AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Impassewas an unbendable word.
He reached out for her with his fingertips along the sheets, waiting.
Her own prickled with warm, insulated temptation. She wondered if he saw her as God and himself as Adam in this picturesque moment. Would he write about it and think about it when he was with other people?
Other people.
Dipping again to the floor, she flung him his boxers and stepped into her bunched pinafore, shimmying it up over her curvaceous thighs and hips before sliding her arms so awkwardly into the holes an observer might expect the contortion to snap them.
“Hang on. You’re not leaving right this second are ya’?” Fionn swung his legs over the bed’s edge, unfurling his boxers into their square shape. There was a sudden sense of urgency in the way he did this.
Her fingers had paused mid-fasten on the first button of her pinafore, but for seeing his race to dress she took to them even faster. Then something of no value spilled from her jittering lips,
“No . . . you are. You’re the one who’s leaving.”
Áine buttoned her front to just above her cleavage, turning to leave before she did something foolish like kiss him, and reset the clock for how long the pain of his absence would last.
The spring of his flopping onto the bed with a groan was followed by a justified, “Jesus Christ! What the fuck does that even mean like?”
She gently knocked her forehead against the door’s hardwood. “I’m sorry, Fionn. I really am.” Scooping up her pumps, she twisted the lock to leave with an unintentional clatter of the door that caused the ‘Staff’ plaque to shudder.
What accompanied Áine out of the room was the beginnings of something she’d already suffered this night; the bittersweetbelly. But unlike any time it had come upon her before, she feared, truly in her gut, it wouldn’t wane. That she’d be stuck with the mortal misfortune until faith found her again in the final hours of her life, just not to fade away into nothingness, or worse, have her reincarnate as herself all over again.
For the usual wonder inclined to stem from a possibility like this, Áine couldn’t drift away from thoughts of Fionn. Accompanying them like some soured melody were her staggered breaths, echoing the walls briskly passed by.
Why did I do that? Why am I so fucking mean sometimes? Why do I torture myself with pleasures that can’t be reimagined?
That wasn’t a goodbye, that was everything she wanted collected into one human, left abandoned on her unmade bed as if he was nothing but a vice created to further the emotional wretchedness she was so very used to. But it’s what it had to be; goodbye. Because she’d never ask him to stay. She wouldn’t do that to him. She knew in her gut, Ireland wasn’t for him anymore. It hadn’t been since the day his mother died. It was clear this emerald isle turned black beneath his feet. That his pioneering musings were lost to a windy coastline instead of absent friends he surely outgrew.
When Áine returned down to the foyer, she bypassed it, beelining straight to the kitchen to begin the task of washing up the crockery from their last supper. A submergence back into mundanity was the only way forward.
She smacked the tap’s head up to an instant steaming stream. Her wet hands were shaking. Her breath was no better; ragged and louder than when she had him inside her.
She flung her head back to worship the fluorescent light above as she began to wash the dishes. A watermark curved around it in the shape of a dreary heart. Not even that minornote of distraction could stop the tears threatening to throw themselves off her waterline.
With her sudsy knuckles she harshly wiped them. “What the hell is happening to me?”
“Áine!”
The plate she’d been absently scrubbing shattered into the sink, convulsing her body into itself. “Shit!” She gathered the pieces to keep her mind busy.
“Áine, talk to me.”
A shard slipped from her grasp. She seethed as it sliced her skin a bright red. Drops swirled into the water as her anger overflowed; “Jesus Christ, Fionn! Take the fucking hint. The night is over,” she shouted, her body leaning all her rage across the kitchen toward the door his silhouette hovered by.
Whatever weariness he’d been rubbing into his shadowy palm with the other was outweighed as he hurried down the aisle to grab her shoulders. “Are you alright?” The words came out urgent. “If this is because of me, I’m sorry. I never meant to mess with your head tonight. I swear.”
Áine shrugged herself free of him. She needed the anger, and his touch was sure to weaken her point.
“What about before?” she asked. “What about the last night I saw you? Did you mean to mess with my head then?”
“No! That night”—something caught in his throat he forced himself to swallow—“I know how it looked. I know how I let it look. You were willing and ready, and I rejected you again. But I swear that’s not what happened. It was me. I was the fucking problem. I was the one who didn’t think I was good enough for you. Thought if I gave you more of my time you’d catch me out. See me as a fraud. See me syphon all the good out of you to compensate for—” His eyes widened. “Jesus. What’ve ya’ done to yourself?” He grabbed her hanging hand, forcing an unexpected pressure into her baby and adjacent finger.
She peered down at his touch and back to him. The anger was melting like a flame to ice. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m shouting so much. I don’t know why I’m being such a bitch. And I’m fine. Honestly, you didn’t have to come back down. I’m grand.”
“I didn’t mind coming back down, but do you still want me to go?”
She knew her next words weren’t the right ones but said them anyway, “Now or to Australia?”
