Chapter Twenty-Six
Juniper
“Can I get anything for you, dear?”
The bed-and-breakfast owner doesn’t know what to do with me. I declined any offers of tea or coffee or food, and when she gave the gentlest reminder of my checkout time, I handed her my credit card to pay for another night. My flight was supposed to depart tonight, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Not with all the damage I’ve caused.
But neither Aidan nor Cara will answer my calls or messages, so I’m at a loss.
Lis has acted as my personal assistant and rescheduled my departure. She’s an angel. Lis said she doesn’t understand, but she respects my desire to wallow and lick my wounds. Beyond that, though, she’s threatened to come out here and drag me onto the next plane herself.
Another light tap on the door pulls me from my trance.
“Thank you, Mrs. Doyle, but I’m fine, really.”
“June?” The voice is soft and kind. “It’s Evvie. May I come in?”
I smooth out some stray strands of hair on my way to the bedroom entrance and catch sight of myself in the mirror. My eyes have puffed up to the size of grapefruits and my nose is red from rubbing tissues on it.
When I see Evvie standing there, fists clasped in front of her body and eyebrows scrunched together in concern, something inside of me snaps. All of the worry and stress and melancholy of the last two weeks pour out of me in the form of hot tears and runny mucus. Evvie wraps me up like a delicate flower she adores, and we stay that way for a few minutes until my sobbing subsides.
“I’m so sorry, love,” Evvie whispers into my ear. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“It’s my fault.”
She can take responsibility for her somewhat ill-advised guidance, but I can’t blame her. Evvie didn’t make me do anything against my will. I did this, not her.
“I feel terrible,” Evvie says, “because I asked you to continue the lie.”
We settle onto the bed, with me lying down while Evvie perches on the edge. “Here.” I pull the photograph of Cara’s father from the depths of a notebook, and the act is like pulling a knife from my abdomen. “Don’t need this anymore.”
“Oh, love. I—”
“The photographer got photos at the wedding? Ones without me, right?”
“He did.”
“Good. Cara hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s confused and hurt, but any of her anger, well, most of that’s directed at me, and rightly so.” Based on the hesitancy in her voice and the way she keeps rubbing her palms together, they must have had a nasty argument. “You were making the most caring choice.”
“I should have told her sooner. No, I wish I’d gotten the results sooner. Then I wouldn’t have traveled here.” I swallow to keep another breakdown at bay. “Doesn’t matter. Thank you for coming. Cara won’t pick up. Aidan won’t pick up. What a stupid choice to stay here, but I…I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t. I don’t know why.”
I fiddle with a decorative tassel on one pillow and sigh. At least I’ve reached the point where tears won’t come—I’ve cried my quota for a long, long while. Evvie clicks her tongue and rubs my arm up and down.
“I think you do,” she says. “You need to talk to her.”
“How?”
“Have you tried leaving this room?”
I glare at her, wondering where the soft, sweet Evvie went. “I’m not in the mood for tough love.”
She takes one of my hands in hers and holds it tight. “I’m sorry for what’s happened. And I’m partly responsible—you can’t say otherwise. I need to help you make it right, so you must talk to Cara. She’s hurting as much as you. And listen to me when I say this, people make mistakes. But it’s what you do after that mistake that matters. You have to try.”
Mrs. Doyle appears with a tray of teas and cookies. She clearly wants to snoop—she loiters longer than necessary for someone intending to drop off a small afternoon snack. With a polite smile directed my way, she closes the door behind us. Not knowing what is going on must be killing her, though, and when I mention this to Evvie, we giggle despite ourselves.
“You and Cara together remind me of me and my sister.” She grins, and that fills me with enough warmth that I can’t help but do the same. “Nola and I were so close growing up. Borrowing clothes from each other. Doing each other’s hair. Staying up late and talking ’bout boys. But for a while, when we were in our twenties, we fell out. Barely spoke for years after.”
“At the wedding, you both seemed so…I don’t know. You’re like best friends.”
“We are, but we’ve had rough times. As we’ve gotten older and had kids, the tension calmed down between us. But we once had the biggest fight. Horrible. Said words we couldn’t ever take back, too.” She traces the floral pattern on the comforter with her forefinger. “Save for an odd call on the holidays, we didn’t talk.”
“What changed?”
