Chapter Thirty
Ciara
My body grows cold as Sam stares at the fan fiction writer, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
The question hangs in the air, and I want to move, want to flee, my fight-or-flight response very much alive as my heart starts to race, but I’m too horrified to move.
Sam’s eyes flash to me, and I shrink back against the wall, terrified that they’ll put two and two together.
As if realizing the same thing, he turns to Alison, who thankfully takes the hint.
“Okay,” she says with a nervous laugh. “Why don’t we just—”
“Now, hang on,” Austen interrupts. He’s frowning, looking as confused as everyone else. “An incredible job at what?”
Alison smiles wide. “Sam’s come all this way to give us an update so let’s not—”
“Is Ciara Sheridan writing The Last Mountain?”
The room is deathly quiet, and this time Alison says nothing.
Sam brings the microphone to his mouth. “She’s…”
I wait. Wait for a miracle. For him to deny it even though I know he can’t. Even though I know we’ll have to admit it eventually and it will be so much worse if we lie now. I know it and Sam knows it.
He stays silent, and then Austen starts to laugh, and then the room erupts into chaos.
I have a brief daydream then. One where I stride up the aisle between the chairs like a protesting suitor on a wedding day. Where I announce who I am to the room and give some wonderful speech that will turn the whole thing around.
But I don’t. I just stand there. Listening to them talk. To these people who don’t know me and didn’t know my father and yet still make me feel like the smallest person alive.
Alison finally starts to speak, trying to regain control of the crowd, but it’s too late.
There’s movement all around as people get up, recording on their phones, capturing the whole thing.
Sam gets up too, but I don’t wait to see what he does next, whirling back through the door and escaping into the main hall.
I swear it’s even busier than before. Waves of heat wash through me; the wig scratches and pulls at my scalp, and I whip it off, throwing it in the nearest bin. I need to get out of here, I’ve never needed anything more in my entire life, but Sam catches up with me, grasping my elbow.
“I’m sorry,” he says, breathless from chasing me. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
The room empties out behind him, the audience chatting excitedly, and my panic only rises.
“I need to go.”
“Just let me talk to—”
“No, Sam, I want to—”
I break off, blinking as he vanishes. Or maybe not so much vanishes as is blocked by a tall woman in another Maeve wig, clutching a plastic goblet that smells as though it’s filled with coffee.
“Oh my God,” she says, her voice far too loud for comfort. “You’re Ciara Sheridan.”
It’s not like the movies. The hall doesn’t fall silent. Whispers don’t scatter through the crowd. But a lot of people do turn my way. And when they do, even more look, until Sam is pushed further from view.
A phone is shoved in my face, and I see an Instagram post of me and the reader from the beach, smiling nervously at the camera. Guess who I just met!! reads the caption, but I barely have time to take it in before it’s pulled away again.
“Are you doing a talk?” the woman asks, and another man stops, his gaze snagging on mine as he does a double-glance back. Another woman does the same. And another and another until a small circle forms. One that feels as though it’s pressing into me on all sides.
“Excuse me,” I mutter, trying to push through. “Sorry.”
They don’t hear me. Or maybe they do, but they don’t care, because no one budges an inch.
“Move,” I snap, and then I do it for them, shoving my way through the bodies as I make my escape.
I know Sam’s following me—I can feel him as surely as if I could see him—but I don’t slow down. I’m barely keeping it together as it is, so I just keep going, not caring who I bump into or who curses me out as I follow the signs to a propped-open fire exit.
For a moment I forget where I am, and expect to be back in Carrigwest when I emerge out into the heavy air.
The roar of traffic startles me, the smell of tarmac and petrol and the busy road beyond.
My pause gives enough time for Sam to catch up with me again and he bursts through the doors a second later, stumbling to a halt when he sees me.
Before he can say anything, my phone starts to ring, and I silence it blindly, not bothering to check who it is. I can only guess the news is out there. All over the internet.
God, what did I think was going to happen? I’ve done nothing but dig my head into the sand and hole myself up in that house pretending the world outside didn’t exist. But it does. And now I have to face it.
And I’m not ready.
I’m not ready at all.
“I couldn’t lie to them,” Sam says, and I know this. I know he didn’t mean to. Know he felt that he had to defend me. But it still doesn’t change what just happened.
I wonder if this is what people mean when they say their heart is breaking. Because that’s what it feels like. This ragged pain inside.
Curious faces peer through the doorway, and I turn and stumble further around the building, away from prying eyes.
“Ciara—”
“I’m just freaking out,” I tell him as he follows. “I’m allowed to freak out.”
He nods, as if to say of course you are, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I don’t know who he is right now. I don’t know if he’s my editor or if he’s just Sam, and, what’s worse, I don’t know which one I need.
“Tell me what you want to do,” Sam continues, a desperate edge to his voice. “Tell me and I’ll make it happen. Whatever you want.”
What I want? I want to cry. I want to ugly-cry right here in this car park. I want today to never have happened. I want to never have started this book. I want to go home and I want my dad.
I want my dad so badly it hurts.
The familiar urge to hide overwhelms me, blanketing me until it’s all I know.
“I want to leave,” I begin, and he’s already nodding.
“Okay,” he says instantly, looking relieved. “We can do that. I just need to drop off the car and then we can—”
“Without you, Sam.”
His mouth slams shut. He stares at me as though he can’t compute what I’m saying.
“I’m going to get my stuff,” I say carefully. “And then I’m going back to my house. And you’re going to go and get your flight back to New York.”
“Forget the flight. I can get another one.”
“That’s the point, though,” I say wearily. “You will get another one. Why delay the inevitable? You belong there, and I need to be here.”
He’s shaking his head before I’m even finished. “Look, I know what just happened is a lot but we need to talk about this.”
“We need to do our jobs. You’re my editor. Go and do your…” Damage control. I lick my suddenly dry lips, trying to make him understand. “This is what I want to do. And you’ve got to do what you have to do. That’s what we agreed.”
We’ve both got to go home.
He doesn’t say anything at first. He looks wounded. Every muscle in his body is tense, as if he’s holding himself back. From what, I don’t know, but in that instant I wish he would just let me go. I don’t want to fight anymore.
I am so, so tired.
“Will you text me when you get there?” he asks finally, and there’s an odd detachment in his voice I’ve never heard before. One that hurts more than anything.
I feel sick. Physically sick. As if I might throw up here and now, but I don’t. I nod, and, before he can say anything more, I weave my way back through the cars, leaving him behind.