The other side of now, p.21
The Other Side of Now, page 21
I think about all the pictures in my phone that I’ve saved of him. The snippets and notes and tickets in that box I found in the closet, things I have a feeling are related to times with Cillian.
“My mom said I borrowed money from her for a ticket. A plane ticket to LA.”
He looks at me as the blood leaves his face. “When?”
“It was for last Thursday. Which is the same night I arrived here. I think whatever happened … I think it happened because I was coming here and then your Meg … I think she was going there.”
He gives a small shake of the head. “That’s a mindfuck.”
“Tell me about it. Why do you think your Meg finally tried to leave?” I ask.
Something passes across his face but he says nothing.
“What is it?” I say.
Finally, he says, “I think it’ll be because of the proposal.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“The—what?” I prompt.
“Don’t make me say it again.”
There’s a long silence between us as my mind reels.
“You … proposed to me?” I feel like I’m falling at top speed down a water slide.
“Yes,” he says.
“Did…” I nonverbally communicate the question.
“You said a lot of nonsense words, turned as scarlet as a radish, and then said you had to think.”
My mouth hangs open. “When was this?”
“Meg.” He gives me a look.
“What?”
“If you really don’t remember, then you should really be in hospital.”
“Please tell me.”
He leans forward and sets his beer down. His next words are said with patience, but I can tell that it’s hard for him to truly believe I need this told to me.
“Few days ago. Then you told me you needed to have a big life and that you were sorry. You made yourself scarce, and the next thing I knew you came in acting like nothing had happened the other night.”
“When … when I couldn’t find my phone? And you made me soup and a sandwich?”
Aka, my first night in this reality?
“Yep.”
The cringe is bone shattering. I rejected this guy’s proposal and then, as far as he must have known, just showed up at his work. His family pub. I cringe even harder remembering that I’d said something like Why are you acting like you know me? that night. To him, that must have sounded so harsh.
“Why would I say no? To you.”
“Well. Dunno exactly. You love me.” He looks bashful. “You do, by the way.”
I flush. “I had a feeling.”
He lets that sit between us as our eyes stay locked for a few seconds too long. I feel myself go hot all over.
“But you felt like marriage would trap you into a life you weren’t sure you wanted. I don’t know where you got this black-and-white thinking,” he says. “I’ve tried to tell you there’s more than this or that. Not that I’m trying to explain to you how you should feel. But I’ve made it clear that I would make any compromise for you. Sometimes you get so binary on things.”
His accent lends such a gentle lilt to everything he’s saying. The word you comes out like ya or ye. When he says my name, there’s a different emphasis on it, one I’ve never heard. Even Kiera says it differently.
“This is awful,” I say. “So I guess I rejected your proposal”—the word sounds unfamiliar on my tongue, unowned by me—“and then freaked out and tried to go after the other thing I thought I wanted.”
“I guess so.”
“Wow.”
We drink our beers in silence for a moment.
I have always felt afraid I’d never find someone to love enough to really be with. Why does it feel like, with Cillian, I could be that open? Like he’d only love me more for any love I’d show. Kiera too, now that I think about it. I can just tell.
The friends I do have in LA are all snarky. We make fun of the same things. We roll our eyes at the same people. We don’t connect on anything real. I always thought that was fine, feeling like any more authenticity would be a drag. Like if I got real, it would be tragic and dull. Forced. Keeping things light seemed better.
But here, I’m having connection and it still feels light. It feels simply good.
“So, I think that’s why you broke up with me. If I had to guess. World closing in on you.”
“I’ve never been proposed to. You know, if I’m honest, I have … these feelings for you that I can’t quite figure out. And I feel like a fraud, because this isn’t actually my life. Even if no one truly believes me, even if you want to but you can’t completely. I know this isn’t my life, but I am so drawn to you. And to Kiera. Not in the same way.”
He gives a small laugh at the delineation. “You’re not a fraud.”
I let out a deep, unsteady breath. “I never feel like this. Ever.”
He stares at me, that muscle going in his jaw again, and I breathe through a chill of desire.
“Me neither.”
I actually shouldn’t be as mystified as I am by how badly I want Cillian. I’ve had one-night stands with less context. It’s the intensity of the desire that’s surprising, because I’ve always felt more apathetic than I’ve wanted to in the past. It’s also the fact that it’s more than mere desire.
Whatever I feel for him has a heavy base to it. It’s kind of like the first time I held an Academy Award. I never won one, of course, but I’ve held one and those fuckers are heavy. Nothing like the hollow, plastic trophies given to every participant in my recreational basketball league when I was a kid. An Oscar is dense, heavy, and hard to knock over.
Like that, there’s an unexpected solidity, a satisfying density to how I feel about Cillian. All the fakes before the real thing have been hollow and the seams have shown. The real thing is undeniable.
So how has this other version of me managed to let him go? Is it simply the shameful fact that she knows he loves her so much that she cannot truly lose him, so she risks it and pushes him away, not believing he’ll go? And then it got messy, messy, messy?
