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The tv played quietly in front of you as you lay on the couch. Your computer lay against your thighs, legs bent up and feet planted into the couch cushion beneath you.
It was one of those evenings. You weren’t quite sure how exactly you had started on it, but you were scrolling through facebook, clicking on profiles and reading up on people you hadn’t seen in years. One click on a ‘suggested friend’ profile had led you down a rabbit hole. One familiar face turned into another, your finger automatically scrolling through their posts and photos, judging the trajectories their lives had taken since you’d known them. It was just one of those nights.
You had just clicked onto another profile, someone who had once been a friend but you hadn’t seen since graduation, and one of the first photos caught your eye. It had only been posted a day ago, and in it she was smiling brightly as she stood beside… Cillian.
Your eyes widened a little and you sat up properly, spine curving as you leaned down to look closer at your laptop. Yes, yes, that was him. He had an easy smile on, neither too bright nor too subdued, and he clasped his hands behind his back as he leaned a little toward her.
‘Was so lovely catching up with an old friend! So proud of all the work that he does, what an immense talent!’ The caption read, a line of emojis following the words.
You zoomed in a little on him, chewing at your lip as you stared at the photo. The haircut wasn’t great. You had always liked when he left it a little long, curling around his ears and the back of his neck, but somehow he made the weird shaved sides work. He was wearing a black shirt and jeans and a blue coat over it all. You could see his freckles, still beautifully splashed over his face, and those blue eyes that made him notorious. It really was him.
You hadn’t thought about Cillian in some time. Not properly anyway. He had followed you like a ghost for a while, always sitting at the back of your mind or just at the edge of your vision. It had been like that for a year or so, but as it has always been said, time heals all wounds, and slowly he became less and less prevalent in your day to day. You had grown up, life moved on. Life always finds a way, you supposed.
And occasionally the thoughts did come back, of course they did, the occasional sighting of a movie poster or promotional thing on social media would take you back, but it wasn’t so bad anymore.
But that really was him in that photo, and only from a day ago, and it made you think about him, and you, all that you two had been through. Because despite the fact that you didn’t think about him very often now, you two had been through a lot together.
When you met him, you were still at school. You had always sort of known him the way people in small towns usually do. He had graduated only the year before you. You hadn’t ever spoken to him, at least not directly, but he had always sort of been there as a familiar figure.
You had been in your final year of school, just finished with your exams and feeling fresh and born again. Some of your friends had gone out to celebrate, and you with them. Some way or other the group had gained people at the pub, old schoolmates and their boyfriends and their boyfriend’s friends until you were all jumbled about in conversation.
Somehow you ended up standing next to Cillian in a little group, discussing music or movies, you couldn’t quite remember now. But you had made a comment about loving ABBA and how you didn’t mind if they seemed too ‘mainstream’, and he had challenged you on expanding your music tastes.
You could still imagine his eyes from that night, bright and piercing even in the dim light. And the way he had looked at you had made you feel electric. He had bought you a drink after that, walked with you to the bar in the pub and paid for whatever fruity cocktail you had asked for, and then talked to you all night long. He had even walked you home, and it had made you feel like a proper woman on a proper date.
The two of you agreed to meet at the vinyl store in town the day after to see about exploring new music together (and simply just spending time together) and the rest was history. You went on dates to cafes and restaurants, sequestered yourselves in your rooms where you listened to music or simply cuddled on the bed and talked, and even went out to dinner with each other’s families. Your lives had become two threads tangled together, unable to be separated.
But through it all, he had been on a journey you were simply watching. Your life had been set for you really. Once school was finished, you were to go to university, get a degree, maybe pursue a masters, then fall straight into the workforce in some job that, though boring, would pay well and secure a nice life for you.
Cillian had been given more freedom in his life, more space to pursue things he truly cared for, and though you loved it for him, it also meant that sometimes you felt like the path of your life began to seriously divert from his. And of course you could see his talent. Even a blind person would know he was talented, and it only confirmed that he was doing the right thing. While you began to attend classes, he performed music and auditioned for plays. While you got stuck in the books of the library, his name began to appear on signs all over town.
But at that point, it hadn’t really been a problem, just an itch at the back of your neck. You two were still as close as ever. He would pick you up from your university campus and take you home or to the pub or to see a movie, a million things that you two always made time for. On weekends you would snuggle up and sleep in until late, take a picnic out to the countryside, would make time for each other .
You remembered one particular picnic a year into your relationship. You had packed up a really nice spread of sandwiches and little picky bits to just snack on until sunset, and had even found one of those classic red flannel blankets to spread out on whatever grassy hill you two would choose for the day. He had driven, holding your hand the entire way, and had carried the basket all the way without hearing even a request from you to help him.
It was perfect. You read, listened to music, and just spent time with each other. At one point, you had been laying down, heads resting on your arms and simply staring at each other. You were tracing each of his freckles with your eyes when he had reached up and just gently stroked your hair a little, pushed it back behind your ear and whispered, “you’re the love of my life.”
You had grown since. Now you knew a lot of people said things like that, believed in things like that when they were young and in love; it didn’t have to mean anything. But then it felt like everything. It had felt real, eternal, and you had believed it with your whole heart because you had been sure that he was the love of your life. Though you supposed that hadn’t changed much; sometimes you still thought he had been the love of your life and now you had missed out.
But at that point your life had been good, fun. It was a series of attending his gigs, singing along to songs you had been the first to hear and dancing in small clubs and pubs as you made eye contact with him up on the stage. Then clubs and pubs had turned into theatres, one hour or two hours of sitting in the front row and watching him assume new personalities and completely dazzle you and everyone else in the theatre.
