He took the one she offered and she kept the other for herself. Then she looked at me. “You should go home, Nora. Get some rest. I can take it from here.”
Oh, I bet you can!
I tried my best to mask my reaction because now was definitely not the time for a jealous hissy fit. “I can stay.”
“You look like you haven’t slept in days,” Laine said, like she actually cared about my well-being. “Aidan, tell her to get some sleep.”
Aidan took a swig of whisky and shot me a look out of his deadened eyes. “It’s fine, Pixie. Go home, get some rest.”
Confused, I could only stare at him as he reached for the bottle to pour himself a fresh glass. Was I being politely dismissed by him too? Did he really not want me here? Was I an idiot to think he’d need me over a woman he’d been friends with for years?
I wanted to make sure Aidan was okay, but I also didn’t want to stay where I wasn’t wanted. “I can stay if you need me. I’m fine, really.”
“I plan on drinking this fucking miserable day to an end,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You don’t need to see that. Go home.”
My pride pricked, I immediately slipped off the stool beside him. Fine. If he didn’t need me, if he felt like he could unravel with Laine but not with me, let him. Whatever he needed. I wasn’t sticking around, feeling like an unwanted little girl.
She didn’t even offer me a glass of whisky. Like I wasn’t legal.
So I gathered my things, put on my coat and boots, and left his apartment without giving Laine the satisfaction of looking back.
Just as I stepped out of his building and tears of frustration threatened to escape, my phone rang. It was Seonaid again. I cleared my throat, not wanting her to hear I was upset. “Everything okay?”
“That’s what I was calling to ask. I wanted to check in. See how Aidan’s doing?”
I smiled grimly, thinking sometimes I failed to appreciate what a great person Jim’s sister was. “Uh … well … I think I was practically kicked out.”
“What?” she snapped.
Her instant anger on my behalf was gratifying. “His friend Laine … she turned up, got out the whisky, and made it clear it was time for the grown-ups to be on their own. Aidan’s too fucked-up to care. He told me to leave, to go home, get some rest. I don’t know if he meant it or if he wanted me gone too.”
“No, Nora, I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you now?”
“Just leaving. I’m going to find a bus.”
“Okay. Well, let me know when you get home.”
As it turned out, I didn’t need to let Seonaid know when I got home because she was already there waiting for me. At the sight of her standing outside my door, everything I’d been holding back for Aidan’s sake burst forth. My friend wrapped me in her arms and somehow managed to get my key out of my purse and get us into the flat while she hugged me.
“Oh, babe …” She settled me on the sofa and bustled around in my kitchen, putting the kettle on. “I’m so sorry. I know how fond you are of Sylvie.”
“I didn’t even get to hold her, to hug her or tell her goodbye!”
Seonaid flew back to my side to hold me until finally, after what felt like forever, I had no more tears inside me. Eventually, I curled up in the corner of the sofa with a mug of tea in my hands and I whispered, “I feel weary, Seonaid. I’m only twenty-two and I feel so goddamn weary.”
Seonaid studied me thoughtfully. Her next words shocked the hell out of me. “Maybe if you stopped punishing yourself for crimes you didn’t commit, you wouldn’t feel so bloody weary.”
I gaped at her. “What?”
“Don’t you think I know why you started volunteering at the hospital, why you avoided me and Mum and even Roddy for so long? I mean, if it hadn’t been for me, you would probably have stopped talking to us altogether.”
Stunned, I opened my mouth but I wasn’t sure what to say. To deny it would’ve been to lie to her, and she deserved better than that.
Seonaid leaned toward me, her kindness shining out of her eyes. “I know you didn’t love Jim the way he loved you. He knew it too. We spoke about it. You were a kid. You made a mistake marrying him, but you didn’t intend for it to be a mistake. And you can’t go on punishing yourself for that. I loved my brother, dearly, but he loved you selfishly, Nora. He wanted to keep you all to himself, and that was a disaster waiting to happen. But you … you, babe, can rest assured that even knowing you didn’t love him the way he loved you, you gave my brother some of the happiest years of his short life.”
Tears slipped quietly down her pretty face and she gave me a sad smile. “If you’re punishing yourself for that, stop. Do you honestly think if you were this horrible person who ruined my brother’s life that I would still be here? That I would love you as much as I do?”
A sob burst out of me before I could stop it, and the tears I’d thought had dried up welled out of me again. I threw my arms around her, holding on for dear life. The relief I felt shook me to my soul, because this was Seonaid, the person Jim loved best.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, holding on to her like she was a life raft. “I’m so sorry.”
And for the second time that day, my friend soothed the grief out of me.
Sometime later, exhausted, I laid curled up on the couch, my palms beneath my head. I looked across the small space at Seonaid curled up on the opposite couch, seemingly daydreaming with glazed eyes to my wall.
“I love them,” I confessed.
Her eyes flew to mine in surprise. “Who?”
