Page 96 of Shipwrecked

“What do you want on it?”

“Everything.”

Cillian grins. “Everything it is.” He kisses my temple and heads out. I stare at the door after him and feel disquieted until he returns, food in one hand, phone in the other. “Mathieu wants to describe what he’s eating to you. Sit. I’ll plate this up.” He nods at the couch. I take the phone from him.

“You are home?” Mathieu asks.

“Home,” I confirm. “Exhausted. Hungry.”

“I have stuffed myself so much I won’t need to eat for a week.”

I smile. “Good.”

Cillian joins me with the pizza, then puts Mathieu on loudspeaker and sets the phone on the table. Mathieu only gets in another word before someone is calling him away.

“We’re just pulling up to the house… My friends are here to see me. I will call back in an hour!”

The pizza is the best thing I’ve eaten in my life, and the fizzy drink—Cillian got me Club Orange—is divine. He’s equally engrossed in his meal. When all is said and done, I’m ready to pass out. I have an appointment in the morning at the local hospital, and if I’m going to be awake for it, I need to get some rest.

“Let me show you where everything is.” I lead Cillian to the bathroom, which is so small he barely fits, and I dig out an extra toothbrush from the cabinet below the sink. There’s something reassuring about seeing all my toiletries in a neat line. The world hasn’t changed, but I feel different. A psychologist had stopped by my room and discussed how I’m likely going to feel odd returning to society. That things like anxiety and fear are normal, documented experiences, but not to worry because after a few weeks I’d adjust.

I was afraid on the plane, but not in this apartment.

Probably because Cillian’s in it with me, and Mathieu’s been in constant contact.

“Here’s the bedroom.” This room is different from how I left it. All of Darren’s things are gone. The dresser is left open, gutted of his clothes, and the corner where all his GAA gear used to get thrown is barren. There’s only my desk, stuffed in the corner, and a small bookcase, fighting for its life to contain all my college textbooks.

Cillian goes to the shelf, picking up the picture frame on top.

It’s from my ninth birthday. I’m smiling over a cake, bracketed by my parents. For the first time, I realise how young they are, faces still untouched by wrinkles. “I don’t remember that. I have a folder in here somewhere with a few more pictures of them, and an old Facebook profile that belonged to my mom has more. I’m in most of the photos, but…” I shrug, and wince, because I shouldn’t be shrugging with a broken arm. “I barely remember my life with them.”

Cillian sets the photo down. “Sorry. I’m sure Mathieu would know what to say, but as for me…”

“You can tell me something about you,” I suggest. “To distract me while I get this shirt off.”

Cillian helps me. There’s something resigned in his voice when he speaks. “Mine are likely in a pub right this second, delighted to have something to talk about with people. They’ve probably been doing that the entire time I’ve been missing. Living it up, thinking all the attention is great, not realising that everyone’s disgusted at them for going off drinking while their son is missing. They’ll be acting nonchalant.”

He carefully guides my cast through the sleeve.

“Is that why you don’t like your partners drinking?”

Cillian is slow to answer. “Even when I objectively know they don’t drink much, and it’s not an addiction…instinctively, my body recoils from it. I get a visceral reaction.” He sits on the edge of the bed. “After Seán’s family took me in and I became close with him, I used to get upset whenever he drank. I try to remove myself from situations where I know someone close to me will be drunk because I haven’t ever got over that…reaction.”

I sit next to him.

“I’m not telling you not to drink,” Cillian continues. “Or Mathieu. Do whatever you like, that’s not up to me. But I’d appreciate a heads-up first. If I know the plan, I can make sure I’m not around to see it.” He winces as if he’s asking for the world.

“That sounds reasonable. I’d like to suggest something equally reasonable.”

“What?”

“Stop eyeing up the couch like that’s where you’re sleeping.”

Cillian’s eyes widen. A chuckle rumbles from deep in his chest. “Alright. Fair.”

When we’re lying in bed, I can’t sleep. There’s a tight ball of anxiety in my chest, and tiredness isn’t softening it. I shouldn’t have dismissed that psychologist at the hospital so quickly. I know from the sound of Cillian’s breaths that he isn’t sleeping either.

His phone buzzes, and he rolls away, fishing it from the bedside table.