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I don’t answer. I can’t.
‘So don’t! You don’t have to do what you’ve always done! The Connor Hughes who kept Donovan out of jail isn’t who you always have to be.’
‘Yeah, it is!’ The words are louder than I intended. Everything about this is wrong. ‘I have made a life out of doing this. My life. You don’t approve and I understand that. You will never approve, Olivia. But the man you thought I was, the man you thought you could make me—he doesn’t really exist.’
‘I never tried to change you,’ she says angrily, disputing the accusation with a sharp jerk of her head.
‘Separating me from the work that I do is trying to change me!’
‘Bullshit!’ And it’s so unusual for her to swear that I’m silenced. ‘I only want you to be a person you’re happy with. This Donovan thing has been on your shoulders like a weight since you got to London. I want you to face up to why that trial win bothers you so damned much.’
I don’t answer her. I can’t. The words are lodged deep inside me, and saying them to Olivia will make them real and I can’t have them be real when I have a job to do.
‘You’re going to graduate from university and you’re going to get a place for your training contract—somewhere amazing. And you’re going to follow your moral compass and life will be easier for you, Olivia, because of that. Because you see things as black and white and I see everything as a thousand gradients of grey. But I can’t be a part of your life.’ I pin her with my gaze, needing her to know that I mean this. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I mean this. ‘My life is in Dublin and it’s defending the kind of people you want to lock up. You will never accept that this is my life. You’ll never be proud of who I am and what I do. And every day that we’re together, I’d have to see you lose respect for me. It would kill me.’
I move to her, catching her sadness on my breath. Her eyes are wet with unshed tears. I’m hurting her for the last time.
‘Do you want to go?’ she asks, the question ripping right into my chest.
‘It’s my life,’ I say with a slow shake of my head. ‘Again, there is no black and white here. Do I want to go? No! And yes! Am I driven to take this case and to win it? Yes.’
She flinches.
‘Do I hate the idea of leaving you? Yes. Do I hate the idea of staying here and hurting you? Of putting everything you’ve worked for in jeopardy? Do I hate the idea of you starting to see me as I really am and realising you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life? Abso-fucking-lutely.’
‘Why do you think I don’t already see you as you are?’ she demands, wrapping her arms around my waist, holding me tight.
‘Because you think I won’t go back to Dublin. You think I won’t take this case on. And you’re wrong. Whatever there is in me that you hope is in alignment with your ethics and values just isn’t there. I have a compulsion to fight these fights. And I tell myself it’s because I need to be able to redeem everyone so I can make some kind of fucked-up peace with the way my parents died, and I tell myself it’s because I have devoted my life to the legal system—a system which can’t work without defenders like me. But I don’t know if any of that’s true. I know only that I need to do what I do just like I need to breathe and eat. This. Is. Who. I. Am.’
‘No, it’s not,’ she says, shaking her head sadly. And she lifts up on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to mine. ‘You’re a man who knows right from wrong and just needs the courage to admit that to himself. And if you do I’m right here with you. I’m standing with you now, asking you to stay. Not to go back to Dublin, not to fight for someone who doesn’t deserve to have you there.’
I shake my head, rejecting the impossibility of what she wants from me.
‘You’re Connor Hughes and you’re the man I love.’
Her words slam into me, and push something like hope into my chest. Hope, and a dawning of new pains, new hardship. Love?
I can’t even process that. I home in on her argument instead. ‘Everybody deserves—’
‘Representation,’ she interrupts angrily. ‘But not you. Not the best. Stay here and teach. Stay here with me.’ She drops her hands to mine, interlacing our fingers.
‘And risk people finding out about us?’
‘The term’s over in two weeks. Who cares what happens after that?’
‘I care. Just let me prove to us both that I have the guts to do what’s right for you, okay? Just this once let me be the man you deserve.’
‘Don’t you dare make this about me,’ she says with a shake of her head, stepping back. ‘Don’t pretend this is an act of nobility when we both know it’s cowardice.’
My blood runs cold inside me. ‘Cowardice?’
‘Damn straight. You’re too scared to fight your demons. Too scared to face up to the fact that you hate what you’ve been doing and you want a fresh start. Too scared to stay and fight for what we are, even when it’s messy and imperfect and complicated as all hell. That’s cowardice.’
‘Fuck.’ I drag a hand through my hair. ‘You are something else. I’m trying to protect you!’
‘I can protect myself!’ We are both breathing hard and fast, passion wrenching us apart now, instead of binding us as it has done in the past.
There’s no answer here—except one. I have to leave. I have to pull myself away from her. These arguments will chase us around all night, and I know what I have to do.