“Sylvie and Aidan.” I forced back fresh tears that threatened, tired of their salt on my skin. “I’m in love with him, Seonaid. It hurts to be this far from him while he’s going through this. It hurts so fucking much. I’ve never felt like this before. And I went into this thing with them knowing I’d get my heart broken. But I thought that was what was meant to happen. That I was supposed to help them through losing Nicky, be someone they could count on, use me up and move on from me better for it. Now my heart is breaking and I can’t stand it like I thought I could. Sylvie’s gone. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. And Aidan … this was the test, right? And he doesn’t need me. I don’t blame him because what can I offer him? I’ve nothing to offer a man like that. I’m merely some shop girl who doesn’t have the balls to get over her dead husband and pick up the pieces of her life—instead, I hang out at a children’s hospital like some pathetic widow.”
“That is enough,” Seonaid hissed, her eyes flashing angrily at me.
I flinched at the fury in her voice and slowly eased into a sitting position.
“You are not even twenty-three years old yet, Nora. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re beautiful, and you have all the time in the world to pick up the pieces of your life and make something of it. And you will. I know, deep in my gut, you will. You’re special, Nora. It’s what drew Jim to you and I’m sure it’s what captured Aidan’s attention. He’d be lucky to have you. Any man would. And he’s just had the second-worst fucking day of his life months after the worst fucking day of his life. Stop putting yourself down and be what he needs. Go back there tomorrow, this Laine bitch be damned, and remind him that you are his best friend.”
With Seonaid’s words of encouragement buoying my confidence, I headed to Aidan’s the next morning. To my frustration, it was Laine who answered the door buzzer and let me into the building.
She was waiting for me at the apartment door and I felt a flare of panic when I saw she was wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing the night before. Her makeup was washed off and although she looked tired, it was clear she didn’t need a lot of makeup anyway. Her grim, pitying expression made my panic mount.
“Come in.” She gestured me inside, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder as I stepped into the apartment.
I barely heard her close the door behind me because I was stunned by the sight in the living
room. Or rather, the lack of a sight.
All of Aidan’s music equipment, the instruments and computers, were gone.
Just gone.
The space was entirely bare.
“What’s going on?”
“Nora … I don’t know how to tell you this, and I’m sure I’m the last person you want to hear it from considering my past terrible behavior …” Laine’s sympathy made we want to scream at her to spit it out. “Aidan’s gone.”
My knees trembled, as though the floor had shifted beneath my feet. “Gone? What do you mean, he’s gone?”
Anger flickered in Laine’s eyes, frustration maybe. “Yesterday after you left, he suddenly started making arrangements to leave the country. He took a job in LA so he can be close to Sylvie, but it meant leaving early this morning.” She gestured to his space. “He managed to wrangle a company that could get his gear together last minute and he’s got someone over there looking for a place for him.”
No.
What?
I gaped at her in disbelief. The panic I’d felt earlier spread over my lungs so I was finding it hard to breathe. “He wouldn’t … he just left?” Without saying goodbye, without explaining? No.
Aidan.
The genuine sympathy in Laine’s eyes gutted me.
Shredded my insides. Or what was left of the tatters in there.
“Nora, I hope what I’m about to say will help in the long run, even if it doesn’t feel like it now. But … this would’ve happened, even if Sylvie hadn’t been a factor. Believe me. I’ve been in Aidan’s life longer than any woman and he is the ultimate bachelor. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you—I’m sure he does—but he can be a real arsehole to women. I love him but it’s the truth. He makes them all feel like his best friend, like he’s never felt anything like it before, and maybe he even believes it for a while. I think he does. But only for a while. And then he gets bored and moves on. I was surprised he was with you so long until … well,” she winced in the damned sympathy again. “He told me you two never actually slept together, which is probably why you lasted longer than any of the others. Anticipation. Like I said. He can be such a bloke.
“But one I care about. Because he’s not a bad soul. In fact, he’s a very good man, and I know you saw that in the way he was with Sylvie. So please try to forgive him, Nora. He didn’t mean to be this cruel to you.” She gestured to the empty space in the sitting room. “He just needs Sylvie more than he needs anyone else. I’m sure you can understand that.”
Feeling like I might be sick while still clinging to the hope that there had to be some kind of terrible mistake, I pushed past her, heading for the door. “When does his flight leave?”
“In about twenty minutes. You’ll never make it to the airport, if that’s what you’re thinking!” she called after me as I fled the apartment.
No, I couldn’t make it to the airport in time. I fumbled for my phone in my purse. However, I could try to stop him from getting on that flight and find out what the hell was going on in his head.
Cursing when I discovered I couldn’t get a signal on the elevator, I burst out of it as soon as it hit the ground floor and pressed the call button.
“This is Aidan Lennox. Leave a message.”
“No!” I yelled in frustration when I got his voicemail. My hands shook as I quickly shot him a text message.
Where are you? What’s happening? Is what Laine said true?
Not even a minute later, my phone buzzed.
My pulse raced when I saw it was a reply from Aidan.
I’m more sorry than I can say. But I have to be where Sylvie is. You deserve better. Goodbye, Pixie.
Somehow, and I don’t remember how, I blindly found my way home to Sighthill. And although I left little pieces of shattered me on the sidewalk and bus and roads I crossed over, it wasn’t until I got inside my flat that the howling grief blew me into tiny fragments I was afraid I’d never glue back together again.