I know that no matter how much someone loves you and you love them, there’s no guarantee that they will always be there. And I guess the version of me who didn’t lose her best friend in a horrible car wreck hasn’t learned that lesson. Takes relationships like these for granted. Whereas in real life, I just don’t build them at all.
I can’t help but notice that she, unscarred by grief and massive loss, has also managed to forge new relationships better than I have. I don’t even have any to take for granted, so informed by that one big loss that I’d rather have nothing than risk having something and losing it.
“What do you think of your life here, then?” asks Cillian, tossing another log on the fire; maybe he’s not ready for the night to end either.
“Um…”
“Ah, you hate it.”
“No, I don’t!” I say, meaning it. “The opposite. It’s that it’s a little hard to admit, because I keep hearing about how the Meg you all know seems to resent all this and it sounds like that version of me wishes she had my life. So it feels like it’d be a little rich coming from this version of me to envy this life.” I make a face about how confusing it all is. “It makes me feel like my soul is destined to stay on an endless, ridiculous cycle of thinking the grass is always greener.”
“But what do you think of it?”
I take a sip of my beer. “Well … I love it here. I wish I could see it covered in snow. I feel like I’d rather experience a million blustery days here than a million sunny days in LA. And that’s coming from me, who hates the cold.”
He nods and doesn’t say I know, but I understand that he does.
I go on. “I think it seems nice to know the people in town. I think the job at the shop sounds like fun. Earlier, upstairs, I had this image of us sitting up there together eating carryout and…” I trail off, feeling suddenly shy. “Seemed nice.”
“We’ve done that a lot,” he says. “And you’re right. It is nice.”
He gives me a kind little smile and I return it, feeling a flutter in my chest.
“I think the whole thing sounds”—I look for the word that really means what I want it to, and land on—“enchanting. Even the part where I never do anything more … I don’t know … important. Like living could be enough.”
My cheeks get hot.
“Are you not happy in your other life then?” he asks. “Being a celebrity?”
I can see that he’s still, understandably, struggling with the fact that it’s what I truly believe. It’s like dealing with someone with dementia, where you kind of have to play into the reality they live in. Or a kid who insists their imaginary friend exists and is named Paul. You say, Okay, sweetie, does Paul think you should have your entire fist in your mouth while you walk down the staircase?
In fact, for Cillian and Kiera, it’s probably exactly like that.
“Um.” I furrow my brow in thought, genuinely having to hunt for the answer. “Look, the thing is, I don’t want to sound like a nihilist. Like, ‘Oh, in any given world I’m miserable.’”
“You’re not miserable,” he says. “You’re hunting for something.”
No one says things like this to me in my real life, but I have the feeling that it’s because I’m not asking. When you’re a celebrity, people rarely want to tell you no. How do you think Michael Jackson went as far as he did with plastic surgery? How did Kim Kardashian get away with wearing that Marilyn Monroe dress? Who lets Johnny Depp out of the house looking like he does? Or, honestly, who lets him out of the house period?
He used to be so hot.
Not the point.
The point is that people stopped telling me no as soon as I became a household name. The glam squad who comes over to my house does nothing but gas me up, telling me how gorgeous and perfect I am. My personal assistant, Lisa Michele, might not listen to me all that well, but it’s not because she’s honest and real. She’s just kind of an asshole. As for my parents, I mean, they love me. And they’re never getting the full story.
And when I first moved to LA, no one knew the real me enough to keep me in check with myself.
In this world, this other version of me is lost. But it doesn’t sound like she’s taking much input either. It’s easy for me to see that she has a massive wall up.
I let that sink in for a few seconds and then say, “It’s probably the same in my life. I guess I never really thought about it. I was so driven to claim my success, and I got it. And it’s not like I was moping around like a poor little rich girl. I get that it’s good! I like good champagne. I get massages all the time. I’ve met Cary Grant’s daughter. Gwyneth Paltrow sent me a vagina candle once.”
“Never thought I’d hear Cary Grant and vagina candle in such close proximity.”
“That’s Hollywood, baby.”
He laughs, and I admire his smile yet again. Getting back on track, I say, “What I’m trying to say is that I have a good life. But I’m not happy. And I think I’m scared.”
“What of?”
I consider, staring at the red-hot wood in the fireplace and letting my thumb rub against the cold of the glass. I want to tell him everything, to have no secrets from him. But I don’t. I tell him some of it.
“Of getting what I wanted so badly and then losing it. Growing old. Becoming weird looking after one plastic surgery too many. Public humiliation. Becoming a cautionary tale. Getting canceled because I say something I don’t know is wrong. It makes me sad to hear that this version of me isn’t content, because it seems to me like she has everything.”
“Maybe she’s in your life like you’re in hers, and she’s loving it. Probably is.”
He takes a deep swig and I sit straight up.
“I had that same thought. How fucked up is that?”
The last log breaks in half, crisped nearly to charcoal with its webbing of red-hot fire within it. I already know he’s going to call it the end of the night.
“Can I walk you home?” he asks.
“Yeah, that would be great,” I say. “I suppose you want Maureen back.”
