Page 129 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“Maya.” He grabbed my face and made me look at him. “I will get us back, storm or no storm. I will fucking swim us there if I have to. Do you understand me?”

I nodded.

“I’m going to need your help. I need you to pack our stuff and have it ready by the door. Do you think you can do that?”

I nodded again.

“Good.” Then he whistled for Finn, called her up to the bed, which wasn’t allowed, and put my hand in her soft fur. “Stay with Maya,” he said. And she lay down next to me and put her head on my side.

IT TOOK MAYBE two hours until Tadhg returned. Finn had stayed at my heel and by my side as I frantically packed and tried to get a call through to my mom over and over and over again.

Tadhg was completely soaked. “All right. I’ve found us a boat. I’m going to drive. It might be a bit rough, but it’s going to be fine.”

“Are you sure? What if something happens? What if you get hurt? What if it’s too much for Finn?”

“Finn is staying on the island. I’ll come back to collect her as soon as I can. It’s all arranged.”

“But . . .” My mouth was open. That seemed serious. I started to ask him how dangerous this was going to be, but I stopped myself. My dad. What if he didn’t make it? What if I wasn’t there? What if I never got to say goodbye? I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know the answer. I would do anything to get to him. And I didn’t try to fight Tadhg over his safety, because I knew—I knew with an absolute certainty—that nothing I could say would stop him.

A MAN WAS waiting for us by the dock in the rain next to a small boat with a motor. He gave Tadhg a crash course on how to drive it, then took Finn away on a leash, whimpering and fighting every step. I had to look away.

Tadhg put life jackets on both of us as I wept, and then we were gone.

I had started shaking and now I could not stop. Fear coursed through me, burning and insistent. That’s all I was now. Tadhg took his jacket off and put it over my shoulders, told me to put my arms through the sleeves. I wanted to protest, but all I could do was shake.

The rain would not stop. The farther away we got, the harder the wind blew. And the water—the water was absolutely terrifying. I didn’t know how Tadhg could see anything. I could see nothing at all. Twice he slowed the boat and put my hands on the wheel so that he could be sick over the side.

It might have taken an hour, maybe two. I was in a daze. I closed my eyes against the rain, and all I could see in the darkness was my father dying in a cold hospital.

We got to the port, and the minute my foot hit the ground, I started calling my mom. She didn’t answer at first. Tadhg led me by the hand to the Jeep, sat me down, and buckled me in, whipped the rain and tears from my face, brought a tissue to my nose. By the tenth call, I had her. “Maya.”

“Mom?”

Tadhg grabbed my hand.

“He’s all right. He’s alive. He’s going in for surgery. Things are . . . The doctor thinks it looks good. She’s here now to speak to me, pumpkin. I’ve got to go. I promise I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“I love you, Mama. I’m coming home.”

“Okay. I love you too.”

The next two hours were spent on a loop of phone calls between Delta, my mother, and the cardiologist. Tadhg’s hand was on my leg, and when I wasn’t dialing, when he wasn’t shifting gears, my hand was clutching his so tightly that I couldn’t feel my fingers.

It was dark when we arrived. My flight didn’t leave for another six hours, and there was nothing we could do but wait. Tadhg folded the backseat down and covered us in a blanket so that we could try to get some sleep. We both set our alarms, and he gathered me in.

I wanted to ask him how he could do all this for me, but I knew how.

I wanted to tell him something that would somehow make this better, to talk to him, to explain, but all I knew for sure was that I was broken and terrified, and so very confused. I wouldn’t lie to him as some consolation prize, and he did not ask me to. Neither of us slept.

I cried at the gate as he gripped me in one last hug.

“Tadhg?” I said into his chest.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he said into my hair.

“Promise me something?”

“Anything.”