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Fionn grinned, subtly. If he’d learned anything in the weeks gone, it was that second chances were a gift he’d take pleasure in. Might even bask in. “You know, I don’t often consider myself a lucky man, but maybe tonight is the exception—” He held his next words for the lingering moment she seemed to lean into. “Besides, one night is all I need, Áine Meaher.”
Her thick brows raised into brown rainbows, just as beautiful despite their lack of colour.
Then the smile he’d been trying to contain released from its clamped cage, lopsided and wild.
Yes, I remember you.
CHAPTER THREE
Kilkenny 2010
Áine
The bell chimed as Áine walked into the small classroom, a bag on her back and fever in her heart, encaged beneath a tatty navy uniform. English being her favourite class was enough to feel this way, but this was also the only class she shared with Fionn O’ Rourke. The single opportunity in her day to be with him without experiencing the feeling of intrusion. This was likely a one-sided feeling. Fionn probably thought nothing of anything that ever occurred between them.
Still, she couldn’t figure out whether her pull to him was purely sexual or something beyond lust. It felt more like an affinity at times.
Áine was self-aware enough to know, based on how one-sided their relationship was, that this was a silly thing to ruminate on. Not the attraction part. No one in their right mind could dispute his rugged good looks. But the affinity she fantasised, that was a stretch.
Dramatic even.
If her mother ingrained anything into her, it was that feelings bigger than what she considered appropriate was Áine then being dramatic, and that was ‘bad’. Áine considered ‘bad’ to be a variant word of ‘faulty’—that she was faulty. Later in life,Áine reasoned her mother to be the product of an indoctrinated patriarchal upbringing, and the magnitude at which she held it against her mam for not breaking the chain of generational oppression, of resetting the bar of what was dramatic, was ever-changing between that of empathy and resentment.
Yes, she concluded with a nod to herself, affinity was the only word for it. Her and Fionn leaned with rolled up sleeves on the same side of the world’s fence.
Until they didn’t—when the world pushed back.
Only last week, his friends shouted lesbian at her in the hallways because she liked to kiss girls. Áine was sure that didn’t make her a lesbian, but she also didn’t like to think about it too much. Thinking meant crying. Something she thought wouldn’t stop if she let all her difficulties fester in her head. She imagined it like mould, spreading and attacking her brain tissue until all she could think, all that shewas,were the bad parts of her life.
Sat postured now at the back corner table that wobbled, she was smoothing her fingers over the varnished wood when the rest of the class stormed in, chatting, texting, moaning about how they hated poetry. Áine mentally debated against the frown between her eyebrows, that poetry was a medium of expression not to be verbally shat on by people prone to burning toast for their mollycoddled rearings.
Not to be annoying, she never mentioned this to anyone despite it causing an itch on her elbow crease—holding things in, that is. The doctor prescribed cream for it. Said it was anxiety related. Her dad said it was a heat rash and that their GP was a quack. Either way, she told her parents it was gone when she overheard them arguing under the extractor fan about the cost of refilling the prescription.
The teacher arrived in then with a pep that only reinforced the rumour he took lines in the science storage room; Mr Walsh with his greying quiff and white shirt worn so many times thearmpits had stained a soft yellow. When he wasn’t around, the students would call him Mr Wash. Áine thought it was mean because he was kind, but she’d laugh along not to be prudish.
“Right, lads,” Mr Walsh started in a blaring tone. “Poetry books out and gobs shut, please! Ye’ have all but five months until the Leaving Cert, and ye’ won’t be passing higher-level unless we get this next poet covered.”
A sinking sensation had just begun to weigh on Áine when the reason for it came with a gentle knock on the door. He was taller than the teacher, but too lanky and baby-faced beneath spotted stubble to pass for an adult yet.
Áine sat achingly straighter, so Fionn might notice her and the empty seat adjacent. Beneath the desk she clutched her dark tights to not beckon when he didn’t immediately come. She had to do that most days because he didn’t always take up her subtle offer. He was afraid people would notice and start rumours he’d be forced to deny.
That was her guess anyway. But higher-level English didn’t have the drama of the lower classes. She knew it was wrong to even think that, but it was still true. The students who sought to apply themselves were too busy focusing on the exams to care who Fionn O’ Rourke was banging in his spare time.
“We don’t have all day, Mr O’ Rourke,” Mr Walsh chided.
Some snickers broke out.
A redness to set into the curve of Fionn’s ears. Without friends, this class wasn’t his fighting pen.
Áine almost pitied him for that.Almostbecause if it came to an actual brawl, Fionn was the type to take the entire group of boys on to save his pride. Once, she missed the bus and had to be dropped off late by her dad. By the time she’d arrived, Fionn was already sitting outside the front office with an ice pack on his eye. He was smiling through red teeth, like maybe he felt achieved for keeping said pride intact. She was not smiling whenshe walked past him, rubbing her own knuckles in echo of his skinless ones.
“Uh, sorry, Sir.” Fionn shuffled the old Nike bag on his shoulder now, weaving around his settling classmates towards Áine.
She dipped her head nearly completely into her school bag to hide the fleeting smile passing her lips. Then from the bag she concurrently pulled out the poetry book and herself together.
“Áine,” he mumbled. It was the same stiff pleasantry offered every time he came to sit with her. No matter the stiffness, she enjoyed hearing her name on his lips . . . replayed it in her head sometimes, to the point where she forgot words like hungry or please. It was as if his name had taped over basic words because she’d convinced her brain he was more important. Or at least more beautiful.
“Hi Fionn.”
