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“Fionn,” she whispered, though for saying it her stare dipped.
“Áine.”
She came closer, so much so, her tongue grazed his lips as she licked her own to wet them. But he read something hesitant in her movement, a restraint drawing out the tendons in her neck.
His hands remained fixed behind her ears as he thumbed her cheek. “I want all the parts of you. Just once. Then I’ll leave happy.”
Her lips pressed his softly, and it took all his strength to match her slow pace instead of devouring her, despite their kisses getting more successive. With matching tiny breaths between them, the world outside their mouths started to melt away until he didn’t care if anything was left but barren lands when they resurfaced.
Catching his gaze for a brief moment, whatever she bitterly deduced caused her to withdraw from his clutch, a stoic expression on her face. He wondered then, his hands in suspension, if they had always felt this cold and vacant.
“Áine?”
“I . . . want. I . . . think.” Her forehead fell into her palm. “Sorry, your key card should be working now.”
Further to his previous thought, Fionn wondered if not only his hands, but his entire being had ever felt this vacant.
The answer came quickly;
Just once. One night six years previous.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kilkenny 2010
Fionn
At the willow-draped riverbank not a ten-minute walk from his house, Fionn dangled his legs over the cement ledge separating him from the water. His back was turned to passersby in Hi-Viz jackets, their dogs, or prams or drama in tow. He considered himself something close to relieved they couldn’t see his face; wet and drying in the spring breeze beneath an evening orange sky. Even absent of that beauty, this spot comforted him. Though he’d contest to himself it had little competition.
And yet even here, tears had snuck up on him and brought him shame.
He hated crying. Hated the weakness of it and how it seemed to suck his organs into a black hole, leaving him feeling exhausted and hollow. He hated even more that a point might come where the despair couldn’t be stopped from spilling out in company, whereby his anticipated reaction would be to throw punches at walls until his knuckles bled.
Scratching all his fingers through his hair, he dragged them down over his eyes and lips. A part of him felt even more embarrassed about the punched walls than the crying, which only added to his lack of emotional regulation.
He sniffled and zipped his coat right up to his chin, then pulled a cigarette box from his tracksuit to unravel the film. He turned the first one upside down for luck.
The cost of these and the chips he’d finished ten minutes earlier came to exactly €9.86, leaving him with fourteen cents to his name. And still, he valued himself less than the copper change in his pocket.
Placing the cigarette between his cold lips to light it, he thought the money should have been spent on something wiser. For what initially felt like a Catch-22 situation, a book he didn’t finish, Fionn soon realised he’d chosen wrong to spite his father. Just the idea of Jimmy put a bad taste in his mouth. He scraped the backs of his fingers against the cement until his skin flaked with tiny grazes.
Useless, good for nothin’ bastard.
Earlier, when Fionn had asked his dad for grocery money, his dad’s response, “You’re always looking for handouts! You’re eighteen now, son. I can’t be expected to give you everything. If you’re not willing to work, why don’t you go to a friend’s house for a plate-a-dinner.”
There was hatred in his tone, near bruising to the ear Fionn’s phone had been held to.
To save his pride, he withdrew the last tenner from his Credit Union account instead. His mam had left him some money before she died, about three hundred euros. It was the last of her departing gifts. But now the money was gone forever, on what was probably universally considered two of the quickest things consumed: food and cigarettes.
Finally lighting his cigarette, he inhaled while drawing his other hand between his knees for warmth. The only solace he’d managed to find today was that his house was no warmer than the riverbank. Homelife had steadily gone downhill since Declan left, and though Fionn felt jealous in bouts when thinking ofhis brother’s freedom, a seed of anger had also grown in him, branching out and coiling around his insides.
It made him wonder how his life would be if he was born first. If Declan was born second. If clocks ran backwards. If everyone was told their future the day they were born so at least all the disappointment could be anticipated, and he wouldn’t have to walk around feeling winded all the time.
A thought struck Fionn how it often did when the feeling of helplessness took hold of his throat. He swallowed against the very real sensation and tilted sideways to access his back pocket. Out of it, he pulled a tiny notebook with a broken spine and basic red pen.
Since the school told him he’d do well to apply himself and sit higher level English for the Leaving Cert, some confidence had found Fionn. Not that he believed his words were ground-breaking, but rather the skill of thinking of things to write came easier once external faith had been placed upon him.
Flipping through the lined pages of his notebook, he greeted past topics touched on before they slipped from his mind. That happened a lot in the beginning of his writing pursuit.
