“Sorry.” With visible effort, he pulls his attention away from our surroundings. “I'm not...I just...” He trails off.
“Don't like crowds.” I finish for him. “Nothing weird about that.” He didn’t have to spell it out for me to put the pieces together, and besides, people without his history had plenty of reasons to prefer not being trapped with the masses.
“Kinda depends on the crowd.” He looks up as a train pulls in. “This is us.” We luck out, snagging two seats near the back of the car with a bit of breathing room. The small win doesn't seem to do much to relax him.
“What would be an acceptable crowd?” I ask as the train starts moving.
“On a stage or behind a bar.” Once again, I watch as his eyes scan every person in range. “Those are fine. Usually.” He shifts beside me. “Places with clear and easy exits. Crowded train station underground? Not my favorite place to be.”
“Do you have one? A favorite place that is?”
Maybe if I can get him talking about something positive, his mind will wander to those better places and distract him from the present circumstance.
“In the world or in Boston?”
“Both.”
“Haven't been many places in the world, to be honest. At least not for pleasure.” His fingers move in a rhythmic beat against my thigh. “I have a place in New Hampshire. Nothing fancy, just a shitty little cabin on a lake. But it's peaceful.”
“No crowds,” I gently tease.
“Nope—unless you count the wildlife,” he chuckles. “As boring as it is, that is one of my favorite places to be.”
“That’s not boring. What about in Boston?” I ask. Some of the tension has left his shoulders.
Cillian doesn't answer immediately, looking at the display showing the stop. “Would you want to see it?”
“Now?” He nods. “Sure.”
We get off at the next stop and walk up the pedestrian lane of a bridge spanning the Charles River.
“Here?” I ask, looking up at him, confused.
“Yup.” He gestures to the view.
“Oh . . .”
Verdant green trees line a river dotted with the red and white sails of early afternoon boaters. Just beyond, in strong contrast, the city rises in brick and glass. There is texture, color, and life everywhere you look.
“You should see it at sunset,” Cillian says. He rests his forearms on the railing, looking out.
I join him. “Why this place?”
“Honest answer or easy one?”
“Honest. Always.”
He drags in a deep breath. “About nine years ago, I was...” He studies his palms as if they hold a script. “It was my fourth alive day?—”
“Alive day?”
“It's a...military thing. The day you should've died but didn't.” His gaze settles on the distant buildings. “I wasn't in a great place. Needed to clear my head, so I just started walking—something that I wasn't sure I was gonna be able to do for a while there.”
Before I can ask, he pats his left thigh, “Shattered femur. Wrecked the muscle, nerves, the works.”
“Shit.” Lucy mentioned he’d gotten ‘blown up’ the other night, and I'd noticed the way the skin there puckered under his tattoos. I just hadn’t imagined the damage had been that bad.
He nods. “Yeah. By the time I got here, my leg wasn't having it. I was in so much pain, I had to stop. The bridge was undergoing refurbishment, so it was kind of a mess.” He rubs the area, whether from habit or need, I can’t tell.