“‘Conceal me what I am—’”
“Stop!”
I looked up from my English assignment at Quentin’s sharp direction. He glared at the small stage where Eddie and Gwyn were rehearsing the end of act one, scene two of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Eddie was playing the Sea Captain, and Gwyn was Viola. As Viola’s understudy, I should’ve been paying more attention but I was trying to finish a paper due at the end of the week. And honestly, I knew this play like the back of my hand.
Quentin glowered at Eddie. “Stop looking at her tits while she’s speaking. You’re the captain, her guide, her support! You do not perv on a young lady, you licentious hound!”
I covered my mouth to stop my snort. When I joined the Tollcross Amateur Theatre Company last September, I’d been somewhat intimidated by its quintessentially melodramatic, Welsh-born director Quentin Alexander. However, over time I’d gotten more comfortable with him, especially because he made me laugh without even trying to.
“They’re right there,” Eddie complained, gesturing to Gwyn’s rather impressive breasts. She wore a tight sweater with a low neckline showcasing her badass cleavage. “Tell her to dress more appropriately.”
Gwyn sneered at him. “You do realize everything that just came out of yer mouth is the reason feminism was born, right?”
“Man up,” Quentin snarled in his upper-crust accent that sounded more English than Welsh. “You querulous wretch. Say the line without looking at her tits or I swear to the gods of Shakespeare, I will get myself another captain.”
Licentious hound, querulous wretch. My lips trembled as I tapped my pen against them. Quentin was on fire today.
“I don’t have to take this kind of abuse,” Eddie huffed.
“Then get off my stage.”
He didn’t get off his stage. They started the scene over and I looked back down at the assignment.
“I assume you know the lines … since you’re not paying attention?” Quentin murmured. I startled to find him standing above me.
I gave him an appeasing smile. “Every single one.”
“What are you doing?” He nodded to the refurbished MacBook in my lap and the notebooks scattered on the chair beside me.
“English lit paper.”
“Well, at least it’s productive, which is more than I can say for whatever it is Amanda is doing.” He nodded behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see my fellow understudy Amanda giggling at whatever Hamish (our Sebastian) was whispering in her ear.
“I can only hope nothing happens to Jane, or this play may be the cause of a divorce,” Quentin muttered before whirling back around to pay attention to his actors on stage.
Jane was our Olivia, and Amanda her understudy. While Jane was mature, professional, and madly in love with her wife, Amanda was a senior at Edinburgh University, smart but immature, single, a self-proclaimed flirt, and she loved being the center of attention. Olivia and Sebastian were love interests in Twelfth Night. Not a problem for Jane and Hamish.
If Amanda were to take over the role, however, I wasn’t sure how that would work out for Hamish. He was fifteen years older than her, married with two kids, and apparently bored by that because the man clearly did not have the willpower to resist Amanda’s charms.
I frowned at them, shaking my head in disgust. Amanda and I didn’t exactly rub together very well. I’d watched her go through a shit ton of men since meeting her last September. A lot of them were already with someone else. It would seem that she got off on being able to capture men’s attention from their girlfriends and wives, and as soon as she’d won, she dumped them, bored.
Poor Hamish.
What an idiot.
I looked down at my laptop, thinking it shouldn’t have surprised me that joining a theater company would throw me into so much drama on stage and off.
However, it wasn’t my offstage drama, and that’s all I really cared about. My life was officially drama-free and it had been for a while now. It was exactly how I liked it.
I was content. Finally.
It hadn’t been an easy road to get here, and by God, I would hold on to what I had with everything I had.
“Okay, where’s my Valentine and Duke?” Quentin called out.
Duke Orsino was being played by Jack. He was a good-looking guy a few years older than me, medium height, athletically built with lovely dark eyes that constantly glittered with mischief. He was a flirt like Amanda, except he stayed away from attached women and he was actually more a serial monogamist than an outright player. He’d had two girlfriends since we’d met, dating each for a few months before breaking it off. While he was with a girl, he was with her, as far as I was aware, but that didn’t stop him from flirting with every breathing female in Edinburgh.
Except Amanda.
He made it obvious she irritated the hell out of him.
Jack was a car salesman but he really wanted to be an actor. He’d been an extra in movies, had small, one-off parts in TV shows—he’d even done a couple of commercials. But nothing that would pay the bills on a regular basis.
Still, he persevered and got his acting fix as a player in this company.
He’d been sitting a few chairs down from me, his legs up over the seat in front of him, ankles crossed lazily. He and Jane, our Olivia, had been sitting watching the rehearsal in between playing with their phones. Other cast members with smaller parts were scattered around the small theater, waiting for Quentin to call them up.
I shifted to the side, holding my MacBook out of the way as Jack shuffled along the aisle to get out. He smirked down at me as our bodies brushed and tapped the top of my laptop. “This is why ye’er single. Too much work and not enough play makes Nora a dull girl.”
I gestured for him to move along. “I’m single because I want to be single, Jack.”
“Oh, that’s obvious, gorgeous.” He winked as he stepped into the aisle.
“Make haste, Orsino,” Quentin snapped. “We haven’t all bloody evening.”