It was here that you believed things had begun to go downhill. It was no one’s fault, you knew. You had been just as culpable as him. As classes ramped up and your future became more of a weight on your back, he was gaining more opportunities, more popularity. People were recognising what a talent he possessed, how truly good he was at acting and evoking emotion from whoever watched him, and that meant he got busier too.
It meant trips up to Dublin for weeks at a time as he rehearsed and performed while you stayed back at home, studying into the wee hours of the night and cried over the burnout, craving those once a day phone calls.
Then he was getting cast for movies, productions which pasted his name on posters and front and centre in the credits, which required proper travel, to London and beyond, and introduced him to people who were surely far better than you.
You couldn’t quite say what had led to the breakdown of communication on his end, maybe it had been your fault and he hadn’t even been thinking about it, but you knew it was the insecurity for you. When he missed a phone call or two, when he left for months instead of days, a niggling thought had suddenly begun to eat away at you.
Perhaps you had been holding him back. Perhaps it was your love for him that chained him to that small town, and if you let him go, he could be free. You knew he had made money now, a decent amount that could get him a good apartment in London and put him front and centre for all the opportunities he was owed. But he kept coming back, kept squeezing himself into your small room and your even smaller bed and keeping you close when he could have been off on the adventures that you were sure he was destined for. You felt guilty for wanting more.
So when he missed a call or two, you didn’t make a fuss, just picked up the next time he remembered. When he cancelled a return trip home, you simply said ok on the phone and wished him luck on his next project. And when he suggested that you come out to visit him, you made some excuse about money or bothering him when he was busy, and whether it was true or not, you believed his offer hadn’t been sincere and you were doing the right thing by refusing him. Both of you began pulling away, and pulling away, until there was nothing to pull away from. Until you were no longer speaking and a box of his things had been sent back to his parents’ house and your knicknacks no longer lived in his room.
And then, despite the sadness that clung to you like a second skin, that made you walk through life in a daze, time moved on. You got your degree, found a job, and… continued on.
You watched his career progress from afar. You saw every movie in the cinema, silently cheering him on and secretly praising him in anonymous reviews online. Though you googled him once or twice, there was never a social media to find, never a crazy amount of paparazzi pictures to scroll through, and it made you happy in a way. He wanted to keep things private, you liked that about him, sure, but you were also happy that it meant if he had found someone else (unlike you), you wouldn’t need to know.
You clicked off of the site and closed your computer before putting it away. You closed up everything and made your way back to your bedroom. The lights were switched off and you settled yourself under the covers, laying on your back and staring at the dark ceiling.
You blinked a few times, breathed into the silence, and despite your best efforts, a thought struck you. Did he ever think about you? Of course you had wondered this before, there had been many a night in the early days post-breakup where it was all you could think about. And then even later on, a night where you had gotten a little tipsy on your own, here and there had led to that thought spiral.
But really, did he ever think about you? Did he ever think about how you two had once been, so interconnected, so in sync that sometimes you wondered if other people had ever experienced it the way you two had?
And then you began to cry. You felt the pressure in your throat and then the ticklish slide of the hot tear down your cheek. There was a pain in your chest that made you feel like you were being cracked, like your insides had turned to lava and you were being consumed by something that only wished to see you in pain. You pressed your hands to your face as sobs wrenched out of you, little crackling sounds and hiccups of anguish that made you curl in a little on yourself.
Because from that one little question, so much else invaded your mind. You missed those days from long ago, where even when things didn’t feel simple, he was always there to make it better. And you missed him. Somehow, even after so long, you missed him . You missed knowing someone else’s soul the way you knew your own, and you wondered… you wondered if you would ever know his soul again.
You let yourself cry for a little while. You let the emotions drain through your tears until they subsided a little and you were forced to get up and grab a tissue to blow your nose. Your entire face felt puffy and your nose was still running a little but something felt better inside you, released, finally acknowledged after being ignored for too long.
You stared into the darkness of the room again before grabbing your phone and scrolling through your contacts. The intrusive thought had succeeded. You found the old contact, the number that had never been blocked nor sent you a message saying it had been deactivated or changed. The number that held all your hope.
Hey Cillian, I don’t know if you even remember me but it’s Y/n, from way back when. Sorry that this is completely random and out of the blue but I guess I was just thinking about you again and I just wanted to speak to you and wish you well, I suppose. Sorry if this isn’t the right number or I’m bothering you or anything really. Anyway, bye.
Before you could second guess yourself, you sent the message. You heard the little sound, watched it appear on the completely empty chat, and then read it and reread it for a while. It was a particularly pathetic sounding message, so nervous and insecure, but a rush went through you because in the end you had sent it.
You put your phone down on your nightstand and lay back in the dark, taking careful breaths. You were wide awake now, jumpy with nerves. You were sure he wouldn’t answer. You were sure it was a wrong number or inactive or the one million other things working against you. But of course, as is human nature, there was a small little portion of you that had clung onto a small little portion of hope.
You stayed awake much longer than you would have liked and only fell asleep when the exhaustion took hold. When your alarm went off in the morning, you were tempted to send it to snooze. You were groggy and already a little annoyed, but the memory of the night before had you on edge and you knew sleep was beyond you.
You picked up your phone carefully, not wanting to be disappointed, but when you pressed on the screen and scrolled through your notifications, there was a message. Your hands shook and you couldn’t tap on it faster.
Hi Y/n, of course I remember you. Of course I do. I can’t say I wasn’t surprised but it was so nice to see your message, no bother at all. It’s funny really, because I was actually thinking about you the night before as well. I don’t know if I should admit to it, but I think about you often. I’ll be back from a job in a couple days, would you like to meet?