Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You

Holly smiled as she watched her sister nattering away to Daniel. Ciara was nothing like her at all, she was so carefree and confident and never seemed to worry about anything. For as long as Holly could remember, Ciara had never managed to hold down a job or a boyfriend, her brain was always somewhere else, lost in the dream of visiting another far-off country. Holly wished she could be more like her, but she was such a home-bird and could never imagine herself moving away from her family and friends and leaving the life she had made for herself here. At least she could never leave the life she once had.

She turned her attention to Jack, who was still lost in a world with Abbey. She even wished she could be more like him; he absolutely loved his job as a secondary school teacher. He was the cool English teacher that all the teenagers respected, and whenever Holly and Jack passed one of his students on the street they always greeted him with a big smile and a “Hiya, sir!” All the girls fancied him and all the boys wanted to be like him when they got older. Holly sighed loudly and drained her drink. Now she was bored.

Daniel looked over. “Holly, can I get you a drink?”

“Ah no, it's OK, thanks, Daniel, I'm heading home soon anyway.”

“Ah Hol!” protested Ciara. “You can't go home so early! It's your night!”

Holly didn't feel like it was her night. She felt like she had gate-crashed a party and didn't know anyone there.

“No, I'm all right, thanks,” she assured Daniel again.

“No, you're staying,” Ciara insisted. “Get her a vodka and Coke and I'll have the same again,”

she ordered Daniel.

“Ciara!” Holly exclaimed, embarrassed at her sister's rudeness.

“No, it's OK!” Daniel assured her. “I asked,” and he headed off to the bar.

“Ciara, that was so rude,” Holly gave out to her sister.

“What? It's not like he has to pay for it, he owns the bloody place,” she said defensively.

“That still doesn't mean you can go around demanding free drinks . . .”

“Where's Richard?” Ciara interrupted.

“Gone home.”

“Shit! How long ago?” She jumped down from her seat in a panic.

“I dunno, about five or ten minutes. Why?”

“He's supposed to be driving me home!” She threw everyone's coats into a pile on the floor while she rooted around for her bag.

“Ciara, you'll never catch him now, he's gone far too long.”

“No, I will. He's parked ages away and he'll have to drive back down this road to get home. I'll get him while he's passing.” She finally found her bag and legged it out the door yelling, “Bye, Holly! Well done, you were shite!” and disappeared out the door.

Holly was once again alone. Great, she thought, watching Daniel carrying the drinks back to the table, now she was stuck talking to him all by herself.

“Where's Ciara gone?” Daniel asked, placing the drinks on the table and sitting down opposite Holly.

“Oh, she said to say she's really sorry but she had to chase my brother for a lift.” Holly bit her lip guiltily, knowing full well that Ciara hadn't even given Daniel a second thought as she raced out the door. “Sorry for being so rude to you earlier as well.” Then she started laughing, “God, you must think we're the rudest family in the world. Ciara's a bit of a motormouth; she doesn't mean what she says half the time.”

“And you did?” he smiled.

“At the time, yes,” she laughed again.

“Hey, it's fine, just means there's more drink for you,” he said, sliding the shot glass across the table to her.

“Ugh, what is this?” Holly wrinkled her nose up at the smell.

Daniel looked away awkwardly and cleared his throat. “I can't remember.”

“Oh, come on!” Holly laughed. “You just ordered it! It's a woman's right to know what she's drinking, you know!”

Daniel looked at her with a smile on his face. “It's called a BJ. You should have seen the barman's face when I asked for one. I don't think he knew it was a shot!”

“Oh, God,” Holly said. “What's Ciara doing drinking this? It smells awful!”

“She said she found it easy to swallow.” He started laughing again.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Daniel, she really is ridiculous sometimes.” Holly shook her head over her sister.

Daniel stared past Holly's shoulder with amusement. “Well, it looks like your friend is having a good night anyway.”

Holly swirled around and saw Denise and the DJ wrapped around each other beside the stage.

Her provocative poses had obviously worked.

“Oh no, not the horrible DJ who forced me to come out of the toilet,” Holly groaned.

“That's Tom O'Connor from Dublin FM,” Daniel said. “He's a friend of mine.”

Holly covered her face in embarrassment.

“He's working here tonight because the karaoke went out live on the radio,” he said seriously.

“What?” Holly nearly had a heart attack for the twentieth time that night.

Daniel's face broke into a smile. “Only joking; just wanted to see the look on your face.”

“Oh my God, don't do that to me,” Holly said, putting her hand on her heart. “Having the people in here hear me was bad enough, never mind the entire city as well.” She waited for her heart to stop pounding while Daniel stared at her with an amused look in his eye.

“If you don't mind me asking, if you hate it so much, why did you enter?” he asked carefully.

“Oh, my hilarious husband thought it would be funny to enter his tone-deaf wife into a singing competition.”

Daniel laughed. “You weren't that bad! Is your husband here?” he asked, looking around. “I don't want him thinking I'm trying to poison his wife with that awful concoction.” He nodded toward the shot glass.

Holly looked around the club and smiled. “Yeah, he's definitely here . . . somewhere.”

Sixteen

HOLLY SECURED HER BEDSHEET ONTO the washing line with a peg and thought about how she had bumbled around for the remainder of May trying to get her life into some sort of order. Days went by when she felt so happy and content and confident that her life would be OK, and then as quickly as the feeling came it would disappear again, and she would feel her sadness setting in once more. She tried to find a routine she could happily fall into so that she felt like she belonged in her body and her body belonged in this life, instead of wandering around like a zombie watching everybody else live theirs while she waited around for hers to end. Unfortunately the routine hadn't turned out exactly as she hoped it would. She found herself immobile for hours in the sitting room, reliving every single memory that she and Gerry had shared. Sadly, she spent most of that time thinking about every argument they had had, wishing she could take them back, wishing she could take back every horrible word she had ever said to him. She prayed that Gerry had known her words had only been spoken out of anger and that they had not reflected her true feelings. She tortured herself for the times she had acted selfishly, going out with her friends for the night when she was mad at him instead of staying home with him. She chastised herself for walking away from him when she should have hugged him, when she held grudges for days instead of forgiving him, when she went straight to sleep some nights instead of making love to him. She wanted to take back every moment she knew he had been so angry with her and hated her. She wished all her memories could be of the good times, but the bad times kept coming back to haunt her. They had all been such a waste of time.

And nobody had told them that they were short on time.

Then there were her happy days, when she would walk around in a daydream with nothing but a smile on her face, catching herself giggling as she walked down the street when a joke of theirs would suddenly pop into her head. That was her routine. She would fall into days of deep dark depression, then finally build up the strength to be positive and to snap out of it for another few days. But the tiniest and simplest thing would trigger off her tears again. It was a tiring process, and most of the time she couldn't be bothered battling with her mind. It was far stronger than any muscle in her body.