Page 73 of An Irish Summer

“Of course I do,” she said. “I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Why?”

“So I know Ireland is working.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Softening you up,” she said. “Forcing you to let your guard down or whatever.”

“Since when has that been the plan? Wasn’t I just supposed to come here while I looked for a job back home?”

“Couldn’t there be more than one reason you’re there?”

“Not that we agreed upon.”

“Things change, babe.”

I could hear her smile through the phone, and for a minute or two neither of us said anything.

“I didn’t think I would like him this much,” I said eventually—quietly—like a confession.

“And we didn’t think you’d move to Ireland, either, and yet...” She let her voice trail off into silence.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Let yourself feel whatever you’re feeling, Chels. These feelings are good. You don’t have to fight them. And you definitely don’t have to run from them. You can stay right where you are if you like.”

“I thought you wanted me to come home,” I said, “but lately it’s feeling like you’re trying to convince me to stay.”

“I want you to be happy. Wherever that is.”

“It’s Boston.”

“Great! Then I can’t wait for you to come home.”

I knew she meant it, but I also knew she wasn’t satisfied. She knew me better than I knew myself, which meant she knew something had changed. Which meant I couldn’t keep trying to pretend it hadn’t. “I just don’t want you to think you can’t be happy in two places,” she added when I said nothing.

“But I can’t live in two places.”

“Are you saying you’re considering living there?”

“Isn’t that what you just suggested?” I couldn’t remember whose ideas were whose anymore.

“Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know!” I didn’t mean to shout, but I was pretty sure someone in Ben’s sister’s yoga thing shushed me through the line.

“That’s okay, Chels,” Ada said, returning to a whisper. “You don’t have to know everything, all the time. But I’m always here to support you and we can always talk about it. That doesn’t have to be right now. And it probably shouldn’t be because you’re messing up my flow.”

I laughed at that. This was what best friends were for. They knew exactly how to rile you up and calm you back down.

“Like hell you know anything about flow,” I said. “How’s Ben’s sister?”

“She’s great! Really getting this yoga thing off the ground. I think their parents are still paying all her bills, but she’s putting the work in.”

“And how’s Ben?”

Before she even answered I couldfeelher smiling, even from three thousand miles away. “We looked at rings this week.”

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