from me but I won’t let go. “Why are you crying? Why are you crying, Valerie?”
Her chin starts to tremble and she closes her eyes, tears spilling down but she doesn’t say anything. She lets out a soft whimper.
Something inside me starts to soar, like when I opened that owl’s cage on a night not dissimilar to this one, and watched it take flight over the trees. Flying to freedom, in the night where it belonged.
I place my hand at her cheek, feel her cold skin. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head.
“Look at me, please,” I tell her, trying to turn her face toward me.
Finally she opens her eyes and meets mine.
I already know those brilliant blue eyes so well.
I know what she’s hiding.
She’s hiding her hurt.
I hurt her back there.
I hurt her because she thinks I didn’t mean a word that I said.
She thinks I’m playing with her heart when I’m doing anything but.
“Valerie,” I whisper to her. “Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me and I’ll tell ye I love you more.”
She frowns, blinking, mouth open.
“Tell me you love me,” I say again. “I want to hear it. You’ve already heard it from me.”
She shakes her head. “Yours was a lie.”
“And what if it wasn’t? What if I meant what I said?”
“But you didn’t.”
“And how do ye know that?”
“Because … it’s all fake.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Nothing is fake anymore. So, maybe the engagement isn’t real and I know I’m keeping things from my family, but nothing is fake. My feelings for you aren’t fake. They are very, terribly real. You are the pulse of my heart, darlin’, and my heart won’t beat without you.” I take in a deep breath, that soaring feeling intensifying as I gaze into her eyes. I smile. “I’m so in love with ye, it hurts me.”
She stares at me for a moment, her eyes searching mine in a wild race for the truth. Then her features crumble and a smile spreads across her face, because she knows. “You love me?”
“With all my heart.”
She laughs, soft and hopeful and so damn beautiful. “So everything you said …”
“Wasn’t a lie. Not even close. Couldn’t ye tell? I’m not that good an actor.”
“I didn’t know, I was too afraid to believe it. I was too afraid …”
“And are ye afraid now?”
She looks up above her at the moonlight and the skeletal branches of the trees. “I guess I should be for being out here in the woods.”
I stare at her for a moment before I kiss her. “Tell me you love me and I’ll tell you I love you more.”
She smiles against my mouth. “I love you.”
And there I go again, my heart flying out of my chest and soaring to the heavens.
“Tell me again.”
“I love you.”
I pull her into an embrace, my arms wrapped around her, my chin resting on her head. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots beneath the moon.
“And I love you more.”
18
Valerie
It’s a curious feeling to be undeniably and inexplicably happy amidst so much pain and grief, but that’s currently the life I’m living.
A few days ago we had our engagement party.
Colin gave Padraig the ring.
Then Padraig got down on one knee and proposed.
I figured it was for show.
I think I would have held it together enough if he had made it short and sweet but even then, I knew that the moment I would have to say yes would have been too hard. I’m not sure I could have lied in front of everyone like that. It felt like saying yes was sealing a deal and since it was all based on a lie, it felt like blasphemy to do it with that particular ring.
But he didn’t even get that far because he started to tell me all the things I wanted to hear, all the things I feel myself.
That he loved me.
And the fact that it was a lie was too much to bear.
What made it worse was the truth in his eyes, the meaning and emotion behind the words. I couldn’t tell what was real anymore and if I thought this lie could be, what else have I been fooled by?
I just couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t handle it, couldn’t lie. It wasn’t just about everyone else, it was about myself. I couldn’t lie to myself for one minute longer.
So I ran. I should have just stayed there and dealt with the charade like I’d been doing this month but this time it went