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It made him feel uncomfortable—or maybe out of his depth was a more fitting word. Fionn felt it was both important and possible to define everything by one word.
“No, I’m not saying that,” he finally protested as he shuffled beneath himself. “I obviously don’t own the bank. I just like it here. It’s quiet. Nobody bothers me.”
“Am I bothering you?” Her top teeth took the bow of her lips again.
He swallowed. “No.”
“Good.”
A silence rested on them, having him notice how the traffic of people behind had dwindled. He liked this seclusion. And not because he was embarrassed to be seen with her. That feeling had long gone, if it had ever truly been there at all. More likely, it was the judgements of other people rubbing off on him.
“Were you alright after . . . the other night?” she asked.
“Grand. Yeah.”
“Fionn.” Her tone was embroiled with quiet concern.
“Honestly, just a small cut left now.”
“I wasn’t talking about the cut.”
“I know, but I can’t, you know. The words won’t come out of me.” He squinted at the stars, hoping something interesting would happen amongst them to deflect from talking about it; his dad leaving him there, the lack of apology afterward, Fionn avoiding the A&E bill he couldn’t afford. “Thanks, though. For helping.”
She looked at the water as if to digest what he’d said before nodding at the notebook curling into his clench. “So you come here to write, is it?”
Feeling caught, his exterior hardened and forced his shoulders rigid. He tucked the notebook and pen back into his pocket.
“Oh no . . . I wasn’t—” Áine’s fingertips met the hem of his pants to stop the moment from being spoiled.
“Wasn’t what?” The bite of his words caused her hand to retract.
She caressed it with the other. “Sorry, I know I overstep sometimes. I don’t mean to pry about what it is you’re writing or . . . or your private life,” she rushed. “I shouldn’t have walked into your house like that. I know that was wrong of me. And I’m just interested to knowwhyyou write. You don’t have to tell me anything. I don’t care if we sit here and say nothing until I have to leave.”
Searching for something to stop the pointless anger throbbing in his heart, he reached for his cigarettes again.
She hitched her leg over the wall, her dainty torso following. “I’ll go.”
“No!” Fionn’s hand came down on hers before he even considered why.
She lingered, and he used the chance to openly stare at her.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Áine,” he said, breaking his own intensity. “Stay. Sometimes I have a habit of being a dick when I feeluncomfortable. Not that you make me uncomfortable. It’s more of a me issue. Besides, I don’t know why I write.” This was a lie—the second part.
He drew his hand from hers to open the cigarette box, to offer her his lucky one. The offer of something so minor didn’t feel enough to erase his behaviour, but it was all he had to his name; that and the fourteen cents.
Áine cautiously returned her leg over the ledge, her head dipped into her scarf. Just her eyes poked out, blue with green flecks. They resembled the Earth in a way. That she held the whole world in her eyes, or at the very least, the capability to retain its knowledge.
He had always liked her eyes and how when he looked straight into them, it made it hard to swallow. Not in the bad way like when the helplessness took hold of his throat, but in that she aided him to feel something other than sadness.
“No, I don’t smoke,” she said, her smile, and mole, and the scar on her chin reappearing above the scarf. “Mam would kill me if I went back stinking of it anyway. She’s at the hairdressers with my sister up the road. Said I’d go for a walk when I waited.”
“You didn’t need a chop yourself, no?”
Áine’s finger looped into an unbrushed curl. “Nah. Mam takes the kitchen scissors to mine because it gets really knotty, and we wouldn’t want to bother the hairdresser with that hardship.”
“Seems a bit unfair.”
“But sure, what can I do?”
