I laugh lightly, though the smile doesn’t quite reach my eyes. “Does he know what he’s letting himself in for?”
“Why not ask him yourself?” She walks me to the centre of the room where a large crowd has gathered. A hum of conversation lingers in the air. I hang on the edge, a little embarrassed when Elise pushes her way through, trying to open up the crowd like Moses would the Red Sea.
“There you are, Niall.” Her loud voice carries across the room. “I’d like you to meet Bethany. She works at the clinic I was telling you about.”
I see his blue eyes first—bright, intense, azure as the ocean. They make my heart stutter. He narrows them when he looks at me. My stomach tightens and twists as if it’s being wrung by a mangle.
My past has just walked back into my life, and it’s all I can do to breathe.
* * *
The last time I saw Niall Joseph, I pretended I didn’t know him. I was being marched away from the university administration building by my father, his fingers squeezing into my wrist, his lips tight and angry. It was early evening, and I’d been given two hours to clear my room out and leave the campus, otherwise I’d be escorted away by security.
We’d almost reached the halls of residence when I noticed a tall figure lolling against the front porch. He had what looked like a cigarette in his hand, but by the time we reached him I realised it wasn’t a cigarette at all. The musty aroma and his red eyes were a dead giveaway.
Of course, my eyes were red too, but for an entirely different reason. I’d been crying on and off for the past few days. Had been in floods when I answered the investigator’s questions, trying to tell them about my friendship with Digby, and to describe what happened the night he died.
Lying through my teeth that I didn’t know where he got the ecstasy from. Of course I knew. We all did. Niall was quite the supplier back then.
Every time I sobbed, my father rolled his eyes. He’d made it patently clear he’d rather be anywhere than there. He was only accompanying me to make sure I didn’t make a fool out of myself. Out of our family.
“Are you okay?” Niall pushed himself off the wall and walked toward us. My dad said nothing, but I felt his fingers tighten on my arm. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
“I’m fine.” Short, terse. I glanced at my dad from the corner of my eye. He was staring at us, open-mouthed.
Niall put the joint to his mouth and inhaled again. Jesus, did he have a death wish? “You don’t look fine. You look crap.”
“Do you know this young man, Bethany?” My father’s patience finally ran out. I was shaking by the time I looked up at him, scared of pretty much everything that had happened. In the past few days I’d seen one of my closest friends die, been questioned by journalists and policemen, and finally been hauled up in front of the administration. I was spent, done. Nothing more than a quivering wreck. Now Niall—who had given Digby the drugs in the first place—was smoking a joint in front of my dad.
Maybe, if my dad had been somebody else, less concerned with appearances and more worried about his daughter, it would all have been different. Perhaps if I had been stronger, not the broken girl I’d ended up as, I might have been able to answer him properly. Instead of that, I shook my head.
“No, I don’t know him at all.”
* * *
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Niall reaches out and shakes my hand. I stare at the way his long fingers curl around my palm, and feel beads of sweat break out on my skin. It takes everything I have not to let him feel my hand tremble, because I don’t want him to know just how shocked I am to see him again.
“It’s good to meet you, too. Elise tells me you’re going to be working with us.” I can’t look at him. Instead I stare at his feet, noting how shiny his black leather shoes are. They look so different to the trainers I remember him wearing. Always beaten up, splattered with paint.
Like the rest of him.
“I’d like to.” His voice is softer than I remember. The Dublin lilt is still there, though. “It’s something I feel strongly about.”
“Drugs?” Surprised, I look up at him, my eyes wide. I have to take a deep breath when I see him staring straight at me.
He’s still beautiful. His hair is a little longer but still as dark as newspaper ink. His face has lost that youthful plumpness, replaced by chiselled cheekbones, shadowed by stubble. But I’d recognise him anywhere. Those full, red lips, that nose with a slight bump on the bridge, the tiny scar next to his right ear that he got playing football when he was a kid. They’re all there, a reminder of everything that happened all those years ago. Everything I’ve tried to forget.
“I want to give something back. I’ve been given a lot of good things in life. Other people aren’t so lucky.”
My mind is full of questions I don’t know how to ask. How he’s been, what he’s been doing, but I don’t voice any of them, I’m too afraid. Scared of dredging up the past like a river full of silt.
“Well, we’d be really grateful for your help. The kids love art on Thursdays; it’s their favourite class.” I feel better when I talk about the clinic. More grounded. This is my reality now, not those memories that are trying to resurface. “They’re not da Vinci’s or anything, but some of them seem to have talent.”
“Well, I’m no da Vinci either.”
I glance around the gallery. “You’re pretty good.”
He actually blushes. “Thank you.”