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Fionn took another pull of his cigarette using his bad hand—the right one—quickly releasing the concentrated stream of smoke upwards before jotting down his thought:
Is it me or divine chaos? Am I to blame, or is no one?
Admittedly, he’d stolen the self-blaming part from something Áine Meaher had written when she didn’t know he was looking. If she’d caught him, she might have presumed he was looking at her and not her words.
That annoyed him. The presumption he would be looking at her like he fancied her. In turn, he’d made a point of not sitting beside her the next day so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea.
But then two weeks previous, she reached out to touch him beneath the desk, and then after the fight, when in his kitchen,when he wanted her so desperately it somehow pained him more than the injury on his forehead.
He gently scratched the rim of the plaster above his stitches.
Those moments with her were nothing short of a contradiction to his unwarranted annoyance because hedidenjoy sitting with her over anyone else. Most were so focused on getting their points that they didn’t care about the language itself. But Áine offered great conversation, making his mind wake up to things he’d never considered previously. Fionn had even noticed a trend of her opinions being the last things he mused over before falling asleep.
She’d say things like, “Why do people go for fish n’ chips on Good Friday and then go home and have sex with their girlfriend or boyfriend outside of wedlock? Is the temptation ofdeadmeat just easier to give up for one day?”
He could never quite tell if she was perplexed or venting, which only ever added a better layer to his thoughts.
“Fionn?” A melodic voice called from behind.
He jolted.
“Fionn O’ Rourke?” they said like they weren’t sure.
He flicked the cigarette into the black water and inclined his head over his shoulder, squinting to make the person out. The tall streetlights came on just then, one after the other, brightening everything around him. And with that, whoever spoke his name came closer, their figure worshipped by the streetlight above in messianic vein.
“Áine?” he said, with genuine surprise. “Jesus, your ears must be burning.”
She approached with a slowed-footed hesitancy, though it eventually brought her close enough that the whirl of their cool condensation touched. Her face was dipped into her knitted scarf.
There was a temptation to say it suited her for how it tamed her usually wild curls.
As if hearing his internal compliment, she straightened. A smile spread along her scarf’s hem. “Burning ears? Not in this weather! I don’t know what I was thinking wearing this—” She swished the ends of her skater dress across her knees to taunt herself. And yet the movement seemed to oddly please her. Then, as if something dawned on Áine, she became quite still and took to chewing her lip in a way that stretched her cupid’s bow. “Why, were you thinking about me, Fionn?”
Fionn made a point of scrunching his sniffling nose at her. He didn’t like how confident she was in saying that. How she was so presumptuous. But no sooner did a splotch of heat spread over his face when he realised his admittance to just that.
Did you know I was thinking about you?he might as well have said.
Did you know I sometimes think of you at night, too? Think of what would have happened if your dad didn’t interrupt us.
He rejected that second thought. Especially for having it in her company.
His hostility toward her lessened, like the coils inside were retreating to give space to better things. Because she wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was him who was being the arsehole.
This was a realisation that came faster to Fionn in recent months. When he was younger, he was an arsehole to people all the time. So that even though he was poor, he wasn’t the biggest loser in the group. And maybe it was his maturing brain or his mam’s death, or Áine-fucking-Meaher in his head again, but now when he was being unkind, he carried the burden of it no sooner did the act occur.
Softening further, he gave her a closed-lipped smile so it wouldn’t go lopsided, then beckoned with his head for her to join him.
Áine peered over her shoulder before coming to straddle the low wall.
He turned from the slight reveal of her flowery knickers, jaw turning rigid to reject any enticement to look another time.
She settled to face him, one leg over the edge while the other dangled above the walkway. The intimate position felt natural; her on the left, him on the right. How it was meant to be, like at the back of English class.
“What are you doing here anyway? You’re from the Sticks,” he said, keeping his gaze on the sky to feign a lack of interest.
“You’re asking that question like you hold a claim to this spot?”
His eye curved to her as she faced him dead on, so close he could taste sweet orange on her foggy breath.
