1. Atara #2
I turn my phone off and look at the ticket in my hand. Atara Ross. JFK to Dublin. The logical thing to do… the Atara thing to do is to go home to my tiny apartment, crawl into bed, eat a tub of cookie dough, crying, and spend the next week deleting five years of photos. I should be mourning.
But then I think of Mark’s face. That bastard doesn’t deserve my tears. He thinks I’m a variable he’s solved and discarded? He thinks he’s the only one who gets to have a 'new phase.'?? Well fuck him. I’ll show him.
“Boarding all Group A passengers for Flight 104 to Dublin,” the gate agent announces.
I stand up. My legs feel like lead, but my brain is suddenly humming. I’m not going home to cry. If I go home, Mark wins. If I go home, I’m just the girl who got dumped on graduation night.
I smooth out my dress. It’s wrinkled, and my hair is a mess of curls that have given up the fight against the humidity. I look like a freaking disaster.
But I’m a disaster with a boarding pass and a 3.9 GPA.
“Ticket, please,” the agent says, barely looking up.
I reach into the bag and hand it over, my sash and cap falling out in the process. She pauses, finally looking at my dress, then at my face.
“Graduation?” she asks, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Today,” I try for a huge grin. “Top of the class.”
“Well, congratulations. Heading off to celebrate?”
“Something like that,” I say. “I’m going to Ireland to find my trajectory.”
She blinks, confused, but scans the pass and hands it back. “Enjoy your flight, honey.”
As I walk down the jet bridge, I toss the sash aside.
The air grows colder, smelling of jet fuel and recycled oxygen.
I find my seat, and it’s a middle seat, because, of course, Mark would book the middle seat to save fifty bucks.
I mutter a curse and slide in between a man already snoring and a woman reading a thick thriller.
I am going to Ireland, I tell myself. I am going to a resort. I am going to drink expensive whiskey and look at the ocean, and I am absolutely, 100% not going to think about Mark.
Well, I think about Mark for the next seven hours.
Ireland is grey.
Not a boring, flat grey, but a deep, moody, dramatic grey that feels like it’s matching my current mood. The wind at the Dublin airport almost knocks me over, and by the time I catch the shuttle to the resort on the western coast, I am a shell of a human being.
I’m still in the dress. I know I should change.
I have a suitcase full of sensible sweaters and leggings.
But every time I think about opening that bag, I think about how I packed it with him.
How we argued over which shoes were better for hiking.
Changing feels like admitting that the 'we' who packed that bag is dead.
So, I stay in the dress. It’s cold now. The silk is thin against the Atlantic breeze.
The resort is beautiful in a way that makes my heart ache. It’s all stone and glass, perched on the edge of cliffs that drop straight into a churning, violent sea. It’s the kind of place people come to fall in love.
Or, apparently, the kind of place you come to realize your life is a joke.
I check in, and the receptionist gives me the same ‘are-you-okay’ look the gate agent did. I tell her I’m fine and that I just love graduation gowns. She gives me my key and points toward the cliffside path.
“It’s a bit windy today, miss. Stick to the gravel,” she warns. “Your bags will be brought to your room in a few minutes.”
I don't go straight to my room yet. I can’t face the empty bed and the two sets of towels, so I decide to take a walk instead.
The path is narrow, winding along the edge of the world.
The grass is that vibrant Irish green, so beautiful even under the heavy clouds.
Below, the ocean is screaming, waves smashing against the dark rocks with a sound like thunder.
It’s vast. It’s indifferent. It doesn't care about my 3. 9 GPA or my idiot ex-boyfriend.
I like it. It’s the first time I’ve breathed properly since Mark opened his door.
I’m walking, my heels sinking into the soft earth beside the gravel, when I see a little girl, she’s small, maybe five or six years old. She’s wearing a bright yellow raincoat that stands out against the grey like a beacon. And she’s far, way too far off the path.
Oh, that’s not… that’s not good.
She’s standing near an outcrop, peering over the edge. The wind gusts, whipping her hood back, and she stumbles.
My heart stops.
“Hey!” I shout, but the wind swallows the sound.
She takes another step closer to the crumbling edge, her little hand reaching for a wildflower growing in a crevice.
I don't think. I don't care about my heels or my dress. I sprint.
The silk tears as I scramble over a low stone wall. I slide on the wet grass, my knees hitting the dirt, but I’m up in a second. I reach her just as she leans forward, her weight shifting toward the abyss.
I grab her by the waist and yank her back.
We both tumble onto the grass, away from the edge. She lets out a small yelp of surprise, but she doesn't cry. She just stares at me with wide eyes.
“Whoa, whoa,” I pant, my heart hammering against my ribs. I’m still holding her shoulders, checking her for scratches. “Okay. You’re okay. That was… that was really close, sweetie.”
She doesn't say anything. She just looks at my dress, then up at my face.
“You’re messy,” she says. Her voice is tiny but very stern.
Erhm, what?
I let out a shaky laugh, wiping a smudge of mud from my cheek. “Yeah. I’m a total disaster. But you? You can’t be out here alone. Where’s your mom? Your dad?”
She points vaguely back toward the resort. “Daddy was talking. I wanted the flower.”
“The flower isn’t worth falling into the ocean for, sweetie,” I say, crouching down so I’m at her level. I try to put on my best 'safe adult' smile, even though I probably look like a swamp monster in formalwear. “I’m Atara. What’s your name?”
“Maeve,” she says.
“Well, Maeve, you almost gave me a heart attack. Let’s get you back to—”
A shadow falls over us.
Huh.
I look up, and the breath I just managed to catch vanishes again.
Three men are striding toward us. Two of them are large, wearing dark, well-tailored suits that look out of place in the wild Irish countryside. They have the alert stance of people who are paid to erase things… or people.
But it’s the man in the middle who makes the air go still.
He’s tall. Built with a heavy, dangerous kind of grace. His hair is dark, almost as dark as the ocean below, and his eyes… they’re the color of woodsmoke and ice. Even from twenty feet away, I can feel his presence.
He’s not running, but his stride is urgent. His coat billows behind him, revealing a silver watch at his wrist.
As he gets closer, I see the tension in his jaw. He looks at Maeve, then his eyes snap to mine.
“Dada!” Maeve says with a grin.
Dada? This is her Dad?
Something shifts in my chest. A strange, sharp vibration that has nothing to do with the wind. I should be scared. I’m a girl alone on a cliff with three strange men. But instead, I want to slap someone.
He reaches us, ignoring me entirely at first. He scoops Maeve up, his hands surprisingly gentle as he checks her face, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
“Maeve. What did I tell you about running off alone?”
The girl looks down at her yellow boots. “Sorry, Daddy.”
Then, he turns those grey eyes on me. He looks me up and down, the torn teal silk, the mud on my knees, my wild hair clinging to my skin.
“You,” he says. His voice is deep, vibrating through the soles of my feet. “Who are you?”