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I wrapped my shawl around me tighter as I sipped at my coffee, with a dash of irish whiskey to wake me up. The waves crashed against the rocks around the shore, and the wind howled around me. Being away from everyone else had been refreshing but it was long past due that I join the living again. I was so close to being done going through all the things Sean had left here, and now I only had some boxes I had been storing here to go through. Memories had been tearing me apart for weeks now, and I’d been doing it alone. Teeghan had been checking in, sure, but I didn’t want her to be pulled down into my misery. She was in a new relationship and she was enjoying the perks that came with that, such as mind blowing sex. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had sex. Surely, it had been with Sean but I couldn’t tell you how long it had been before his tragic accident.
Fuck.
I needed to get back to living. This was depressing me in more ways than I could fathom. I needed to see Teeghan. She grounded me in ways that I didn’t realize I needed.
I finished my coffee and went back inside, undoing my shawl and tossing it on the couch filled with boxed up memories.
As I opened the top of the box of my past, I looked down at the familiar notebooks and most notably my diary. It was my high school diary. I chuckled out loud even though no one would hear it as I picked it up and started to flip through the pages of childish writing, where I had dotted my i’s with big love hearts. That had been when I’d been in love.
Images of Killian filled my memory as I came to a page in the diary with something on it. The necklace dropped down at my feet as I looked down at it and felt a big lump form in my throat. I remember the day he gave this to me.
Bending down, I picked up the necklace and ran my finger over the fine engravings on the cross. It was his family crest on a cross. An heirloom of their family’s and he had given it to me. I couldn’t believe I still had it.
We’d not been together for fifteen years.
I looked down at the page I had kept it in and saw the love hearts adorning the page and I read the words that broke my heart all over again.
“Today, I ended it with Killian. My heart is breaking into a million pieces and I just don’t know what to do about it. It’s for the best, I know this, but it’s killing me. The way he looked at me, the way he took it and didn’t fight for me. It burns me inside but I know…I just know it’s the only way forward. He’s too dark for me. He wants to be like his da, and I don’t want to end up like his mother. I kept his necklace. I can’t part with it yet. Is that wrong?”
I closed the diary and put it back in the box and looked back down at the necklace. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and looked through my contacts.
His number was under Z Killian, so he didn’t come up until the end of my contacts. It was to stop myself from calling him when I was feeling low. There had been so many times since he’d come back into my life these past few months that I had wanted to see or speak to him. Every time I did see him, my whole world would turn upside down for days. I’d dream about the things I wanted him to do to me, I’d smile at memories of our happier days, and then I would drift into a miserable depression until I could pull myself out.
He was my weakness, he always had been. I loved my husband. I had loved every bit of him and still did, but Killian…there was just something about him I could never stop loving. I didn’t think you could love more than one person at the same time, but I’d proven that you could. Sean had been dead for years now but I still held guilt over never being able to say I no longer loved Killian.
I sat down on the one bit of my lounge and opened the contact I rarely used. Typing a message, I hovered my finger over the send button for a few seconds before I hit it and felt my stomach cave in on itself.
Why did I invite him here?
I should have just gone back to the city and given it back to him there, where I had witnesses, where I wouldn’t be tempted to invite him in and have his cologne invade my senses.
* * *
I heardhis car pull up outside and my heart did a flutter before my stomach decided to burn whatever acid it had in there. Why did I suddenly need to use the bathroom?
Getting off the couch, I rubbed my sweaty hands down my jeans and took a deep breath. I checked my reflection in the mirror on the wall just as I heard his heavy knock on my door.
I felt like I was sixteen again and he had come to pick me up for the first date, although, to be honest, I had run to the door then to take him outside before my father could pull me back inside and slam the door in his face.
I finally reached the door and opened it. His cologne wafted in and I felt myself transported back to my childhood when I used to love his cologne, even though he used far too much of it back then. Killian’s cocky smirk appeared on his face as he looked at me.
“Hey.”
“Come in, Killian.”
He moved past me, and I could almost taste the leather as he moved into the cottage. I never realized before just how small this place was, especially with Killian in it.
“You’re moving?”
“I am going to sell it, yes.”
He turned to face me, confusion etched onto his face. “But this was your dream.”
“No, it was my dream with Sean.”
He sobered at the mention of his name. He may not have liked that I had moved on, but he never once made life hard for Sean, even though he could have. He’d learned that I was happy and he made sure to steer clear of us.
Not that it mattered.
