Love Like This

“I meant without killing me,” Shane laughed.

He seemed to enjoy winding Keira up.

“I feel like we’ve gotten off to a bad start,” Keira said as she tried to keep up with his brisk pace. She wasn’t used to hilly walks. “Have I said something to insult you?”

At first, Shane ignored the question. Instead, he pointed to a wooden stake in the ground with several colorful arrows on it. “We’re following the orange trail, okay?”

Keira nodded. They continued ascending the gray hillside. The landscape was so barren Keira felt as if she were walking on the surface of the moon. The craggy craters on either side of her added further to the illusion. When she saw a tuft of grass – somehow growing through a crack in the rock – it gave her a bit of a shock to think that grass could grow on the moon. She had to remind herself that this place was actually on Earth.

“Well?” Keira pressed. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“About whether we got off on the wrong foot or not?” Shane said. Then he chewed his bottom lip in contemplation. “Why does it matter?”

“Because we have thirty days to spend together so we may as well get along.”

Shane fell silent again. Keira couldn’t help but feel frustrated by the amount of time it took him to answer a question. She wasn’t comfortable with the silences he was constantly bestowing on her. It made her feel awkward.

“I wonder,” he said finally, “if you just don’t like the idea that someone might not like you.”

“Excuse me?” Keira felt instantly insulted by his comment and immediately put up a defensive front.

“You have one of those nice-guy complexes. You expect everyone to find your quirky Americanness charming and I don’t.”

“Me charming?” Keira scoffed. “You’re the one with the whole cheeky Irish chappy thing going on!”

“That bothers you?”

“It’s an infuriating stereotype.”

Keira could hear herself growing snappy. In complete contrast, Shane’s tone hadn’t changed at all. He was completely neutral, as though the conversation wasn’t even remotely irksome.

“I think you’re finding a lot more than just me infuriating,” Shane said. “I mean, you weren’t that nice to William.”

“And?” Keira scoffed. “I’m here to work, not make friends. And I feel no obligation to be nice to someone with such old-fashioned ideas about love. It annoys me when people think they know exactly what men and women want from one another.”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “For someone who says they’re happy in their long-term relationship you seem very hostile towards the concept of love.”

Keira shot him a look. “It’s not love that’s the problem. It’s this idea that it’s a picture-perfect thing. That some old man who’s never met you in your life can just match you to someone else he doesn’t know from Adam, and then you’ll fall instantly in love and stay that way forever and ever. Real life isn’t like a novel.”

Even as she spoke, Keira could tell that Shane was enjoying her reaction. He was deliberately winding her up. Two can play that game, Keira thought.

“So you’re a romantic then?” she said. “Is that what you’re telling me? I suppose you’ve only ever been with your high school sweetheart and plan on marrying her.”

Suddenly, Shane fell silent, and Keira could tell she’d accidentally spoken out of turn. She snapped her lips shut, knowing not to press it any further.

They reached the top of the hill and an incredible view opened up before Keira. It was like looking at the cooled lava of a volcano, or the surface of an asteroid. Keira had never seen anything quite like this alien landscape, and never had she felt so small or insignificant.

For the first time since arriving, Keira felt a new sense of humbleness. Maybe Elliot had made a mistake sending her to Ireland. Joshua would never have come over all sentimental at the sight of a beautiful, mystical landscape. He’d remain cynical and cold just like Elliot needed him to be. But Keira herself could feel something in her core softening. For the first time since arriving in Ireland she felt as though something in its bleak barrenness had touched her.

“Come on,” Shane said, his voice lacking all of the joviality she’d become accustomed to. “Let’s go.”

“Can we stay a bit longer?” Keira asked.

“I thought you needed a coffee.”

“It can wait.”

They stood side by side, silent, watching the world. There was no one around for miles, not another living soul. Keira couldn’t recall any other point in her life when she’d been in such a remote location. Back home in New York City she was always surrounded by people, by noise and civilization. But here there was just nature in its starkest form.

“Did I say something to upset you?” Keira asked Shane.

It had been a good ten minutes since he’d uttered a word. It felt so strange to not hear him taking a swipe at her.

“Actually, yes,” Shane said finally.

“Oh.” Keira hadn’t been expecting such candor. In some ways it was refreshing. But the brutal truth could be just that: brutal. “I’m sorry for whatever it was I said.”

Shane looked at her for the first time in a long time. “I’m not sure you are.”

He began walking again, descending now, leaving Keira standing, floundering on the precipice of the world. She finally pulled herself together and followed.

“That’s not fair,” she said, stepping up beside him, swinging her arms in wide arcs in order to keep up.