15. I Miss You
Chapter fifteen
I Miss You
Kira
F or two days, Aaron Jackson came with a coffee and pastry in his hand. He came and he looked at the paintings. He brought me coffee in the morning, and then hot chocolate in the afternoon.
This afternoon, he even came back with peppermint tea, his eyes full of concern.
“You don’t look so good,” he said, as I sniffled into a napkin.
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.
“I mean… you look sick. Are you sure I can’t get you something?” He looked up and down Main Street, his eyes landing on a little Mom and Pop restaurant. “They have chicken noodle soup,” he said triumphantly. “I can bring you some.”
“I’m fine, really,” I said with a small laugh, as he handed me the warm cup. “What do you do for a living that lets you hover around me all the time?”
I hoped to change the subject, but then realized that maybe what I said was… insensitive?
He smirked. “I’m a truck driver. When I’m not hauling things, I have a bit of free time.”
He was right, of course. I was feeling the effects of whatever daycare plague Cillian had brought home. There was always a sniffle or snot rocket in my immediate future. Children were always sick, and there was no amount of quarantining or cleaning that would ever change that fact.
“I’ll come check on you later,” he said, with a smirk. “I might bring you soup whether you like it or not.”
“Bye!” I called out.
“No, not bye! Never goodbye!” His eyes darkened for just a moment, before it was replaced with his usual jovial expression. “I’ll see you later.”
He walked away without another word and I watched him, perplexed, but also appreciative of the view of his backside. Apparently, Magda agreed as she stood beside me and we watched him walk away in cheap, lustful appreciation.
“Oh, honey, I’m sure he’ll buy all your paintings, if you consider dating him.”
“I don’t date, Magda.” What was it about old, happily married women always trying to pair everyone up? “I’m too busy.”
That was my final answer. For now, and always.
“Honey, I don’t know what Cillian’s father did to make you so guarded, but whatever it was …” She shook her head, sadly. “It must have been bad.”
I didn’t answer her. There was no reason to. I was too tired to care.
I had to paint. I had to put out more completed products for people to buy, and most of all, I needed to get over this fucking cold. I wanted to paint some landscapes, but my mind was more preoccupied than usual today by the ghosts of the past. It happened when Aaron first introduced himself, and the more he was here, the more insisting Eoghan was, trying to batter down the walls I had built in my mind until I had to put his scowling face to paper.
I was feeling incredibly lightheaded. He hadn’t been wrong. My cheeks burned, and if I stood still too long, the world seemed to tilt to the side.
I was trying to close out the till for the day, to make sure that my numbers and sales were accounted for on my little ledger when I had to shut my eyes, just to block out the world until it stopped spinning.
“You’re deep in thought there.” I looked up from my reverie.
It was Aaron.
Of course it was.
“Back so soon?” I whispered, doing my best to not sound irritated, but I knew I failed when his smile wavered, just a little. “Don’t you think you’re going to come on too strong?”
If he was hurt, he didn’t let it show for long. He smiled, and shrugged.
“I’m stalking you,” he said with a good-natured chuckle. “I wanted to see how you were feeling.”
“Oh,” I blushed.
I don’t know why I blushed.
But I looked over Aaron’s shoulder to Magda, who smirked at me and waggled her brows.
“I’m fine!” My voice was too clipped and too high. I was most definitely not fine.
“You can’t blame a man for being concerned, you’ve had this cold for days now.” The smirk disappeared, and was replaced with genuine worry.
I hadn’t known him long enough for him to be this concerned about my health.
“If that’s stalking, honey, sign me up.” Magda looked him up and down, shamelessly checking out Aaron’s butt.
I was going to die.
Not from illness, either, but from complete and total embarrassment.
Was I so love-starved that a man showing the most tertiary concern made me form a crush? I felt the heat on my cheeks and placed my cold hand on it, to try and hide them.
But his smile told me I hadn’t been successful.
“That’s cute,” he said, his low drawl doing something to me.
Was I a chick that liked accents? Was that what I was now?
“You look flushed,” he commented casually, before he looked down at the paintings, scratching his beard as if it was itchy. There was a crook in his pronounced nose that looked like it had been broken and never healed quite right.
“I’m just…” I felt my cheeks pink again and then became a little dizzy.
“Jesus,” he said, lunging to catch me. “Love, you’re more than flushed. You’re feverish.”
“What did you just call me?”
He tilted his head. Or maybe I was tilting.
“Up you go,” he said, and I found myself horizontal. My feet off the pavement.
“Oh, that is just…” Magda sighed and in my dizziness, I watched her bring her hands to her chest. “You get her home and I’ll lock her store up.”
The world was spinning, moving slow and fast at the same time. Like I was dancing under some strange influence and unable to stop. Like I was spinning in the space between dreams and waking.
“Cillian,” I whispered, only to be shushed and cooed. I was comforted by rough hands, with promises that my boy was safe.
My boy.
My everything.
But like so many years before, I could not think of my boy without also thinking of him.
“Eoghan,” I whispered into the void.
I whispered into the darkness that would keep my secrets. My hopes. My waking dreams that would never come true.
“Darling? Do you have any tea?” his voice asked, as his warm hand cupped my cheek. “Jesus, your fever is at 104 degrees.”
“Eoghan?” I whispered, not sure how he was in my house. “Eoghan, please…”
“Everything is going to be fine.” The voice was Irish. I knew it. Or maybe I felt it? I wasn’t sure.
Hands touched my hair, my forehead… my lips.
I knew that touch. “Don’t hurt us.”
I had thought a thousand different ways that Eoghan would find me. What would I say? And every time, I had come to my knees and begged for his mercy. And even in my head, he had granted it freely. Or he’d tell me that he’d long forgotten me, and was only there to take his son and heir.
That I was nothing, and that broke me every time.
“I miss you,” I whispered the sad truth of my existence.
I missed my husband. I missed him so much it hurt. I would have him quit the Mafia and run away with us if I could.
“You’re okay, love. You’re okay.” That was what Eoghan kept saying, and I believed him with every fiber of my being. Because Eoghan, the monster that he was, only ever told me the truth.
“I’m sorry.” I said it because I owed him some truth, even if he’d never hear it.
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
But he’d never leave Green Fields Enterprises behind. He’d always be a Mafia Monster.
And we were always fated to be a tragedy.
“I love you.” I gave the words life the moment they were uttered.
“I know, sweet muse.” The Eoghan of my dreams whispered gently into my ear.