Page 37 of Unreasonably Yours

Cillian

Beyond the curtains, the light has faded, leaving the room dim and quiet.

I know we should get up, should let the blood flow back to our legs, should...Shit, there were plenty of things I should do right now, people to call, arrangements to help with. But all I want to do is hold onto Toni.

The weight of her in my lap, the warmth of her body, her gentle reassurances—the whole of her—is keeping me here.

And, as much as I don’t want to admit it to myself, there is a part of me that does not want to be here.

Or anywhere. It’s the part of me that is so goddamn tired of pain and loss.

The part that is screaming to feel nothing.

So I tighten my grip. Rest my forehead against her chest. Squeeze my eyes tight.

“Breathe,” she coos in my ear.

I suck in a ragged breath. And another. Her scent mixes with the much-needed oxygen.

“Sorry,” I rasp.

Toni coaxes me to look at her. “Don’t you dare.”

“I did say there wouldn’t be hysterics.” I try to make my voice sound lighter than I feel, a poor attempt to hide the twinge of shame curling in my gut.

She rolls her eyes, shifting a bit. “Not to change the subject, but I think my legs are numb.” The awkward grin on her face brings a genuine smile to mine.

Blood flow restored, Toni walks toward the living room. “Come on.” She waves for me to follow.

“For what?” I ask.

“You need to eat.”

I follow, not because I agree, but because I don’t want her out of my sight. Despite my dismissive words earlier, the thought of her being away from me right now makes the ground shift beneath my feet, not unlike the moment I saw her outside the safety of the car when I walked out of Joey’s house.

“I don’t have much of an appetite,” I say, needing to focus on anything other than Joey.

“Too bad.” She opens the fridge, studying the contents. “I’m Southern. My impulse in these situations is to cook...something.”

For a moment, I’m entranced, watching her pull things out.

“No offense, but I’ve never so much as seen you turn the stove on, doll.

” My thigh cramps angrily, informing me that I would be paying for having my breakdown on the floor rather than someplace more sensible.

I pull out one of the old dining chairs, stretching my leg out in front of me.

“Liar.”

“Oh?”

“I turned the stove on when we cooked together a couple of weeks ago. Not that you let me do anything more than that.” I raise a brow at her. “I can cook,” she says. I can’t restrain the way her heavy emphasis on ‘can’ brings out that Texas twang in her voice. “When the spirit moves me.”

“And the spirit is moving you in the direction of? ”

“Chili?” she asks.

“Sounds great.”

As Toni cobbles together our meal from whatever is in my kitchen, we chat about small things.

She tells me how she learned to cook from watching her mom in the kitchen.

I tell stories about my own mother teaching Michael and me to cook, because she didn’t want her boys to be as useless as her brothers.

For a precious couple of hours, it feels like there is no world outside of this bubble. No painful memories. No grief. Just warm light, good food, and this woman.

“That was very good,” I say. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”

Toni glares at me. “I feel like that was meant to be a compliment.” She stands, gathering her bowl and reaching for mine.

I grin, stopping her from taking my bowl and pluck her’s from her hand. “It was.” Grabbing her by the hips, I pull her closer. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, kissing my forehead.

“But, since you cooked, you’re not allowed to do the dishes. House rules.” I scoot away from her, bracing myself on the heavy wooden table as I stand.

“House rules my ass,” she scoffs. She yanks her dishes back from me. “You never let me do dishes when you cook.”

“Guests aren’t allowed to do dishes either.” I try to take the bowl back. “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

“This is quite literally your house.”

“Technically, it’s my?—”

“Uncle’s. Don’t blame him.” She tries to pull it free from me, but we’re in a standoff. “Ugh!”

“Did you just stomp your foot at me?” I chuckle.

“Maybe.” She pulls at the bowl. I smirk, pulling the bowl up until she’s forced to release it. “You’re being so difficult! ”

I grip her chin with my free hand, kissing her pursed lips. “Now you know how it feels.”

Her jaw drops open with an offended gasp.

My laugh catches me off guard, the sound a bit too big for the low-ceilinged kitchen. I set the dish down and try to pull Toni into me. To my delight, she fights me.

“Absolutely not.” She pushes against my chest. “You just called me difficult.” Playfully, she bats my kiss away.

I get around her defenses. This time, her lips soften against mine. “I like that you’re difficult,” I say softly.

An emotion I can’t quite clock flutters behind her eyes, so fast I may be imagining it.

Toni clears her throat a little before saying, “So does that mean you’ll let me do the dishes?”

We ultimately split the task, falling into an easy rhythm of me washing, her drying. When I rinse soap off the final spoon, I’ve never been so disappointed to be done with the chore.

Before my mind spirals into thoughts of what to do next, Toni asks, “What’s your go-to comfort movie?”

I consider. “There are a few.”

“Nope.” She shakes her head, folding the dishtowel. “You can only pick one.”

“ The Lord of the Rings ,” I say without hesitation.

She grins. “That’s three movies.”

“One trilogy.”

“Loopholes,” she sighs, rolling her eyes playfully. “Fellowship is one of my all-time favorites, so I’m game.”

“Extended edition?” I ask.

“Is there any other way?”

We settle in on the couch, Toni cradled between my legs, her cheek on my stomach. Somewhere around the Lothlorien mark, she drifts off.

