Page 53 of A Second Chance Summer in Dublin

It’s not the reunion I had been dreaming about at all.

‘Gracie? Two minutes to explain?’ he repeats. His voice is low and pleading. ‘You never let me, you wouldn’t reply to any of my texts. Mia told me to stop messaging you, it’s not like I didn’t try.’

Muttering now with a small shake of my jumbled-up head. ‘G-go on.’

He presses his palms together, prayer like. ‘Gracie, you do know I’m so sorry about the wedding. It wasn’t you, it was me.’

The outdoor lamps come on, throwing light across his face. Has he had Botox? I can’t see any expression on his forehead. Nothing moves.

‘You already told me that you were sorry, remember? In your original text? As I stood there in my wedding dress. It was a lovely dress, you should have seen it, took me months to make. I think you’d have approved.’ I cross one leg behind the other, stand tall now, my senses slowly returning.

‘Don’t be facetious.’ Logan closes in on my personal space. Again, I smell his familiar smoky and sensual designeraftershave. In the months after he left me, I used to sneak in and smell the tester at the counter in Brown Thomas to remind me of him. Right now, I find it overpowering.

‘Facetious?’ I’m a little taken aback.

‘I never stopped loving you, Gracie. Ever.’ Logan brings his voice down to a loud whisper.

The words I’ve been longing to hear. But I feel nothing. I just look at him. He holds my eye. I think of all the wasted days and hours I’ve spent thinking about him, crying over him; and now I don’t know why. It’s more than a revelation, it’s life-changing, it’s freedom. It’s like I’ve just come out of a dark cave into the sunlight.

‘Do you really love me, though, Logan?’ Whatever way I tilt my head at him, he doesn’t quite look the way I remembered him. He’s harsher than my dreams.

‘I do.’ It’s dramatic and breathy.

‘Funny. You’re a year and a half too late with those two words,’ I tell him with a tone of strength I can hardly believe.

‘Christ, I’ve missed your humour. Americans just don’t do it for me.’ He releases an appreciative deep sigh.

‘And I just don’t know how you could have done that to me,’ I tell him.

‘Gracie, that’s all in the past, I’m here now. We were good before all that wedding shit. Let’s just go back to before that ever happened. I’m just not getting the jobs in New York, I’m too fucking talented to be back off-Broadway, so I’m thinking of coming home .?.?.’ He pauses to let me say something. I say nothing. ‘I’d a call-back today for a three-month run in the Abbey Theatre, and then a national and international tour. I’ve a self-tape for a new RTÉ crime drama. It’s time to put it all behind us. And I know where I want to see that little red dress. On the floor of Old Camden Street in about an hour.’ Logan actually licks his lips.

I step back, feeling pathetic in my revenge dress. The words I thought I’d never hear him say ring like a claxon in my ears, but it’s a warning claxon. How dare he?

I cross my arms, defiantly. ‘Did you hear a single word I said? Do you ever actually listen? I don’t know how you could have done that to me in Portofino. It was a horrific thing to do. It was cowardly and selfish, and frankly unforgivable. It might be in the past for you, but it will stay with me forever. The humiliation and the pain. Even through the Botox, I can see you have no recognition or concern for what you did to me.’ My words tumble out as people surge past us.

Then he does the worst thing he could do.

He laughs. He laughs really heartily, and I know he’s laughing at my calling out his Botox, and I know he’s laughing because he doesn’t think I mean a word of what I’ve just said. And it cuts like a knife.

Was he laughing on the plane back to New York, after he left me in floods of tears in my wedding dress?

I didn’t laugh for months. In fact, I’ve laughed more with Donal this last week than I’ve laughed in such a long time.

A vision of Donal now appears in my mind.

‘I have to go. I’m with someone tonight.’ I didn’t expect to say that. I notice that my hand reaching out for my phone is no longer shaking.

‘Yeah, I saw you’re with someone. Is he .?.?. It is ahe, right?’ Logan stops laughing abruptly and narrows his eyes.

It’s a horrible half attempt at a vicious, mean joke. I’d forgotten how cruel he could be sometimes.

‘He’s Donal. And yes, I’m with him.’ I finally grab my phone from him.

‘I’m just slagging. It’s a joke. Gracie, look, I know what I did was fucked up.’ He tries to take my hand again but I whip it away.

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I whisper, more to myself than to him.

‘It was my career, my career was – is – the most important thing to me. And you, well, you didn’t get it, you didn’t support it properly, you didn’t nurture me.’ He shakes his head with a goofy look on his face.