The sex details were definitely the ones she most wanted, but they felt too private. They felt tooimportant. The sex had been incredible, and I knew I could share the most salacious bits with Mari and she’d make the right approving sounds ofabout timeorget it, girl.But I also knew that there was no way to convey how it had all made me feel, how I’d never felt like that with anyone before, how I knew I never would again.You’ve ruined me. I had been ruined. And for what, if it hadn’t even been real?
There was something different about my dress, and I unfolded it, shaking it out. “Where’s the bow?” I asked.
“The what?”
“There’s supposed to be a string that ties around the waist.” My heart was beating faster, remembering when Eamonn had pointed out that it had come undone, when he’d pulled it all the way off himself, discarded it on the floor. Where had it gone?
“It probably came off in the scuffle,” Mari said, reaching behind me for a granola bar out of my pantry. We’d alwaysbeen like this, treating each other’s places like they were extensions of our own, so it didn’t bother me that she was taking food without asking so much as that I really needed her tothink, to pay attention. “Or else it got lost at the hospital when they packaged up your stuff. Does it matter? That dress is done for anyway.”
“Could you look for it at the hospital? See if it’s in the lost and found somewhere?”
Mari held her hand over her mouth as she swallowed a bite. “I doubt they would keep a string,” she said. “It probably went right into the trash, it’d be long gone by now.”
“Please, Mari,” I said. “Could you just check?”
My expression must’ve shown actual panic, because she set her granola bar down on the counter, coming over to rub my back. “Hey,” she said. “What’s this about? Is it about him?”
I buried my face in my hands, starting to cry even though I really hadn’t wanted to. I’d cried in front of Mari countless times, and I’d cried aboutthisevery single night since I’d woken up. I just hadn’t wanted to cry about this in front of her, hadn’t wanted her to know the extent of how fucked up I was over it.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How did I know about that type of car? I swear I couldn’t have told you about an ’87 Renault Five if you’d put a gun to my head. Cher’sHeart of Stonedid come out after 1987, did you know that? Why would I know that? Why would I know the words to ‘Molly Malone’?”
“Isn’t that a common folk song?” Mari asked. “Surely someone sings it in a movie. I’m almost positive I’ve seen it in a movie.”
That had always been Mari’s theory, that everything in the dream had been parts of my subconscious floating up. It made some sense. I’d had that thought while I was in it—that the only reason I met Eamonn was because I’d just heard about him from his brother, that I’d been thinking about Ireland because of that date. The doctor had come in to talk about a vegan diet, so I’d made Eamonn a vegetarian. Mari had braided my hair, so I’d given myself the same hairstyle after my shower. Even that feeling of Eamonn holding my wrists, holding me down. I’d been actually restrained in a hospital bed. It was eerie to think about, but in a way it was an explanation.
“I just don’t know how I can go on like this,” I said. “I feel like I’m going out of my mind. But worse than that, because I don’t feel out of touch at all. I feel like I’ve just gone through the hardest breakup of my life, animpossiblebreakup where nothing even happened. I’m not angry or jealous or regretful or bitter, I’m just…sad. And there’s nowhere for it to go. I can’t lurk on his social media or pump mutual friends for information, I’ll never worry about running into him when I’m out at the grocery store or the library picking up books. I can’t talk to him. I can barely even talkabouthim.”
Mari handed me a paper towel so I could blow my nose. “Sounds ideal,” she said. “A clean break.”
I knew what she meant, and maybe in time I’d feel the same way. But for now, it didn’t provide me any comfort.
“Leap Year,” Mari said suddenly. “That’s where you would’ve heard the song. That guy with the van, he starts singing it, right before he…”
She trailed off, as if realizing whatever she was about to say wasn’t going to be helpful. She resumed rubbing my back until eventually my tears petered out to a few random sniffles.
“You’ve just gone through a really traumatic thing,” she said. “And it’s amazing, that you’re still here, that you’re okay. You’ll probably be dealing with the whiplash of that for a while. Hell, I feel likeI’mstill dealing with it, and it didn’t even happen to me. For some reason your brain gave you this whole wild adventure, this romantic interlude. Do you remember one of the last things you said to me that night, before you were attacked?”
I’d been over and over that night in my head, examining every detail, but I knew it was a rhetorical question so I didn’t bother to answer.
“You told me you were going to stop wanting things. Maybe this was your brain’s way of telling you that it’s okay to dream, that adventure and romance are things that you’re allowed to want. That you should travel more, date more, have more fun, whatever.”
I gave a disgusting, phlegmy laugh that had me wiping at my nose with the paper towel again. “After I replace my driver’s license, deal with my bank, work out my short-term disability with the law firm, make all my follow-up doctor’s appointments…”
“Well, sure,” Mari said, grabbing another granola bar and setting it down for me on the counter. She filled a glass with water from the fridge, slid it over to me. “But fuck it, Jess. You’re thirty-seven years old and you’realive.”
Thirty-Seven
My life did eventually goback to normal. Or at least, as close to normal as could be expected. My favorite gelato was buy-one-get-one at the grocery store. The mail carrier kept putting my neighbor’s magazines in my mailbox. I ended up taking three weeks off work while I recovered, and they were mostly pretty good about it even if I did get passive-aggressive texts about how much hiring a temp cost, where did I keep the postage tracking reports, when was I coming back because this new girl wasuseless,she couldn’t even makecoffee. I ignored all of it except the postage reports question, which I texted the answer to even though they were in a clearly labeled folder on top of my desk and I didn’t know how you could miss them.
They were so grateful when I finally came back to work, in a way I found almost touching except that I knew mostly they just wanted their lives to be easier again. I’d thought the hardest part would be having to be on the computer so much,because one side effect from my accident was that I got headaches sometimes, especially if I looked at screens for too long. But the hardest part was staying focused at all, and I knew the blame for that wasn’t entirely medical.
He’d lived south of Dublin, about thirty minutes out. Somewhere near the coast—me, with my feet in the water, Eamonn, laughing.I don’t want you to be cold. That short drive in the rain back to his place, the way we’d barely gotten through the front door. I’d clicked through so many descriptions of the various towns, looked at street views. Parts did occasionally seem familiar, but in that way where I never knew if they were something I’d experienced or seen in a movie or could just imagine would be exactly like this.
If his shop existed, I should be able to find it. Surely it would have a website, a listed phone number at least. I typed inEamonn Gallagher, mechanic, I typed his last name plus variations ongarageandauto shop, I felt bad about it but I did try searching up his criminal charges. I tried social media even though he didn’t strike me as someone who’d be on social media. Once I got excited—I thought I’d found his sister. Sio Gallagher, an artist—this one lived in the States instead of London, but maybe she’d only recently moved? I sent an exploratory message, trying not to scare her away with how insane I probably sounded, and she was very nice but just said no, she didn’t have a brother by that name, she was sorry. I liked her art style so I kept following her.
I redownloaded the dating app onto my phone, cursing myself when I saw it truly had deleted all my information just as it had threatened to do when I’d clicked through all theprompts to say that was fine, I didn’t care. If Niall ever came up again for me to swipe right on, that seemed like the easiest path to finding out more information. That would be if he would swipe right back on me, of course. I wasn’t confident in that part. I tried searching him up on social media, too, but came up with too many results and none of them seemed to be him.
Even if I could get back in touch with Niall, I didn’t know what I’d say to him. I could tell him about the mugging and then maybe float a few details from my dream his way, see if he recognized anything. If he thought it was weird that I was thinking about his family while I was in a coma, I’d pretend the doctors had told me it was normal, replaying your last moments before something like that happened.