I feel the steady rise and fall of her breathing, every shift her body makes. The rhythm of her sleep paired with the comfortingly familiar sounds of the movie soothes me to my core.

“Cillian!”

The sound of my name, followed by a banging on the kitchen door, wakes us both. I clutch Toni, momentarily too flooded with fear and adrenaline to register that it’s my brother’s voice.

When he calls my name again, accompanied by the slamming of the kitchen door, the fog clears enough for me to let her go. I haul my stiff body off the couch as Michael barrels up the stairs.

“What the hell?” I ask, intercepting him in the hall.

“I could ask you the same fucking thing.” He shoves my chest. I can’t tell if his intention is to move me out of the way or, given the force, if it’s an alternative to hitting me. “Do you not know how to answer your goddamn phone?”

I hadn’t even thought about my phone since pulling into the driveway yesterday. Today? I can’t be sure what time it is, seeing as it’s still pitch black outside.

“I—” He doesn’t let me answer.

“No one has heard shit from you since yesterday. Since...” He drags a hand over his face, a tick we share. “You can’t just—You can’t drop off the planet!”

“I didn’t. Mom knew I was?—”

“Yeah. And how many times did you lie to her before?” He spits the question at me.

If I were in a better, clearer headspace, I’d be able to acknowledge that he wasn’t wrong. But at the moment, I am not in a clear and balanced headspace.

All I’m seeing is red.

“You think I’m lying?” My voice is dangerously low .

“No. I . . . I don’t know. You disappea?—”

“Ask the question you really wanna ask, Mike.” His mouth opens and snaps shut. “Go on. Fucking ask me.” I shove him just as he had me, his back thudding into the wall.

His face flushes red. “Fuck me for worrying I’d find you with a needle in your arm, Cillian!”

Michael’s words should have been the thing that snapped my reality back into full focus, but they aren’t. It’s the sound of the floorboards creaking behind me.

“Toni...” Michael’s face falls, the shift from anger to dread jarring. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Toni says. I can’t bring myself to look at her. “I’ll give y’all some space.”

As soon as I know she’s far enough up the stairs, all the fight drains from me in a rush. I brace myself against the wall with one hand. “Fuck.”

“Cillian, I . . .”

I shake my head. Without a word, I slink back down into the kitchen, wanting whatever was left of this conversation to take place as far away from her as was possible.

The clock on the microwave reads 5 am.

Guilt pummels me. I should’ve called or at least texted someone. But I’d wanted to narrow my world to Toni.

I sit in the same chair I had last night, my elbows on my knees, eyes on the floor. Michael leans against the newel post.

All I see are his sneakers as he says, “If I’d realized she was right there, Cillian, I wouldn’t—” He sighs heavily. “I don’t know what I would’ve done, actually. I was so...am so...Fuck.” His voice cracks as he slumps to the stairs, his pose mirroring mine.

I look up at him as he says, “I’m sorry. I was...scared.” He rubs his hands together nervously.

No matter how old you get, seeing your older sibling afraid will always be unsettling. More so when you know you’re the cause of that fear.

“I won’t lie to you and say I don’t want to.” The gnawing, hungry ache for release undermined every comfort Toni provided, or tried to, since we walked in that door.

The voice insisting, Just one. Just a bit. A moment to breathe. A moment of peace.

“God,” I say on a heavy breath, “I want to. But I am fighting it, Michael.”

“I know. I know you are.” His eyes remain focused on the terracotta tiles. “I shouldn’t have said that about Mom.”

I shrug. What he’d said stung, but he hadn’t been entirely unjustified.

I had lied. For years. To him, to our parents, to myself.

Lies that I convinced myself I was telling to protect them, to not burden them with how bad things really were.

That kind of thing leaves wounds, ones that, even after all these years, were bound to reopen sometimes.

“You been over there? To see them?” I ask, voice sounding hollow.

“For a bit last night.” He massages the bridge of his nose. “Going back in the—Well, I guess it’s already morning,” he says, looking at the clock. “I told mom and dad I’d be over around 9.”

“You can stay here if you want.” He looked like he hadn’t slept.

“You sure? With Toni?—”

“It’s not like we’re gonna fuck in the stairwell or something,” I cut him off, my tone a bit more biting than I intend.

“Ha. Ha.” Michael deadpans. “I’m only saying I don’t want to cause more issues than I already have.”

“You’re assuming?—”

“Cillian, you wouldn’t have reacted like that if she already knew about...everything. ”

He doesn’t use the words addict, or addiction, or overdose, but I feel them all the same.

Recovery is a winding thing. It’s a journey that doesn’t have a destination, not really.

Some days, I don’t feel shame around them; they’re a part of me, but they don’t define me.

Other days, they feel just as damning as all the rest of my many mistakes.

The weight of them is heavy around my neck, dragging me down.

“She’s not Kevin,” Michael says, accurately diagnosing the source of my hesitation to be honest with Toni.

Old affection makes me want to defend him.

Not because I missed or wanted Kevin back, that was a door that should have closed long before it did.

But because I couldn’t hold his decision that recovering addict , no matter how long I’d been sober, was over the limit of baggage he was willing to carry against him.

“I know.” I stand up, ignoring the twinge in my leg. “Crash here. It’s fine.”

He nods, following my lead, and stands. “I’ll call Cam and let her know.” It’s code for, I’ll sit in my car for a bit to give you guys space , and I appreciate it.