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To be fair, he knew if the roles were reversed, he would have done the same for Declan. In a world where he was the one who got to adulthood with a stable parent. Go to college and leave unaware of the detriment to their younger brother.
Returning to the screen’s ‘check-in’ option, no hesitancy came this time as his thumb pressed on the confirmation that made an affirmingglocksound.
His night with Áine was the story he’d bring to his new life, not one she’d offered from books smothering the little library. In fact, he decided he might write the night down on his consecutive flights. It might be cathartic.
Twisting to scooch himself upright against the wall, the memory of the riverbank came to mind. The night she had asked him why he wrote, and he’d lied.
How he wished he told the truth so someone who cared would know. Because Áine did care. He was sure of that now. She had always cared and probably always would for the better impression he left of himself this time.
The true answer came to him about the age he’d started shaving despite no one else in his class needing to.
Deep in the night, a Sunday, Fionn recalled because he never slept well on a Sunday.But on this night, his thoughts grew dark. Perhaps because instinct told him his mother was dying, his unchanged bed sheets the indication of how close she was to the end, or maybe these thoughts seeped into everyone’s mind; the feeling of insignificance and how we’re all an uncalculated dot. This terrified Fionn to such proportions, he trudged through hisyouthful mind as if the giving of time alone to the cause would force the answer to come to him. And this answer did come; the solution was to try and leave a distinctive mark on the world only he could claim. What better way to do that than to have a legacy of written word people would read and recognise as the unique voice of Fionn O’ Rourke?
As he grew older, Fionn ruminated on other ways to leave a mark, but these ways were usually worse. Left in the form of a child. In the hope they would carry a piece (a good piece, preferably) of you through to the generations. There was something twisted about that, he realised.
Fionn mused that if he were to marry and have children, he’d take his wife’s name. Cut the lineage part out. Because what value did he hold to his own that made it greater in worth than Áine’s?
All of Fionn’s facial muscles drew inwards. A contradiction to the worry he might literally explode into every crevice of the room.
No! Not Áine’s! She isn’t my future wife.
. . . and yet, she was the one who came to mind.
He laughed at how easily it had happened. He wouldn’t have minded telling her either. She probably would have slagged him for it, all the while thanking him for inflating her ego when he owed her as much.
A hollowness struck his face, fleecing the smile from it.
He was never going to see her again. Ever. Their time was over. Their diverging paths had been washed away in the storm of past mistakes.
The vacancy in his chest he believed had softened suddenly proved to be a false surrender, a double-bluff in the vein of the 1920 Kilmichael Ambush, it dug deeper. It wounded him so much that he clenched his stomach. He could feel the ascent of breath, not because he was drowning, like before, but becausehe feared he’d never again be subdued to her power. And what if the feeling didn’t ease and he had to carry it around with him his whole life?
He sat up from the bed, a gasp piercing the room still suffering the radiator’s sloshing.
“I have to tell her,” he whispered. At least tell her why he wrote and hope for her disposition to seek the appeasement that came with answers, more questions would flow from her beautiful mouth he should have kissed better and longer when given the chance! And maybe then she wouldn’t mind him staying another hour or two before exhaustion got the better of him.
If he had it his way, he’d hold her hand right up to boarding his flight. Stretch it until it threatened to dislocate, to secure a final second of her touch.
Fionn stood, grabbing the key card from the bed’s end before pacing to the door with the sole guide of intention. The turn to the stairs came fast, and though he might have once worried whether to call her name or run right up to reception, or feared he’d bottle it and never make it, now his thoughts were linear and driven.
His heart pulsed in his ears as his feet touched the first step, his heart whispering morse code into them to be brave.
“Hello?” she called with piqued uncertainty, probably presuming it to be another guest. Supposing he wouldn’t have the tenacity to come back. It was the right supposition—but this was the exception.Shewas always the exception.
Relief hit him as she came to the foot of the stairs with a look of wonder meshed with surprise. It rounded all the parts of her face. To him, it was as if she’d returned from the dead he might as well have placed her in if they weren’t to see each other again. Their eyes met then. Resolutely locked in the echo of all times previous.
“Áine,” he said between chest-rising breaths.
“Fionn?”
“Look, I know I’m leaving tomorrow and it’s really shit timing, but Ican’tsit up in that room knowing you’re down here!” His words had become ragged and loud. “Because there’s something between us. I know you feel it, too. It’s like—” he ran his fingers through his hair to save a moment’s thought for the right word. “It’s like an affinity, Áine!” His hand sought support in the bannister just to compensate for how strong his projection was. “I shouldn’t have left you on the riverbank the night you came to sit with me. I’m sorry for that. For all of it.”
Her head tilted upwards to him, with no give on her expression as to what was converging inside her mind.
“I’m not making the same mistake twice. I won’t,” he persisted, exhausted.
Something finally softened in her eyes as if she allowed herself to falter. “Well then, I’m not going to stop you.”
The invitation unleashed his wild smile for a fraction of a second. Then desire and determination overcame him as he took to the stairs, his eyes on his feet not to avoid hers but to avoid falling in his eagerness to be close to her. To feel the relief of her touch even now he continued to refute his worthiness of.