“I’ll be taking her back, yes. I wondered why you didn’t bring her today. She loves a good party.”
“Sorry about that,” I say. “Kiera did let her out tonight and took her for a walk in the rain. She’ll probably stink when we get back to her.”
“That’s all right.”
We clean everything up, he puts out the fire, and then he hands me a wad of cash.
“Oh, no,” I say. “I couldn’t.”
“Take it,” he says. “You need the money.”
“Right.” I take it, slowly. “Guess you’re right.”
“Plus, you earned it. Couldn’t have done tonight without you.”
“Thanks.”
I grab the sweatshirt from under the bar and pull it on, feeling deeply cozy in its soft fleece. Cillian turns everything off but that one light in the corner. I get the impression it’s always on, which comforts me. At the door, I find my body close to his as he holds it open for me to go ahead of him. He smells like a hint of the most intoxicating sweat I’ve ever smelled.
It’s stopped raining, but the temperature has dropped considerably.
“What do you want in life?” I ask, feeling rude for not having asked sooner.
“I’m pretty happy,” he says. “I love the pub. I like the hours; I’m a night owl. I like the folks around here. I want to travel more, but I haven’t. Not much, anyway—some with you when you travel for the store. But not enough. I tell you no too much, I think.”
I look at him. I’m not sure what to say, but I’m touched that he’s identified a problem in his own behavior. Guys so often don’t. People so often don’t.
I mean, one need look no further than both versions of me. And how many versions of me are out there? Is it infinite? Are all versions of me this restless?
God, I hope not. Like a whiny Everything Everywhere All at Once.
He goes on. “I keep pouring my money into upgrades for the pub. It needed all new plumbing and electric not too long ago, so that cost a pretty penny.”
“Nothing missing in your life then, except kitchen upgrades?”
His elbow grazes mine, and he says, “I think you know what I’d say to that.”
I do, and my heart feels so big it might explode. “I guess I do.”
We get to the front door, and I hear Maureen barking inside.
“We’re coming, we’re coming,” I say.
I find the key and open the door. Maureen jumps around, positively beside herself. She’s clearly over the moon to see what is, I have to guess, her two favorite people on the planet.
She’s a little damp from her earlier walk, but somehow she doesn’t reek of wet dog.
“Oh, yes, girl, I know,” Cillian says, allowing her to nuzzle against his chest as if she wants to climb directly into his heart.
I can relate.
I find the leash and hand it to him. “Sorry about the whole dognapping thing,” I say.
“It’s okay. I like that you love her so much. You ought to; you made me get her to begin with.”
“I did?”
He takes a beat.
“We got her together, really. But you were afraid of the commitment, I think. So she became mine.” We both look down at her happy little face, and he says, “It was all right with me.”
He looks back up at me and then his eyes drop down to my chest. He points and I look, expecting to find some embarrassing dribble of ketchup there or something, but instead I remember it’s his sweatshirt.
“Oh, right.” I start to pull it off.
“No, no. I just always like seeing you in my things. Probably some toxically masculine trait of mine, but”—he lifts a shoulder—“I like it.”
I put my arm back through the sleeve. “I get it. I like it too.”
We’re standing close. I can feel the heat of his body and I long to take one step closer. I want to know how his hands feel on my skin. I get chills every time I think about when he had his hand on my arm that first night. I can’t even imagine what would happen if he were to touch me for real.
“Do you want to stay?” I ask, my voice raw, loaded with a hunger for him. “I mean, even for a little while.”
His eyes flit between mine, and then drop down briefly to my lips and back again.
“Do I want to?” He gives a humorless laugh. “I’m dying to. Under the worst of circumstances, I can hardly ever say no to staying with you.”
Energy buzzes through me as I realize what might happen.
“But to you, I’m a stranger right now. I know you, but you don’t know me. Or maybe I don’t know you. I’m not sure how it works. I don’t think it would be right.”
Still, though, I feel his body move toward me a little, almost imperceptibly.
“Even if I say it’s okay?” I ask.
“Even if you say it’s what you want more than anything in the world.”
I nod. That is what I feel right now.
I crave him so much I feel like I might burst. The places on my body that I want him to touch burn cold with his absence.
“It wouldn’t be right,” he says again.
I can tell this is hard for him, which only makes it hotter.
“Okay,” I say, having trouble breathing normally.
We move toward each other. He puts his hand on the slope of my shoulder, sliding it up my neck, fingers going beneath the collar.
It sends shivers down my spine.
He bends and I shut my eyes involuntarily.
His lips land on my cheek, the stubble a little scratchy against my skin, his kiss soft and warm. He smells like the whiskey we had earlier and I know I would be able to taste it on his tongue.
Cillian pulls away. His eyes now have a love-drunk quality to them. I know he wants it as badly as I do. He’s doing the right thing. Or what he thinks is the right thing. But I want him more than I want to make good choices.
“Goodnight, Meg,” he says.
He opens the door and lets Maureen out without the leash. I stand in the doorway and watch him go. He does a sharp whistle and Maureen dashes to his heel without hesitation. Somehow, this makes me want him even more.
