Slowly, I turned and looked at him. He knelt before me and took my hands between his. His eyes were warm and bright and steady, just like they were every time he looked at me. I felt muddled—my heart felt so full, but like tight vines constricted it, and I couldn’t breathe.
He traced the counters of my cheek and jaw. His mouth crooked up in my favorite smile. “Natalie. I love you.”
My chest felt like it exploded, like there were shards of metal and air and everything was dizzy and messy. I kept my eyes on his like they anchored me, like I’d spin away if I let go, carried off until I vanished from existence.
He loved me.
And I loved him. I loved him with every part of me, just like my mother had loved my father.
My breathing came faster, and Mike must have known something was wrong by the furrow of his brows. “Natalie?”
The words broke out of me, the wrong ones. “But it doesn’t last.”
The furrows increased. “What?”
I clutched his hands, desperately trying to make him understand. “Love doesn’t work. It just never
I could feel him draw away. His face shuttered, the mask I hadn’t seen in so long falling back in place. He shifted his balance so his whole body leaned away from mine. “So you don’t love me.”
“No, Mike, I—” My throat convulsed and I had to pause and work back tears. “Mike—nothing lasts forever.”
He stood slowly. “I should finish packing.”
I followed him to the door, still unable to make any words come out. I couldn’t process. I couldn’t think. This was going too fast. I needed to make him understand that I did love him. But my throat wouldn’t work and my lips wouldn’t move, and when they finally did, nothing useful came out. “Mike, stop. I’m not saying—we’re still—This isn’t it, right?”
He stopped, his shoulders ram rod straight, and then he turned. The smile had vanished, and his eyes were so bright I almost believed it came from a sheen of tears. “I don’t think you get it. I didn’t want to
Then he walked out the door.
And I slumped to the ground and said to the wall, over and over,
It’s not exactly easy to say goodbye to someone you’re utterly, madly in love with, especially after they’ve given up on you.
I went with the O’Connors to the airport, except for Anna, who was staying to work on the dig. Kate was very sweet, and Lauren left me with strict instructions. “Don’t let Eileen’s granddaughter hook up with Paul. Or if it happens, don’t tell me. And tell him that I’m leading a wonderful, happy, fulfilled life.”
Mike and I lingered off to the side for a moment. I cleared my throat and smiled. This wasn’t supposed to be tearful or heartfelt. I leaned up on my toes and kissed him.
It was supposed to be a quick goodbye, but his hands slid around my back, around my head, holding me to him as he deepened the kiss. His tongue swept into my mouth. He was hungry and demanding. His hands clenched my body. I clutched him back, gasping, pressing ever inch of my body against his, wanting everything. Wanting him.
And then he stepped back. “So.”
I didn’t want him to leave me. “So.”
He started to say something twice. And then he stopped, and gave me the real smile, my crooked smile, and then he left.
For the next two weeks, I drowned out my negative emotions by surrounding myself with the euphoria of success. Each day brought a new discovery. A bronze box with carbonized human remains. Dozens of beads. A kiln. Everything was carefully photographed and washed and categorized, while we sent off samples for radiocarbon dating. If we were lucky, they’d come back with dates around the turn of the millennia.
So for two weeks, it was like I had imagined this summer would be. Digging and discovery, joking with the crew, soccer games and visiting small towns on the weekends, nights at the pub with Jeremy.
It was all less than it had been when Mike was here.
When the rain came in full force, and school started back up, we covered up the units with tarps and filled them in and closed up the site for the school year. We took all of our carefully collected objects and sent them off to the university and labs.
And we worked on our paper.
Back at home, football season began. Anna left Ireland for her senior year of high school I dragged Paul into Cork to watch the games with me, because it was too pitiful to have the local pub put on the channel just for me. That inevitably meant everyone would come ask how we were and why hadn’t Mike proposed and I didn’t want to smile all the time. At least Paul would just sit there and drink his black pint and let me wallow in peace.
Grace and Duncan went back to their university, from which they could work remotely. Grace, to my shock, drew me aside before leaving. “You should know that just in case Jeremy leaves, we aren’t. We’ll work here as long as there are things to find and funding to find them. Duncan and I want to work here as long as we have funding. Which shouldn’t be a problem. But just know that you can come back if you want.”
So that was kind of nice.
The reason she’d said it was less nice.
We’d found so much. I was so thrilled. But we hadn’t found anything to support Ivernis. And I didn’t think we were going to.
Especially after we got the radiocarbon dates back.
I found Jeremy alone in his room on the first Friday in September, studying photos and papers. I closed the door quietly behind me, and he looked up with the frown that seemed to be engraved on his face these days. He slid a packet across the table.
I swallowed, reading the results in his eyes. Still, I took the papers out.
500 CE.
My gut clenched. My words came out as a whisper. “What are we going to do?”
He didn’t meet my gaze, just kept looking between his papers, pen occasionally trailing ink. “We’re going to keep looking.”
“Here?” I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know.”
“Not here.
But what about this site? I thought of Maggie, and Anna, of the Wojcik siblings, of Simon Daly. Of the tourists they hoped to bring, the jobs they wanted to create. I thought about the lay of Ireland in 500 CE, of the Gaelic period and the transition to Christianity and the warring kingdoms that stretched across the island. “There’s still something here.”
Now he finally raised his head. “We’re not looking for
Of course it was. “So what are we going to do?”
He sighed. “Try again.”
But what about the people here? Could I leave them for a dream, no matter how vivid? What about the site, the box, the beads?
