A Woman Scorned

"You came...."

"I did. I shouldn't have, but I did."

"You have to know that if there was any other way...."

"I know. Let's begin, shall we?"

I made my way to the opposite side of the barn. I needed to stay as far away from her as I could manage. Although, the rickety old place wasn't exactly spacious.

I propped myself on an old crate in the far corner and stared at the floor. I knew this was going to be hard. I'd been giving myself a pep talk the whole drive out here.

This isn't the type of man I am. I have a wife, a pregnant wife. We'd been together for five years, and I could honestly say this was the first time I'd lied to her. Well.... outright lied. I'd never been honest with her about my past, and I guess an omission is as good as a lie, despite what I'd always told myself. A lot of good it did me. It was all coming back to bite me now anyway.

"He says if you don't go through with it, he'll kill her.... and the baby."

"Why? Why is he so goddamn obsessed? It's been seven years, Cara, and for six and a half of those years, he thought I was dead!"

Cara flinched when I raised my voice. I could see she was uncomfortable, maybe even a little remorseful, but not enough so that she could've spared me from all of this.

When I ran into her at the tavern in Belfast, it was the shock of my life. Her family never ventured North. It was forbidden. And I rarely ventured to the city. I'd gotten lazy and complacent after all these years. Stupid enough to think that I'd actually managed to pull it off. That my life could genuinely start over.

"You know how he feels about broken promises."

I didn't miss the flash of hurt in her eyes. There was a time when I would've killed anything or anyone that caused her pain. Now I was the cause, and I felt only the smallest hint of sympathy for her. I'd asked her to run. Come with me. Leave it all behind. But her blind loyalty to her father was stronger than any love she had for me. I knew that day that it was over for her and me and that the next chapter of my life would be written without her in it.

"Evidently. I know how you feel about them as well. Tell me, why couldn't you just leave me be? After all these years? Did you not think you owed me that much?"

She wouldn't meet my eyes. Whether well thought out or an impulse brought on by the shock of me, she made the decision to take my secret home and share it. Knowing what it would mean for me, my wife and my unborn child. I wonder, if I hadn't made the mistake of telling her I had a wife, would she have still told him about me? Or was it that in all this time, she hadn't moved on and couldn't stand that I had?

"I grieved you. Every day. For six and a half years. Tell me again how much I owe you?"

"I asked you to come with me, Cara. You knew I needed to get out."

"I know you did. And when I thought you'd died, I could bear it, you know? But to find that you left me by choice.... knowing what I'd be going through without you. Do you have any idea what I thought when I saw you in that pub? I'd seen your ghost so many times in my daydreams. I thought you'd simply followed me there as well. But then, you were real... And so was she, that pretty little wife of yours, with her friendly smile and her full little belly..."

"So this is all a jealousy thing? If I'd been alone and miserable, you would have let me be? Is that it?"

"That was meant to be me. Your perfect wife, carrying your perfect wee babe. That's my life she was living."

"And you thought what? By giving me this ultimatum, forcing me back to you, I would just forget her and our child? I love her, Cara!"

"You found it easy enough to walk away from love before..."

Then it struck me. Once I got out, and I wasn't caught up in that world, I realised what Cara and I had wasn't love. It was lust and intensity at first, and then it was convenience. Easily mistaken for love until you really experience it. When I met Shannon, I knew, without a doubt I knew, that was real love. It was easy and fun, and there was no intensity, no obsession, just an honest rush that came every time I saw her. Cara was still caught up in the memory of our "love". She thought that reminding me of its intensity would reignite the fire. But the flame, for me, had long been extinguished.

"I don't love you, Cara. I'm not sure I ever did..."

"Liar..."

Her voice held that quiver that comes just before you break down. I rose from my seat on the crate and crossed the floor of the old barn to kneel before her. I looked her in the eyes and brushed the stray hair from her face. I could see the tears welling, threatening to fall.

"Help me, Cara. Please, let us both finally be free."

She closed her eyes as a single tear slipped from her eye and made its way down her cheek. She took a deep breath before opening them again. She took her hand and placed it on my cheek, rubbing her thumb tenderly against my light stubble.

"I can't undo what I've done. But I will help you. You're going to need to disappear again. I'm sorry... "

"Tell me what to do."

"Go now, get your wife and as many belongings as you can fit in your car and get on the next ferry to Scotland. When you reach the terminal, ask for Flynn, tell him Cara sent you and that you need to disappear. He will know what to do."

"What about you? Will you be alright?"

"I'll be fine. He's going to think that you rejected my offer and that in a jealous rage, I shot you. I know people who can make my story legit. It's been a few years since you left... Let's just say there are some more loyal to the heir than the current chief..."

I felt sad for her. She was doomed for this life. Once upon a time, I would've been proud of her, but now, all her words did was confirm that I had made the right choice all those years ago.

As I stepped out of the barn doors, I looked back at her one last time. She gave me a reassuring smile and mouthed, "Go...".

I'd barely taken 3 steps when I heard the shot; the searing pain in my left shoulder before I hit the ground was all that registered. As my body hit the ground, I turned my head toward the old barn, and I could see her silhouette behind the smoking gun framed by the towering doors and the dim light emitting from inside...

As intense and obsessive as our love was in life. She made sure that in death, she was the last thing I saw.