
I prize it open, peering inside.
I don’t see anyone at first. Just an ambitious snack table and some boxes of books. And then Sam appears, slumped over in the chair. He doesn’t notice me, too busy staring at his phone as it rings out in his hands.
I’m about to step into the room when the call connects.
The phone is on speaker. “Hey,” a female voice says. One that doesn’t sound like Laura. “Sorry, the boys were at soccer practice, so I thought I’d—”
“Was it you?” Sam interrupts.
“What was me?”
“Did you tell someone about the book?”
I freeze where I am, the glow I’ve been feeling vanishing in an instant.
“Lizzie,” he prompts, and I grow only more confused. His sister?
His sister, who doesn’t respond.
Sam’s entire body tenses. “Liz—”
“I swear I didn’t mean to!”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I startle, as shocked by his angry tone as she must be, because all of a sudden it’s as though a dam has burst, and the words come pouring out of her.
“I swear, Sam. I promise. I was at book club and Joanne was there and you know how she is and she was going on and on about her new house and all her traveling and I’d had a few wines and I just wanted to get a word in edgeways and mentioned you were in Ireland working on it.
It just slipped out, but she wasn’t even that interested.
She told me she hasn’t even read them! But her husband works at Variety and she must have said something, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what kind of shitstorm you’ve caused?”
“I know,” she says, sounding miserable. “I know how big this is for you. And I know Casey is probably furious.”
“He will be when he finds out it’s because of me.”
“I’ll talk to him. He likes me. I made him potato salad once.”
Sam drags a hand through his hair as Lizzie’s voice turns hesitant.
“Are you going to tell Ciara?”
“No,” he huffs, and I feel sick at the way the word whips through me. “I’m doing enough damage control with her as it is. The last thing I need is for her to—”
Applause from the main hall thunders behind me, cutting him off, and Sam looks my way, hanging up as soon as he sees me.
I’ve never seen him look so guilty.
For a moment, we just stare at each other, and then I step inside, pressing my back against the closed door. It takes me a second to speak.
“You weren’t going to tell me?”
Sam’s face pales. “I don’t…She didn’t mean—”
“I heard,” I say, my voice bitter even to my ears. “And thank God I did, or I never would have known.”
Standing here, I realize how much I’d come to trust him. How I’d completely given myself over to him. My father. My writing. Myself. And he was going to keep this from me? Hurt blooms like a bruise inside, along with something deeper and heavier. Something like betrayal.
“She didn’t mean to say anything,” Sam continues.
“You shouldn’t have told her in the first place.”
“That happened before I met you. Before I knew what it meant. I told you we’re close. I tell her everything.”
Of course he does. He tells her everything and he’s leaping to her defense because he’s her brother and she’s family.
Family that he’ll go back to because he’s not going to stay forever.
He’s going to leave, and I’ll be here and we’ll go to talking only through emails and edits and a phone call every few weeks.
“Please don’t be mad at her,” Sam says, and I see red.
“Why wouldn’t I be mad at her? She spilled my secret for bragging rights. And you were going to pretend you never knew! You were going to lie to me.”
Damage control. I want to yell at him some more when I remember his words, but I can’t. I’m frozen. My thoughts spiraling and my stomach twisting until I feel as if I’m going to throw up.
My feelings come second—the book comes first. Why am I always second place to these books?
“Mr. Avery?”
We both whirl toward the door as a teenager steps inside. He doesn’t seem to notice the tension in the room, barely taking me in as he sends a cheerful nod my way.
“Time to shine!”
Sam looks as though he’s about to snap at the kid but stops himself at the last minute.
“I’ll be there in one second,” he promises. “Just give me a minute,” he adds as the boy is about to object.
There’s a beat of silence as he goes. I feel I want to cry.
“Can you stay here?” Sam asks. “Please? I have to go do the panel.”
I shouldn’t have come. It’s all I can think. I shouldn’t have come I shouldn’t have come I shouldn’t have—
“Ciara.” He’s pleading with me now, but I can barely hear him over the rushing in my ears. “I have to do this.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I nod, and it must look convincing enough, because he finally edges away, his eyes on me the whole time as if he’s afraid I might bolt. But I don’t. I stand there watching him go until the door swings shut behind him, leaving me alone.