“That’s the thing. A few years go by, we’re enduring a holiday dinner together, and my da locks us in a room and says we need to sort ourselves out or no Christmas pie for us. At first, we didn’t acknowledge each other. But when we finally got to talking, we realized how small our problems with each other were compared with how much we loved each other.”
“Cara won’t ever forgive me for this.” The immediate sting of my actions might go away one day, but not for months. Years. Maybe never. “What I did is pretty hard to salvage.”
Both with Cara and Aidan.
“We also don’t have an entire lifetime of memories together like you and your sister,” I continue. “She’ll be happy to get me out of her life as quickly as I arrived.”
“No. I know her. She’s upset, the way she found out and all. But she wants to talk to you. She’ll listen.” Evvie pats my leg and offers a regretful shadow of a smile. “Perhaps you don’t believe me or don’t trust I know her best interests after this, but—”
“That’s not it.” My chest aches to hear the doubt dripping off each of Evvie’s words. I grip her hand and squeeze, guiding her attention to my face. “You wanted the best for her. You’re a good mom. Anyone would be lucky to have you as their mom.”
Her eyes glisten as some tears form. “I don’t make the right choices all the time, though. And you, you’ve been good for her. You came into her life when she needed a friend, and you treated her even better than that. Like a sister. I’d hate to see that all go away.”
Cara welcomed me like her own flesh and blood the moment I stepped into the restaurant. I basked in the glory of having a family and let her right past my defenses as a close girlfriend and a sister. As someone to confide in and get close to and love.
She loved me being here too.
“Okay,” I say, bracing myself with a deep breath. “So what do I do? Unless you’re going to lock us up and threaten us with Christmas pie, I don’t see how I’ll get her to listen to me.”
Evvie tuts and waves at me. “You don’t need to wait for me or anyone else to get the two of you in a room together. Don’t waste time like I did.” She strokes my cheek and plants a doting kiss on my forehead, and I feel like the child this bedroom belongs to. “You became close in a way where time didn’t really matter, wouldn’t you say?”
Lis and Aidan said the same thing—that sometimes those brief relationships can mean the most. But it’s up to me now if I’m going to let that all slip into the past, or if I’ll try to save us.
“Sooner than you’re ready, talk to her. And talk to him, too.”
The mention of Aidan makes my cheeks heat to a thousand degrees.
“I watched that lad grow up, and I’ve never seen him as happy as these last couple of weeks.”
“What should I say?”
“The truth.”
I manage a weak smile, and when she opens her arms, I fall into them. “Thank you for everything.”
“Of course, dear.” She pats me on the back. “You always have a home, and a family, here in Ballygrá.”
“We’re closed.” Cara points to the sign in the window and arches an eyebrow at me.
“Can we talk?”
“Talk?”
“Um. Yes?”
“Alright, then,” Cara declares, leaving the cafe door open enough to poke her head out and not an inch more. “Talk.”
After my conversation with Evvie, I sank into the bed to pity myself some more and ponder her advice. She wants to talk to you. She’ll listen. My intuition believes her, but Cara’s expression full of disdain tells me otherwise.
But I have to try, and this is my only chance. I brace myself against a gust of wind, crossing my arms for warmth. The sky spits rain onto my face.
“Can I come inside? I feel awful, and—”
“You should.”
“I do. Please.”
“Don’t you have a flight to catch?”
“Talking to you is more important.”
“Well, I’m working.”
“I can help.”
Cara thinks this over, and much to my relief, she makes room for me to scoot inside. “Fine. Got some deliveries yesterday that I need to put away and I’m behind.”
The lingering scent of cinnamon and butter doesn’t relax me, but at least I’m here. I’m inside. She’s willing to be in the same room as me, so maybe she’s willing to listen. Evvie texted that Cara would stay late at the restaurant playing catch-up with work, but she didn’t push beyond that. She’d made her case earlier, and she left the final decision up to me.
Cara ushers me to the inventory closet, and I follow obediently, two steps behind. Stacks of boxes litter the floor. I tiptoe around a few packages, some of them already sliced open to reveal their contents: napkins, condiments, and cleaning sprays. She sets a box cutter in front of me and points to some discarded cardboard.
“Break those down.”
“You’ve got every right to be mad at me.”
“I don’t need your permission to be upset,” Cara snaps. I wish with all my might that we could go back to how we were before—friends, almost sisters. But we can’t. We can only move forward, and I’m going to have to push us there with all my strength.
