me that jolted me to action. I reached down, grabbed it, opened my car door and threw the cigarette into the street; at the same time sucking in deep lungfuls of air. I could feel a cold sweat prickle on the back of my neck. It had been five years since I had last seen him. And now? When my heart is sick with the notion that he could finally be making good on the promise he made to get back at me, he appears back in my life.
A friend request from Ben Cullen.
In a panic I looked around me – as the mourners started to file out of the chapel. I wondered was he among them. Had he been watching me all this time? I turned the key in the ignition and sped off, drove to work mindlessly where I sat in the car park and tried to stop myself from shaking.
The urge to go home was strong. To go and hide under my duvet. I typed a quick email to my friend Maud. All I had to say was ‘Ben Cullen has sent me a friend request’.
Maud would understand the rest.
Andrew – my line manager in the grim call centre I spent my days in – wouldn’t understand though. He wouldn’t get my panic or why I felt the need to run home to the safety of my dark flat with its triple locks and pulled curtains. As it was, he thought I was at a dentist appointment. He had made it clear the leave would be unpaid and it had already been an hour and a half since I’d left the office. I was surprised he hadn’t called to check on me yet. If I were to call him to try and verbalise the fear that was literally eating me from the inside out, he not only wouldn’t understand, he would erupt. I was skating on perilously thin ice with him as it was. My two days’ absence after Rose’s death had been the icing on the cake.
But my head hurt. I saw a couple of police officers in uniform as I drove and momentarily wondered whether to tell them Ben Cullen had sent me a friend request and I thought there might be a chance he was caught up in all this. Saying it in my head made me realise how implausible that would sound to an outsider; but not to me, I knew what he was capable of.
I had to get away from here. I wanted to go home but I needed my job. Maybe I would be safer at work anyway? Desolate as it was, we had good security measures. I made sure all the doors on my car were locked and I drove on, the friend request sitting unanswered on my phone.
Rose
2007
Rose Maguire: is thinking this could be the start of something new! :)
I knew – the minute I saw him – that there was a connection there. It wasn’t like a bolt of lightning or a burst of starlight, just a calmness that drew me to the dark and brooding figure sitting hunched over a table at the library, pen in hand, scribbling into a leather-bound notebook.
A Styrofoam coffee cup at his side, his face was set in fierce concentration and I knew – even as I stood there returning the books I had borrowed – that he was going to mean something to me. Maybe my brain was a little too turned with the romantic novels I had been reading, but it felt right. It just felt like it was meant to be. I couldn’t help but look at him – wonder what had him scribbling so intently into that notebook. I clearly stared a little too long, or a little too hard, because when he looked up he caught me and stared straight back, his expression at first curious, serious even, then he smiled and it was as if I saw the real him.
The strong jaw, the twinkling eyes, the slightly unkempt hair that was just messy enough. If Disney drew a modern prince, one who hung about in libraries looking intense and wearing checked shirts, they would do well to model him on the man in front of me.
I should probably have looked away when he caught me staring. Ordinarily that’s exactly what I would have done – but something about him made me keep staring. I didn’t even blush. Not really – although I did feel a little flushed.
I tilted my head to the side, smiled back. Flirtatious, I suppose. As soon as the librarian had scanned the books I was borrowing, I walked over to him. I never expected to find any sort of connection here of all places. The Central Library – close to work. A functional building that lacked any charm. It had the air of a doctor’s waiting room about it but as I approached him, and he stood up, I felt something in my core flip. I blushed then, of course, wondering if he could read my mind – see how my breath had quickened just a little at the sight of him.
‘Leaving?’ I asked him.
‘My coffee’s gone cold,’ he said, gesturing to the cup on the table. ‘I thought I’d nip out and get a fresh one. Want to join me? We could walk up to Java? They do great cappuccinos. You look like a cappuccino kind of a girl.’
‘You’re right, and I’d love to,’ I said.
‘Good.’ He smiled before extending his hand to shake mine. ‘I’m Cian.’
‘Rose,’ I replied.
It wasn’t how I had thought my weekend would start. I had been planning on curling up on my sofa, throw over my knees, cup of tea in my hand and losing myself in the books I had borrowed. The last few weekends had been hectic – this one was for regrouping. Having time to myself.
It didn’t work out that way. It started with two hours over coffee where we talked about all sorts of everything and nothing. He told me he was a writer, working on his first novel. I blushed a little when I told him I worked in a dental surgery – nowhere near as glamorous or creative as his job, but he smiled and said people would always want good teeth.
I asked if I could read any of his work but he was shy, bowed his head. It wasn’t ready to be seen by anyone else yet. He wanted it to be more polished, he said. I knew it would be good though – he oozed a brooding intensity that no doubt came across in his writing.
We left the coffee shop having exchanged phone numbers, and he sent me a text later that night asking if I wanted to meet him the following day – a picnic in St. Columb’s Park, just across the river, he suggested. The weather was to be lovely and he always felt more inspired outdoors.
Giddy at the thought, I got up early and went to the Foyleside Shopping Centre to buy something that looked picnic casual but still a bit alluring. I showered, spent time making sure my hair was straightened to within an inch of its life, applied a ‘no make-up make-up’ look and made some pasta salad to take as my contribution along with a bottle of wine that had been chilling in my fridge.
The picnic was everything I hoped it would be. We walked through the wooded pathways of the park, down as far as the riverbank away from the noise of the play park. He took my hand. We chatted. We sat beneath the dappled shade of the trees and he read some of his favourite poems to me – and even though poetry had never, ever been my thing, I found myself completely entranced by him. The emotion he found in the words – the way he made the lines that had always baffled me before suddenly make sense. He didn’t sneer when I asked a question – he answered.
He asked about me too – about my life. My work. My friends. My family. The music I liked, the films I watched. He wasn’t ever going to be a huge Nora Ephron fan, he said – but he could see the appeal. After a glass of wine and some food (he said my pasta salad was delicious), when the afternoon sun had made us both feel a little sleepy, we lay side by side on the blanket listening to the sounds of families playing close by and the chatter of teenagers, feeling liberated by the sunshine. He took my hand and told me he’d had the best afternoon he’d had in a long time. I looked at him –
