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There’d be room for me, too. But it’s a little too soon.
I just need to reorient myself. Become the Finley I was for three years. It’s harder, now I know how good it feels to be in his arms. But. This has to happen. It will.
I spend the day voice-recording ideas for the summer play. I know the course requires writing and preforming in groups, and I’m eager to get a head start on it.
Creating stories feels good. I can escape. Become another character, care for their problems. Find solutions that just aren’t always possible in real life. I finish dictating, do my best to edit the text.
Mrs Norris finds me at my desk and decides the spot of sunshine stretched across my freshly-printed play is the only spot in the house worth bathing in. She looks at me, claws attacking my pen every time I try to add editorial notes around her.
I finally give up and lean back in my chair, shaking my head. “You’re quite something.”
Mrs Norris lifts her leg and thoroughly licks her behind.
I open my laptop on my knees and check out career options. I’ll have to do something after the summer. Pretty sure the clock is ticking on how long I can stay here at Mansfield.
My stomach twists and nausea leaps up my throat. The cusp of change feels raw, painful.
My inbox dings.
Butterflies burst into a frenzied flutter. Bennet? My first boyfriend, Bennet? I haven’t heard from him in years.
Dear Finley,
This might be a bit of a blast from the past, but I wanted to reach out and say hey. Find out how you’ve been over the years. What you’re up to now.
I missed you when you left Cubworthy. Mum and Dad weren’t happy about the whole gay thing either and when I left after high school they pretty much told me they don’t want me coming back there. It’s been torturous not being able to see my baby brother. He’s just so young, he doesn’t understand why I don’t visit. Mum lets me have one short birthday call, that’s it, and it’s hard not to cry. The first couple of years he kept saying he misses me. This year, he didn’t. I think he’s forgetting me, and it breaks my heart, because I think I broke his.
I hope you never have to experience this.
Shit. That started out heavier than I planned, but it’s the truth, so I’ll keep it there. In other news, I moved to Wellington and studied at Vic. I’ve finished my bachelor’s and will do an honours year next. At the same time, I’m working on setting up my own editing business. I’ve been proofreading and line-editing for all my peers during university and it feels like a calling. I’d prefer to work on fiction projects though.
How has life been for you? Where are you? What are you up to?
I’d love to catch up. I’m taking a few weeks over summer to travel—let me know if you’re interested.
Wishing you all the best,
Bennet
I read over it again.
And again.
I hope you never have to experience this.
It’s like the world has ganged up to warn me not to slip with Ethan again.
It takes me until the following day before I have the energy to reply.
I drive Ethan to campus. He tells me all the things he got up to with Cress and Ford, and I grin and laugh and lightly punch his arm at a bad pun.
“What are they doing today?” I ask, happy we have this time just for ourselves.
“Don’t know. They left early.”
I tell him some of my ideas for scripts, and casually drop in news about Bennet.
“You’ll see him when he’s here?” Ethan asks, looking at me intently; I keep my eyes on the road, ignoring the tingles.
“I was thinking he could crash at Mansfield for a few days too?”
“Huh. Is he single?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Huh,” he says again, quietly.
“You don’t think he should stay with us?”
A pause. “No, he can. He should. It’s your home too.”
“For now.”
“It’ll always be our home, Fin. Even when we move out. There’ll be birthdays and anniversaries and Easter breaks and Christmas. Julia will want us there every other weekend. I’m pretty sure I’ll settle in town.”
“Really?” I look at him. “You’ve thought about it?”
“Haven’t you?”
I’m quiet. “I want to be close too.”
We park behind an old chapel and race through the streets and across the courtyard to make it to the theatre department on time.
We burst into the auditorium as the old clocktower bells chime.
It’s a cosy space with a wooden stage and rows of red theatre chairs. A couple of dozen students are seated there already, talking amicably while the professor organises herself.
I skip down the aisle eagerly, Ethan chuckling behind me.
Two dark heads turn in the third row at the aisle and I halt as their green eyes blaze into me.
