“Please tell me.”

He leans forward and sets his beer down. His next words are said with patience, but I can tell that it’s hard for him to truly believe I need this told to me.

“Few days ago. Then you told me you needed to have a big life and that you were sorry. You made yourself scarce, and the next thing I knew you came in acting like nothing had happened the other night.”

“When … when I couldn’t find my phone? And you made me soup and a sandwich?”

Aka, my first night in this reality?

“Yep.”

The cringe is bone shattering. I rejected this guy’s proposal and then, as far as he must have known, just showed up at his work. His family pub. I cringe even harder remembering that I’d said something like Why are you acting like you know me? that night. To him, that must have sounded so harsh.

“Why would I say no? To you.”

“Well. Dunno exactly. You love me.” He looks bashful. “You do, by the way.”

I flush. “I had a feeling.”

He lets that sit between us as our eyes stay locked for a few seconds too long. I feel myself go hot all over.

“But you felt like marriage would trap you into a life you weren’t sure you wanted. I don’t know where you got this black-and-white thinking,” he says. “I’ve tried to tell you there’s more than this or that. Not that I’m trying to explain to you how you should feel. But I’ve made it clear that I would make any compromise for you. Sometimes you get so binary on things.”

His accent lends such a gentle lilt to everything he’s saying. The word you comes out like ya or ye. When he says my name, there’s a different emphasis on it, one I’ve never heard. Even Kiera says it differently.

“This is awful,” I say. “So I guess I rejected your proposal”—the word sounds unfamiliar on my tongue, unowned by me—“and then freaked out and tried to go after the other thing I thought I wanted.”

“I guess so.”

“Wow.”

We drink our beers in silence for a moment.

I have always felt afraid I’d never find someone to love enough to really be with. Why does it feel like, with Cillian, I could be that open? Like he’d only love me more for any love I’d show. Kiera too, now that I think about it. I can just tell.

The friends I do have in LA are all snarky. We make fun of the same things. We roll our eyes at the same people. We don’t connect on anything real. I always thought that was fine, feeling like any more authenticity would be a drag. Like if I got real, it would be tragic and dull. Forced. Keeping things light seemed better.