I watch two older men play chess for hours, half listening to their conversation, but mostly letting myself get lost in the static playing in my ears. Birds land on the bench beside me, at my feet, unafraid of me, probably assuming in their birdbrains that I’m a statue. It’s exactly how I feel. Like I’ve been filled with cement, head to toe. There’s nowhere for me to go hide and cry here, in the park, so every once in a while, I’m forced to wipe away tears as they leak out.

Finally, I get the nerve to ask someone what time it is. Ten thirty. Seriously? It feels like I left the Claymore in a daze a hundred years ago. It also feels like I’ve only been gone fifteen minutes. My brain is so fuzzy, it takes me another half hour to command myself to stand up from the bench and begin walking back toward the Claymore. Shane must be gone by now. Early in the morning, he’d said, a hundred years ago.

My plan is simple. Thinking straight for a long enough stretch to formulate it has been my biggest challenge, but now all I have to do is carry it out. I have to walk into the Claymore, grab my shit, and get to the airport. My flight back to Chicago isn’t until next week, but I will switch it. I will sit on a hard, plastic chair at the airport and wait in a standby line for as long as I need to. Just as long as I’m not in Dublin when he returns from the race. If I see him again, I don’t think I’ll have the strength to leave again. As it is, I’m walking through the door of the Claymore right now, selfishly hoping he’s standing behind the bar, strong and reassuring.

It’s Orla, though, and based on the sympathetic way she’s looking at me, I know he’s gone. Without stopping to acknowledge her, I walk through the pub, waves rushing in my ears. I let him go. There’s so much pain in my chest right now, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt this will stay with me forever. Far, far longer than Evan ever would. It’s not comparable.

Before I can enter the back hallway, Faith comes rushing out of the kitchen.

“There you are.” She’s wielding a spatula at me, but I don’t have the wherewithal to move. “Where have you been hiding, then?”

“I don’t know.” It hurts to talk.

“You don’t know?” With quick, jerky motions, she wipes her hands on her apron. “You have some bloody nerve, Willa. Running off like that. My brother has to race this afternoon and he spent the whole night looking for you. If you ask me, I think he was wasting his time.”

Her sharp words are actually welcome. I need someone to tell me I fucked-up. That I am a fuckup. It will justify what I did to carve myself out of Shane’s life. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, Faith.”

That pisses her off. As her face grows bright red, I marvel over how much she’s changed since the day I arrived. Gone is the smiling innocent and in her place is a woman. I wonder how I missed that transition. “You know what, Willa? I was wrong about you. We all were. You walked in here full of so much confidence. I thought, God, I’d love to be her. For just one day.” She points the spatula at me. “Look at you, now. Slinking out of here with your tail between your legs. You’re a coward.”

Okay, now I’ve heard enough. It’s starting to break through my cement interior now. I just need to go through the motions and leave before I crack and crumble. Orla doesn’t come to my defense and I can practically feel her silent judgment from behind the bar. I start to leave the room, but Faith’s next words stop me.

“He turned down the offer on the Claymore, you know.” I stop dead in my tracks. “He’s coming back. Today is his last race, and then he’s retiring.”

Slowly, I turn back. From her satisfied expression, I can tell my face reflects the shock she was hoping for. “Why? Why would he do that?”

Looking me over head to toe, she shrugs. “Good question.”

I’m halfway up the stairs before I realize my feet have started moving. I don’t know where the sudden urgency comes from, or what it’s directed toward. Only that I need to move fast. Get out of here. Get to the airport. I yank open the door to my room and fall to my knees, dragging my suitcase from under the bed. When I throw it onto the bed, intending to shovel clothes inside, something catches my eye. My camera is sitting on the bedside table, a glossy eight-by-ten picture trapped beneath it. My camera is always in my messenger bag. It shouldn’t be out of its case.

I rise to my feet, afraid to look, instinctively knowing Shane put it there for me to find. When I pick up the camera to fully reveal the shot, my breath traps inside my throat. It’s me. Taken the morning after we spent the night on Killiney Hill. I’ve just removed my shirt, and I’m walking toward Shane, the gray sky alive behind me. Oddly, he didn’t photograph me from the neck down, as I’d assumed he was doing. No. It’s a close-up of my face, as I look at him. He’d zoomed in to capture my expression, and I can see why.

It’s all over my face, in the damp welling of my eyes, the breathlessness he captured with the shot. It’s so obvious. I’m looking at the man I love.

He must have developed the roll of film last night, or stolen it days ago. I have no idea. I only know that I love him more for understanding me so perfectly. For knowing exactly how to show me what I couldn’t admit verbally, in the language I speak.

Slowly, I turn the photograph over in my hand. When I see the word LIAR scrawled in what has to be Shane’s handwriting, a watery laugh bubbles from my throat. I’m immediately flooded with relief that he knew I was full of shit. He didn’t believe me for even a second.

If he was downstairs right now, I would run toward him and jump into his arms. Just like I did the morning he arranged the call with Ginger. The fact that I can’t touch him and tell him out loud how I feel, causes me enough physical pain that I have to go back down onto my knees.

Because I love him so damn much. Oh God, it’s so powerful it’s a wonder I can contain it inside my body. This is that moment my sister warned me about. The moment I realize I’m not self-aware. Not even close. I know nothing about myself or what life is capable of throwing at me.

It hits me in a blinding rush. He’s not here because he’s in Italy, about to participate in a dangerous race after my disappearance kept him awake all night. And he’s going to quit afterward. If he’s quitting for me, I can’t let it happen. I have to get to him before the race. Can’t let him go out there with my parting words echoing in his head. If something happens to him…