Cara jams some rolls of paper towels onto a wobbling shelf, and while she doesn’t speak, her jerky, rapid movements tell me all I need to know. She’s furious, but she’s also in pain. I see myself in her—the kind of person who pushes others away when they’re hurting.
“I was going to talk to you about the call from the lab.”
She flashes me a look that says I don’t believe you .
“At first, they didn’t have any answers,” I go on. “They wouldn’t until I tested again, so I sort of hoped the lab was just going through a formality and we would be fine. And with the wedding and—”
“Your article?”
“Yes, with that too, I pushed the other outcome from my mind. When I thought about mentioning it, the time never seemed right.” I channel the frustration with myself into slicing through some of the tape and dismantling the boxes.
“I had a right to know too. We were matched falsely, both of us.”
“You did.” My hands tremble from the nerves, and I steady myself with a breath. “I clung to the dream scenario, and I just couldn’t let go and face the truth. I told myself it was to make your life easier, and at first, it was. Had everything come back normal, we would have had a good laugh about it. But then…it was like I dug a hole for myself and couldn’t climb out.” I sheath the box cutter and reach into my pocket. The paper I retrieve has a few fresh crinkles that clash with some of the more worn ones—spots where the note creased open and closed and open again. “I’m sorry for everything. For not being honest, for the way you found out. But,” I say, offering the sheet to Cara, “I meant this. Every word.”
She unfolds the note, and her entire face softens when she registers that I’ve given her the maid of honor speech. Her mouth quirks in an almost-smile, but she doesn’t grant me its full radiance yet. She folds the paper and looks up at me like she’s deciding whether to toss me to the curb or hug me. “That was a real shite thing to do,” she says. “You made me feel like such an eejit. I let you into my life without question. So desperate to have good friends again, and a half sister?” Her bottom lip shakes. “I guess I hoped it would be true too. So much that I overlooked how you and I don’t look alike.”
“Not even close,” I say with a rueful laugh.
“And Mam knowing about it too. That hurt.”
“She was looking out for you.”
“I wish you’d been honest.” She rests a hand on one shelf and cocks her hip.
“Me too.” I swallow so loud I swear the sound echoes. “But I care about you. I love you,” I say, and my cheeks warm at the vulnerable confession. “As a sister, even if I’m not. And as a friend.”
She absorbs what I’ve said, breathes in and out, and then exits the room. My chest deflates. More hot tears build up, and I swallow back a sob as I grab my jacket. What I did to Cara has made our relationship irreparable, and I need to get out of here before I collapse.
As I race toward the door, Cara reappears with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“W-what’s this for?” I ask, wiping at my eyes as she pours me some, the ruby liquid swirling in the glass.
“For friends. For sisters.”
My mouth hangs open in wonder. We aren’t unsalvageable. That dream scenario could be mine.
“Love you too,” she says, clinking her glass against mine. “And there’s no limit to the people I love, remember?”
I barrel into her with a hug, sloshing some wine out of my glass. “Thank you,” I mutter into her hair.
During one of our first conversations, we sat in a booth at McCarthy’s Pub, and she told me this. Cara doesn’t throw those words around as an affirmation when the mood strikes—they represent her and how she lives. She opens herself up to people completely. She gives second chances. We’ll need some time until we’re back where we were before, but we can start building back at least.
So we start. We laugh and put inventory away and drink and cry because we laugh so hard. I tell her how I’m not sure what’s in store when I return home and walk into The Edge , and how it’s the first time in my life I’ve thought of doing a job at any other publication or living in any other city. She makes me promise not to leave New York until she’s at least gotten to visit for New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Cara tells me all about the minimoon as she swoons, recalling, with that sparkly kind of newlywed bliss, all of the fine details—the boutique cliffside hotel and the starry night skies.
“And what about you and your grand tour?” Cara asks.
“I shouldn’t have gone. Add that to my list of bad ideas.”
Cara and I sit on the floor of the inventory room, buzzed and struggling to clean up the rest of the empty packaging. She taps my foot with her own.
“As your friend, and as his, you should do something about that.”
I hide behind my hands. “Oh god, I violated some kind of girl code, didn’t I? Sleeping with your closest guy friend.”
“Please. I’d never let a man come between us. Even Aidan, who I adore. I’m not his keeper, so if he goes and falls in love with some crazy American girl, then he can. Honestly, he should. I think people should always choose love.”
