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Reaching up, he rubbed his chest before asking, “Was it good?”
I thought about it for a moment before saying, “No.”
He swallowed deeply. “No?”
“No,” I whispered, feeling my entire body tremble as I watched him watch me.
“Why wasn’t it good, Claire?”
“Because it wasn’t…” you. “Expected.”
“Expected.” He nodded to himself. “Okay.”
“No.” Heart aching, I stood in front of Gerard and locked my legs in place. “No, it’s not okay, Gerard.” Everything inside of me was demanding I go to him, and it was taking an inhuman amount of mental strength to stand my ground. “It’s not okay at all.”
Gerard bowed his head in defeat but didn’t say a word.
“It’s not okay,” I repeated, readjusting the towel I had wrapped around me. “Because this hurts.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice was barely more than a whisper and laced with helpless urgency. “Please don’t fucking say that, Claire.”
“This hurts me, Gerard,” I repeated, refusing to let him off the hook this time. “Your behavior is hurting me.”
“I love you,” he stated quietly. “I always have. Take that whatever way you want. It’s still the truth.”
“You can’t love me and then do stuff with other girls.”
“Well, that’s exactly what happened,” he replied, voice torn. “I did stupid shit. Maybe it was because I was afraid, or maybe because I’ve never felt worthy of you.” Shaking his head, he gave me one final glance before walking to the door. “Either way, I can’t change my past.”
45
Midterm Sadness
GIBSIE
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the donkey,” Edel Kavanagh shouted when we walked into her kitchen late the following Friday.
Well, Johnny walked in. Calling my manic, half-hunched hobble a walk was a bit of stretch.
“You’re like a pair of drowned rats,” she said, setting a pot of her famous stew on the table. “There’s been torrential rain hammering down all day and you two lunatics decide to go out in it!” Banging and rattling cupboard doors, she set the table for the two of us as she continued to rant. “And don’t even get me started on the gale-force winds outside. You could’ve been killed by a falling tree out there!”
“Relax, Ma,” Johnny coaxed, pressing a kiss to her cheek before making a beeline for the pot of spuds on the stove. “It’s only a bit of rain, and no trees maimed us.”
“I made no such decision,” I grumbled, collapsing in a heap at the table. “I opted for tea and biscuits by the fire. Your son was the one who forced me into a 10k run.” When I shook my head, an impressive amount of rainwater sprayed around me. “So, you can blame him for any cases of sudden-onset pneumonia.”
“Ah, Johnny,” Edel scolded, disappearing into the hallway only to return a few moments later with a couple of towels. “Would you look at the condition of poor Gerard,” she said before proceeding to dry my hair like I was a small child. “You know he has asthma.”
“Thanks, Mammy K.” Forcing out a wheezy cough for extra effect, I grinned up at my best friend while his mother fussed over me. “It always gets worse in bad weather.”
“Bullshit,” Johnny shot back, tone incredulous. “You have no more asthma than I have, ya bleeding chancer.”
“I could have.”
“You don’t.”
“Pneumonia then.”
“The only thing you’re going to have wrong with you is my toe up your hole if you don’t pack it in.”
