Escaping to Ireland

Vinessa

"Why are we at your house?" I asked when we pulled into the garage.

He didn't say a word; he got out of the driver's side and walked over, opening the door. He didn't say anything as he took my hand and walked me through his house to the back french doors that led out to the patio. The patio we had shared breakfast at a few weeks back. He motioned for me to sit on the white wicker chair as he turned the outside heater on and grabbed a blanket sitting beside it.  

He sat down beside me and took my hand. The warmth spread all around me. "I do not know what you went through this week and what you are still going through. I just know from experience you cannot make rash decisions when you are upset. I do not want to talk about you and me right now. I just want to sit here and listen to anything you need to say."

"I can't do this," my voice wavered, and I wondered if I would start crying right then and there. His hazel eyes were watching me, and it made me more nervous. I had already told so much to Liam; how much more could I tell him? He was practically becoming my therapist....

"I can wait; I have nothing else that is going to take me away from this. I'll cancel my meetings for tomorrow if it takes that long."

We sat in silence, and I wondered if he was honest about canceling his meetings the next day. And then I decided to finally talk. "I feel as if I killed my mom. Like if by me leaving, by choosing to go with my dad over her, that it sped everything up. I keep trying to go back to why I picked him, why I didn't just stay with her. But I can't. There isn't a precise time. I just remember thinking there was no way I was going to let him leave me behind. It scared me when he told me what he was doing. And I think part of him knew he was just a coward, but I don't get why he didn't make me stay with her. Wouldn't it have made him feel better? Or maybe he thought taking me with would have been better, so I wouldn't have to play nurse. I don't know."

"It wasn't your fault."

"How do you know?" I asked, looking at him. "I left my mother, and she was dying. How does someone not pick up on something like that?" I didn't admit it to him, but after I came back, I should have noticed how big my mother's jeans were on, that her hair that used to always be in place was tossed about, the dark circles under her eyes. My mother was still beautiful in spite of all of this; it was just a tired beautiful.

"I just know," he said, sitting there looking out past the bluff, the heater above us keeping us more than plenty warm.

"I don't think someone can just know when it comes to something like this. I feel horrible about it for a reason."

"You feel horrible about it because you need someone and something to blame. You blame yourself, and it is unjust." He said.

"I blame myself because I left my mother when she was dying of cancer. And what about Cole?"

"What about Cole?" he asked, not knowing what was being churned over in my head.

"Shawn... if Shawn had been back in Chicago, he would have been working out with him, he wouldn't have been alone, maybe Shawn could have saved him, and I'm the reason why...."

"Why is he dead?" Liam looked at me, surprised. "Why would you think this?"

"Shawn blamed me for his death. And then it came full circle. Susan is better off without me; at some point, I would have left her for a different roommate; Shawn is better off without me; he was tricked into thinking he wanted to marry me. Cole would have been better without me in his life; my mom deserved better from me...."

"Shawn blamed you because he is heartbroken, he blamed you out loud, but he really is blaming himself."

"Cole told him to come to Ireland for me." I stood up, obviously getting too worked up from this conversation. "Cole told him I would take him back, that I would be ecstatic that he didn't cheat on me."

"But he did cheat."

"No..." I said I had never told Liam that Cole didn't cheat on me. "It sounds hard to believe, but it was a tape recording of two senators in Chicago; it's been kind of a breaking story ever since I left."

"And you did not go back with him?" Liam asked, still sitting in his chair, watching me, his eyes not leaving my figure.

I shook my head at him.

"Why not?"

"The sky is blue. The grass is green. There is an endless amount of reasons why I'm here."

"An endless amount?" he smirked at me.

"An endless amount." Him being on that list, but I wasn't about to tell him that.