“I guess so. She invited me after I told her. And look, I do get that if I wanted to wipe the slate clean with you and Aimee, this would be one way to do it. But I would never. I could never. No matter what. It’s not me to do that.”

He nods. “I know it’s not, Meggie.”

Hearing him say my name, my old nickname no less, makes me feel weak. “Good.”

“Did you tell your mother? I suppose she said the same thing as my dad, then?” He says it with the slight tone of an inside joke.

I don’t get it, of course, so I answer honestly. “I didn’t tell my mom. You think she’d think the same thing as your dad though?”

He looks at me briefly, clearly deciding whether or not to play into my apparent amnesia.

“Sure look. The way they hit it off when your parents came over here. They spent the whole trip kindred spirits. Your dad and my mother as well. The two of them got on like a house on fire, talking about music nonstop. Your mammy and my dad talked about us the whole time.”

“They did?” It gives me a strange thrill to imagine my parents here, hanging out with Cillian’s parents. I’ve never brought my boyfriends around my family. Even if a relationship goes on for a year or two, I always sense that it won’t work out so I don’t want to waste everyone’s time. Plus, of course, I barely see my parents myself. “What did they have to say about us?”

“Oh, you know.” He takes a sip of his beer. “Same thing as everyone and always. Why aren’t the two of us married, when are we going to stop fecking around and admit we’re in love with each other. Admit there’s never going to be anything else like this for us. Admit we wouldn’t want it if we found it.”

He avoids looking at me.

My heart blows up to three times its size at these words. It’s a completely involuntary feeling and completely unfamiliar, at that. All those boyfriends I wasn’t bringing home—it’s also because I never felt anything like this.

How is it possible that I feel so much from his words? I don’t even know him.

“I’m sure you can understand how difficult it is to believe. You don’t remember anything?”

“No. It’s really not a matter of remembering. I know my entire other life.”

“The one where you’re an actress.”

“Yes.”

“Right. It’s a bit funny, is all, that you’re saying it’s your other life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it has more to do with that fortune teller than you think it does,” Cillian says.

I feel the ground fall out beneath me. “I told you about that?”