Page 132

Half the boats in the harbor were damaged by the storms. Supplies are delayed. Everyone is looking at me. I can’t falter now. They need me. Perhaps it is selfish of me to wonder…but why has no one ever asked me what I needed?

Winter is brutal. Everything is cold. The air. The stones. The bed. Me.

The stars were out in spades last night. I wondered if there was anyone else doing as I was doing, wondering, hoping, waiting. Maybe this is my fate—to watch but never belong.

His picture still sat on my mantle right beside his pocket watch that never kept the right time. No matter how many times I wound the small dial back, it was always hours ahead a few minutes later. I thought maybe it was linked to him, permanently set to whatever time he found himself in. Eventually I stopped fighting it and I let it tick, tick, tick against the mantle.

Spring felt like possibility.

The shadows around my heart began to lift, though there were still cobwebs in the corners. Marissa and I took a girl’s trip to the beach for a week. We didn’t talk about work but we read and read and read, sunburnt and smiling.

I called in for every book club back in Ireland and when the weather broke, we started talking about trying to meet up again. An idea began to form and finally in September, a week before my one year mark of stepping foot in Ireland, I asked the ladies in the book club if they wanted to come to the launch of my next book in the city.

They’d screamed in delight, asking me how, when, why. And through my tears, I’d told them that whether they knew it or not, they helped me find the light back inside myself. Flying them out was nothing. I had money saved from my previous books that I never touched because…well…I’d barely been existing then.

I had plans to book a celebratory trip next spring when the promo and press tours died down but for them, I could afford it. I invited Tommy, too. I missed him the most out of everyone. We spoke often and I broke down back over the winter and called him, asking how I could be homesick for a place I’d never lived in.

My early copies came, the pretty green cover bringing a rush of emotion to my throat. The names and places were different, but the story was ours. Mine and Wolfe’s. I was nervous to release it. This book was a touch heavier, perhaps more real, than the others I’d already released.

I knew it was right. In my bones, in my soul. This was the right move.

I thumbed open the cover and stared at the dedication page. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to say, how I wanted to word it all. The world would never know about him—what he did for me.

A teardrop hit the page and I brushed it away, smearing moisture across the typeface.

For Wolfe, who changed everything.

Paltry words. They would never be enough, but they were true.

He changed my life in every possible way.

I spent Samhain alone, candles lit, Wolfe’s picture in my hands.

I didn’t let myself hope or dream of it, but my shoulders rounded with disappointment all the same when the space around me remained quiet. He was at peace—resting. It was enough. It had to be.

I prepared myself as best I could for the launch. I went and got my nails done, trimmed my hair, bought a new dress that matched the color of the cover and prayed to God I was strong enough to do this again. They would have questions. Reviews were already flooding in. That same old terror clawed up my throat.

I could do this.

I could do this.

My words—my story—were important.

I repeated it over and over again as I stepped into the bookstore, Marissa at my side. She was an unshakeable presence beside me and I leaned against her when I saw the crowd gathered inside.

I spotted Moira and Tommy immediately in the front row. Lisette and Bianca were beside them, then Nadine and Isadora. My heart warmed at the sight of them and I waved, catching Moira’s eye.

She beamed at me, proudly holding up her copy.

I could do this.

My friends were here. They’d come all this way for me and I wouldn’t start running now.

It was almost an hour of conversation with the microphone clutched in my sweaty grip. I kept my focus on the people in the first row, finding it much easier to answer the crowd’s questions while looking at them. The questions ranged in topic—if I spent last year in Ireland, why write about Spain? Did I ever have plans to write about Ireland? What about the next book? How difficult was it to write about anxiety?

That one nearly made me stumble, but in the end, I answered honestly.

“Not very,” I said slowly. “It’s something I deal with daily. Juliet’s struggles are a reflection of my own and I thought it might be nice to be honest, for once, about what happens in my mind.”