Because if I went to the depths, I wasn't sure I could find my way back when I was once again alone. And I knew that. It was my one certainty in life: I would be alone. He would leave.
I laughed awkwardly and scratched at the back of my neck. "I think we need more alcohol."
This seemed to break Michael from the trance of the music and the sunlight and the alcohol. We went and drank and drank again, because the truth was out and it could only be forgotten with alcohol: this was more than just a casual, wild adventure, a collision of two strangers.
And, fuck, did we try our best to escape that truth, outrun it like bandits on black horses being chased across the never-ending desert. We tried to drown it with Poitín, beat it back with Guinness, speed away from it on the wings of Jameson and ginger ale, pound it down into the ground with Bulmers cider.
As was perhaps to be expected, this was not exactly the best plan of attack. If we really wanted to avoid this truth, we should have agreed right then and there on the dance floor to leave. Michael should have called a cab. I should have set off down the winding mountain road with a thumb pointed out. Michael should have gone to work, me to the next city. He should have forgotten my name and I should have relegated him in my mind to a free meal and a fun time.
So maybe a part of us wanted to run straight at the truth, collide with it, crash into it. Maybe a part of us wanted to feel something real and solid and true, even if it meant the snapping of bones and breaking of hearts. Maybe a part of us thought the impossible: that we'd make it out the other side in one piece.
So for whatever reason we drank. And the more we drank the tighter we held each other, the harder it was to pull our eyes away from one another's, the easier it was to lose time in the music and the mountain air and the wind in the trees.
Dusk descended as if in the blink of an eye, as if in a single turn on the dance floor. Brilliant shades of pink and purple and orange danced across the surface of the lake as the festival lights blurred and swayed in my vision. Sometime during the afternoon Michael had bought us a new set of clothes: for me, a dreamy white lace-up top and green embroidered skirt, and for him, a kilt and nothing but a black tie for a shirt. We stumbled drunkenly together off the dance floor, sides hurting from laughing so hard.
We were in line for the beer keg when a noise came from the little purse around Michael's waist. He fumbled around with the zipper. I grinned as I watched him close one eye, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration till he managed to find the phone within the depths of his man-purse, otherwise known as a sporran.
"What does that say?" he asked me over the noise from the band, holding out his cell phone screen upside down to me.
I craned my neck and frowned.
"Eoin."
"Eoin?" Michael shouted. "My brother?!"
"I don't know who your brother is," I shouted back, laughing at the silly excitement on Michael's face.
"You'll have to meet him!"
Before I realised the implications of what I was saying, I shouted back, "Okay!"
Michael somehow managed to push the green answer button on the first try as I still tried to process so easily agreeing to meet his family.
"Eoin, you fucker!" Michael said, his smile infectious. "Eoin! Brother! I love you so much!"
I guided Michael forward as the line toward the bar moved up. He slung his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. It made me happy; plain and simple, it made me happy.
"Okay? Okay?!" Michael was saying on the phone. "I'm better than okay. I'm in love."
My head jerked up.
"You love me?" I asked, my drunken eyes somehow managing to be wide in surprise.
I was expecting Michael to shake his head, backtrack, reassure me that he was just drunk and he got swept up in the moment. I was not expecting Michael to look me in the eyes, grin like a madman, and double down.
"Goddamn straight I love you!"
I laughed because he said it with so much happiness. I wanted to feel that kind of happiness, too. So I said it right goddamn back.
"I love you, too!"
Michael lifted me to his chest, my toes barely skimming the muddy earth, and he kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. We kissed till we heard a voice shouting from Michael's phone.
"Eoin!" Michael said, putting the phone again to his ear. "Eoin, have I told you that I love you?"
I slipped out of Michael's arms and dragged him along by his tie behind me to where the line now was. I was drunk and happy and I felt free. Love was something I'd trained myself to hold onto, to hide, to conceal from others. But Michael made me want to give it freely, abundantly, generously. He made me want to give it with each kiss, with each burst of laughter, with each wrinkle at the corner of my eyes from each wide smile. He made me want to give all of it, leaving nothing left for myself: no safety net, no insurance, nothing to fall back on but his arms and his silly, silly love for me.
When I moved up to the bar, I decided we needed something stronger than beer.
"Mike, we need to do more shots!" I called back to him.