My posture tightens at the mention of the L-word. Of course, it was too soon for love with the two of us, but maybe we could have gotten there one day.
“But you hurt him. Danny’s got a serious thing for you.”
“Not anymore.” I down the rest of my wine and snatch up the bottle for more.
“How he feels won’t disappear overnight. He and I have been friends for ages, and when he’s got it bad for someone…” She swirls the remainder of the wine in her glass, looking at it like it’s a crystal ball. “Can I make a confession?”
“Sure.”
“I found the air bed a couple days after you arrived. I didn’t mention it because you two seemed cute together.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Sneaky.”
“Forgive me.”
“C’mon.” I dismiss her with a wave of my hand. “You don’t need to ask forgiveness for that.”
“I don’t mean for the mattress.” She flashes a scheming grin before swallowing the rest of her wine.
The front doorbell jingles, and an all too familiar voice calls out for Cara. “Back here!” she yells. My world moves in slow motion as the steady sound of footsteps nears.
“Sorry, took longer than expected. I—” He stops in his tracks at the sight of me. “What’re you doing here?”
Aidan has stolen my breath by showing up and walking in the room. His hair appears slightly roughed up, and some end-of-day stubble has grown in. He looks weary, which I’m a little happy to notice. That means he hasn’t been living his best life since yesterday.
But that’s because of me. Because I’m the last person on the planet he wants to see.
“I’m, uh, on a grand apology tour,” I say, letting out a self-conscious chuckle.
He doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t ask questions, but Cara skates around the awkwardness. She shoos us both out of the back room and says she’ll finish putting items away in the morning. We walk outside and wait for her to lock the front door.
“You’re heading that way, aren’t you?” she asks me in a cheerful voice. “Drop by the cafe tomorrow before you head off, yeah? Say goodbye properly.” She hugs me and kisses me on the cheek. “Danny, can you walk June home? I can’t keep Yaz waiting any longer.”
This was apparently not a request but a demand, because Cara jets off on her two feet before Aidan has the chance to say no.
He looks at me in the dim light of the street lamp for the first time since he showed up, and I see the betrayal reflected back. Neither of us moves, but I wish I could reach out and hold him with my whole being. I’ve missed him in the last twenty-four hours—the kind of longing for someone that overflows, like my feelings are a faucet that won’t turn off. I don’t know what comes next for us, and the uncertainty makes me sick to my stomach.
“Your room decent?” he asks, avoiding eye contact with me.
“Yeah. Very pink.”
He nods.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice straining.
“You’ve already said that.”
“And I’ll keep saying it if the apology will bring me back to you somehow.” I take a tentative step toward him and could scream with happiness when he doesn’t retreat. As I grab his hand, the sensation of his skin is electric. My thumb travels over the hills and valleys of his knuckles. “I hated the thought of losing you, but what I did made me lose you. If you would give me a second chance…at anything? Friends? Or people who text occasionally?” I let out a halfhearted laugh at my own words, but they don’t prompt any response from Aidan. “I’ll take you any way I can get you. My life is better with you. I’m better with you.”
Aidan stares at where our hands are clasped together, and my heart beats a million times a minute. As he processes what I’ve said, I silently make every offering possible to the universe. Please. Please give me this one thing.
“I want to.” Aidan clears his throat and gives my hand an apathetic squeeze. “Everyone in my life’s weighing in with their own opinions, and Cara’s made up with you, and maybe I should too.” He shakes his head and releases my hand, sucking the breath from my lungs. “But I can’t. I’ve so much going on right now with my folks. Maybe school, too, I don’t know. You’ve really…I need to focus on me, and I know how I am with you. Not focused. Not thinking clear. I have to worry about what I need and what I want.”
“And you don’t want me?”
“Christ.” He runs a rough hand through his hair. His sad eyes meet mine. “Not like this. I’ve been lied to before, and we have to start again from the beginning, and I…I just don’t see how that’s supposed to work with us. What, with you in New York and me here?”
“We can text. Call. Or FaceTime.”
“June.” He sighs, and I know I’ve lost him.
“Okay,” I say, withdrawing as I wipe away the hot tears trailing down my cheeks. As I turn, all I want is to put as much distance between him and me as my feet will allow.
“Let me make sure you get back safe.”
“I’ll be fine,” I call out, even though I am anything but fine.
“Goodbye,” he calls out, and in between my heavy steps, my heart breaks.