Cillian stared at me when I stepped out of my room, wearing the only dress I had thought to bring with me. And it wasn’t even mine. It was Chelsea’s, thrown recklessly into my suitcase as she ran around her room before driving me to the airport, grabbing the lime green sundress for “whenever I wanted to look hot for the Irish guy.”
“We’re just going to Tara’s restaurant,” he said. “Not a cocktail party or anything.”
“I wanted to look nice.” I tugged at the front of the dress, pulling it up. The neckline was deeper than anything I would have chosen for myself.
“You look lovely. I feel like I should be waiting on you or something.” He offered me his arm, all traces of awkwardness gone. “Shall we?”
The cut on my foot had only just stopped bleeding, after I pressed tissue after tissue against it, trying to stop the gushing red before it gave me away. I grimaced when I stepped, and Cillian held my arm tighter.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. My foot just gave out for a second.”
“Tara’s family is going to love meeting you,” Cillian said, as we headed for the hill back up to town. “They have a strange obsession with Americans.”
“Probably because we’re so interesting.”
“Interesting? Your stupid football and politics amuse us, that’s all. Which is good, because football and politics are two things Tara’s father and I agreed to never talk about. Things get too heated when we do.”
“I’ll be sure to bring those subjects up, then.”
“Don’t you dare. Mr. Hayes is a good client for my father with all the fish he needs for his restaurant, and I do kind of love his daughter, so it would be best if they didn’t kick me out of their house.”
“Everyone seems pretty set on you and Tara getting married.” There. Out in the open.
Cillian shrugged. “Well, it wouldn’t bother me. Tara is beautiful and a very sweet girl, and I’m lucky to have had her this long. But I’m eighteen. There’s other things I need to do first. Go to college, for example, and actually learn some stuff about the world.”
“So you are going to school?”
“Eventually. The rowing thing was a setback, definitely. But I’ll get there one of these days. Maybe I’ll come to school in the States, would you like that? I could live with you and save board money.”
“I’d rather stay here and live with you.”
“You have to go back home at some point, you know.”
“No, I don’t. I’ll stay in your guest room until your mother kicks me out, and then I’ll build a little hut on the beach. A sandcastle, like we used to make, except it will be bigger. And I’ll live there and catch my own fish.”
“What about when it rains?”
I hadn’t considered that. “I’ll ask one of the selkies to lend me their skin for the night, so I can sleep in it.”
Cillian laughed, but it was that shaky laugh that I hated, the one that sent chills dancing up my spine because it was so unlike him. He dropped my arm, and didn’t take it again for the rest of the walk.
YOU ARE READING
The Souls of Drowned People
Teen FictionMoira knows there has to be a reason why she was forced to leave Ireland after her father's drowning, and the secrets her mother keeps aren't calming her curiosity and desire to learn the truth. Her only link to the past is her best friend, Cillian...
