𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

9 - The Lovers' Goodbye

One Week Later

Eira MacCraig's POV

He laughed, and I cried.

He smiled, and I sobbed.

He glanced up at my window one last time as a final goodbye, and my heart broke in two once more. 

He pocketed one piece, though he did not know it. I cried some more. Jenny put her arms around me and let me cry into her shoulder.

We watched Jamie and Ian out of my bedroom window, the two of them saying goodbye. They hated being parted almost as much as I hated to be parted from Jamie, but it was something that we all had to live through.

Ian and I had never been close despite the fact that there were less years between the two of us than Jenny and me.

Jamie mounted his horse.

I wanted to tell Jenny to go down and wave her brother off, or properly say goodbye to him at the least, but I couldn't. My mouth was glued shut for the time being, and all I could think about was how awful I had been to Jamie for the last few days. I had ignored him completely, had bolted my bedroom door and had refused to see him when he had come to my door last night and knocked, quietly begging me to let him in one last time before he left.

"Shush," Jenny soothed me as Jamie dug his heel into the horse's ribs and it began to leave the yard. "It's okay..." she ran her fingers through my hair in an attempt to ground me, but all I could think about was how I had dreamed of Jamie doing just the same thing the night before. I had dreamed about his arms around me and my head buried in his chest as he held me tightly and rested his cheek on top of my head, his large hands running through my glossy black curls as he whispered softly to me in Gaelic.

Brian was going with Jamie to Beauly, where he would see Jamie safely onto a boat before returning home.

I wished that I had asked to go with them, because I was sure that Brian would have agreed to it. Today was in fact the first time that Jenny had seen me since the day of my father's funeral. I had simply left the door open, and she had tried the handle. I was glad to have her hold me, though I did wish that she was her brother.

"I'll be him for ye, if ye'd like?"

I cried harder, my knees wobbling. I felt terrible for putting all of my pain onto Jenny, because I knew that she had missed her brother terribly the last time that he had gone away, and that she would miss him terribly again, but how I felt about Jamie was intense and I could barely think about having to be without him for a day, let alone a year.

"Ye'll ne'er be him, Jenny!" I sobbed.

She nodded and replied quietly, "I ken."