Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

“Oh, you make me smile so much, Ivan.” Elizabeth laughed, collapsing on the sand later that evening.

“Just doin’ my job.” He grinned back. As soon as the words had left his mouth, his smile faded and Elizabeth detected a hint of sadness in those blue eyes.

Chapter Thirty

Elizabeth allowed her red dress to slide down her legs, gather at her ankles, and then stepped out of it. She wrapped a warm bathrobe around her body, pinned her hair up, and climbed onto her bed with a cup of coffee she had brought from downstairs. She had wanted Ivan to come to bed with her tonight, despite her earlier protests. She had wanted him to take her in his arms on the sand in the cove right there but it seemed the more she felt drawn to him, the further he pulled himself away.

After they had watched the stars dancing in the sky and then had themselves danced on the sand, Ivan had withdrawn into himself in the car on the journey home. He had asked her to let him out in the small town, from where he would make his own way home, wherever home was. He had yet to bring her there or introduce her to his friends and family. Elizabeth had never before been interested in meeting the others in her partners’ lives, with college boyfriends or with Mark. She felt as though as long as she enjoyed his company, whether or not she liked the company of those who surrounded him was irrelevant. But with Ivan she felt she needed to see another side to him. She needed to witness his relationships with other people so he could become the three-dimensional character she so desperately believed he could be. That was always the argument old partners had with Elizabeth and now she finally understood what it was they were searching for.

Elizabeth had watched Ivan in her mirror as she drove away, intrigued to know what direction he would walk in. He had looked left and right down the deserted streets, which were empty at that late night hour, began to walk left in the direction of the mountains and the hotel, but after a few steps he stopped, turned around, and walked in the other direction. He crossed the road and strode confidently toward Killarney, but halted suddenly, eventually folded his arms across his chest, and sat down on the stone windowsill of the butcher’s.

She didn’t think he knew where home was or if he did, he didn’t know his way there. She knew how he felt.

On Monday afternoon, Ivan stood at the doorway to Opal’s office and chuckled as he listened to Oscar ranting to Opal for a steady ten minutes. As amusing as he was to listen to, they’d have to hurry their meeting along, because Ivan was due to meet Elizabeth at seven p.m. He had twenty minutes. He hadn’t seen her since the Delta Aquarids viewing on Saturday night, the greatest night of his long, long life. He had tried to walk away from her after that. He had tried to leave Baile na gCroíthe, tried to move on to someone else who needed his help, but he couldn’t. He didn’t feel drawn to any direction other than Elizabeth, and it was stronger than any other pull he had experienced before. This time it wasn’t just his mind that was pulling him, it was his heart too.

“Opal.” Oscar’s serious tones floated out to the hallway. “I desperately need more staff for next week.”

“Yes, I understand, Oscar, and we’ve already arranged for Suki to help you in the lab,” Opal explained in her gentle yet firm tones. “There’s nothing more we can do for now.”

“That’s simply not good enough,” he fumed. “On Saturday night, millions of people viewed the Delta Aquarids. Do you know how many wishes will come shooting in here over the next few weeks?” He didn’t wait for an answer and Opal didn’t offer one. “It’s a dangerous procedure, Opal, and I need more hands. While Suki is extremely efficient in the administration area, she is not qualified in wish analysis. Either I’m helped out by more staff or you’ll have to find a new wish analyst,” he puffed. With that he stormed out of the office, past Ivan and down the hallway, mumbling, “Af

ter years of studying to be a meteorologist, I get stuck doing this! ”

“Ivan,” Opal’s voice called out.

“How do you do that?” Ivan asked, entering the office. He was beginning to think she could see through walls.

She looked up from the desk and smiled weakly. Ivan took a sharp breath. She looked very tired, as if she hadn’t slept for weeks.

“You’re late,” she said gently. “You were supposed to be here at nine a.m.”

“I was?” Ivan asked, looking confused. “I only called in to ask you a quick question, I have to rush off in a minute,” he added quickly. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, he sang in his head.

“We agreed you would cover for me today, remember?” she said firmly, standing up from her desk and walking around to the other side.

“Oh no, no, no,” Ivan said quickly, backing out toward the doorway. “I’d love to help you, Opal, really I would. Helping is one of my favorite things to do, but I can’t now, I’ve made plans to meet my client. I can’t miss it, you know how it is.”

Opal leaned against the desk, folded her arms, and cocked her head to one side. She blinked and her eyes closed slowly and tiredly, taking an age to open them again. “So she’s your client now, is she?” she said wearily. Dark colors surrounded her today; he could see them spreading out from all around her body.

“Yes, she’s my client,” Ivan replied less confidently, “and I really can’t miss her this evening.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to say good-bye to her, Ivan.”

She said it so coldly, without padding or frills, that it chilled Ivan. He gulped and shifted his weight to his other foot.

“How do you feel about that?” she asked, when he didn’t answer.

Ivan thought about it, his heart thudded in his chest, and he felt as if it were going to move up through his throat and out of his mouth. His eyes filled. “I don’t want to,” he said quietly.

Opal’s arms lowered to her sides slowly. “Pardon?” she asked, a little more gently.

Ivan thought about his life without Elizabeth and he raised his voice louder, more confidently. “I don’t want to say good-bye to her. I want to stay with her forever, Opal. She makes me feel happier than I’ve ever felt before in my life and she tells me that I do the same for her. Surely it would be wrong to walk away from that?” He smiled widely, imagining the feeling of being with her.

Opal’s hardened face softened. “Oh, Ivan, I knew this would happen.” There was pity in her voice and he didn’t like it. He would have preferred the anger. “But I thought you of all people would have made the right decision a long time ago.”

“What decision?” Ivan’s face crumpled at the thought of having made the wrong one. “I asked you what I should do and you wouldn’t tell me.” He began to panic.

“You should have left her a long time ago, Ivan,” she said sadly, “but I couldn’t tell you to do that. You had to realize it for yourself.”

“But I couldn’t leave her.” Ivan sat down on the chair before her desk slowly as the sadness and shock crept through his body. “She kept seeing me.” His voice was almost a whisper. “I couldn’t leave until she stopped seeing me.”

“You made her keep seeing you, Ivan,” Opal explained.

“No, I didn’t.” He stood up and walked away, angry at the suggestion that anything about their relationship had been forced.

“You followed her, you watched her for days, you allowed the small connection you both had to blossom. You tapped into something extraordinary and made her realize it too.”