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‘So what are you brooding about?’ The seconds pass and he still doesn’t respond, and I’m beginning to ache for his easy demeanour. ‘Is this how you felt a few months ago, trying to get me to loosen up? God, I don’t envy you. This is tedious as fuck.’
He breathes out sharply through his nose. I think it might be a laugh. After a few moments, he admits quietly, ‘Any time you opened up, it wasn’t long before you closed yourself off again. So all I could do was try again, over and over. Like Sisyphus pushing thatfucking boulder up a hill.’
‘Great workout though,’ I hedge, monitoring his posture. I poke his arm, solid with muscle. ‘Probably why you’re so hench now.’ He laughs with actual sound this time, and I know I’ve got him. I swivel on the sofa to face him, bringing one leg up under me. ‘There’s only space for one angst-ridden emo in this room. Tell me why you haven’t been in the shop to annoy me since last week.’
He flops against the back of the sofa with a grimace and finally starts to talk, the words coming out rough, like they’re scraping his throat as he pushes them out. ‘I’d been planning this day with my dad for ages. Had the whole day organised. His assistant messaged me early in the morning to let me know he had a last-minute meeting, so we rescheduled everything for the afternoon instead. After I left you, I showed up at his hotel like we’d agreed, and then I waited. And waited. I know he doesn’t like being nagged so I didn’t want to text him, but eventually I did.’ He looks up at the ceiling. ‘And it turned out he’d completely forgotten about the rescheduling and was already out and about with a woman. I couldn’t figure it out if she was a client or someone else. It doesn’t matter, he just forgot.’ Anger writhes along my skin seeing how Finn’s dad makes him feel so small. ‘He told me to come to the bar they were at, and by the time I showed up he was already a little drunk. I told him about my new job, but I dunno, I’ve never been able to read him very well. He was kind of apathetic about it. Maybe even annoyed I’m gonna be working at the same company as him.’
With a long exhale, he leans forward onto his elbows, still looking straight ahead. ‘I was about to call my mum to tell her about it before you came, but then one of the twins needed her for something so she asked to reschedule.’ He squints as he adds, ‘Happens a lot. They’ll always take priority.’
‘Finn.’ It’s all I can think to say, but I inject it with as muchsympathy as I can.
‘I think I’m just bummed nothing went how I’d planned it with my dad.’ He turns his head to give the smallest closed-mouth smile, like it doesn’t matter. But it does, and I hate seeing him so dejected.
‘You know he doesn’t deserve you, right?’ I don’t mean to say it, but it spills out of me unfettered, splashing around us like waves against a boat.
His tone is defensive when he replies. ‘He’s just really busy. It’s hard to make time for me.’
No it isn’t, I think.You’re very easy to make time for.
‘Okay.’ I can’t make him resent his dad, and I don’t want to. But I’m worried the realisation will hit him one day, that he’ll see the lack of effort clearly and it’ll break his heart. But I get it, wanting to believe something so strongly you get tunnel vision. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend as much time with him as you wanted. And I’m sorry for him too, because he missed out on spending time with you.’ At his widened eyes I laugh, and something close to a real smile touches his face when he hears it. ‘I’m making the most of being corny because you only have a few more weeks to make fun of me for it.’
He analyses me, resting a hand on the cushion between us. ‘I will come back, you know. To visit.’
I don’t know if that’s true. Not if this job is perfect for him, if he falls in love with San Francisco, if he finds someone else to listen to his endless fun facts and flower-blooming laugh. But I don’t say that. Instead, with the same halfhearted smile he just gave me, I reply, ‘I know you will.’
The universe has sent me too many signs to ignore, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. There’s too much in my head to make space for anything else. I can’t have everything. I don’tdeserveeverything. That much I’ve learnt.
‘I should go,’ I say, rising to my feet. ‘I promised Josie I’d spend the evening with her. I just wanted to check you were alive.’
We head to the door, and as always, Finn opens it for me. And then my heart breaks a little, because it hits me that maybe it’s not only politeness that makes him do this. Maybe it’s the fact that his whole life, people have shown him he’s not worth a second glance. Not worth their time. He can be cheated on and forgotten about and left to fend for himself at a school across the world, and the only person who cares is him. And maybe, subconsciously, he hopes that if he helps every stranger and holds every door, someone will think about him. Someone will value him, if only for a moment.
I pause in the doorway and my voice is steady when I say, ‘I’m glad I know you, Finn. And I’m glad you’re okay.’
His throat works while his eyes warm to melted chocolate. I’m sure I’m about to liquefy too. Then his jaw clenches and he pulls me roughly to him, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I bet that if a natural disaster struck right now, we’d still be standing at the end of it, rooted to the ground and intertwined like this.
One hand clutches my waist while the other slides up to the back of my head, fingers knitting into my hair and pressing my face against his shoulder. My own arms tighten around him, and I keep my eyes shut so that I can focus on his steady presence; the thrum of his heart in his chest, the worn fabric of his t-shirt, thecomforting smell of him.
He doesn’t know that smoke has filled my head ever since Max told me his news, that I’ve been lying awake for the past few nights with thoughts churning through my mind like silt dislodging from a riverbed; murky and muddy and moving too fast to ever settle. But with his arms around me, the current slows. It doesn’t stop, but it doesn’t drag me under either. I might be able to take a breath.
When we eventually pull apart, I pretend he hasn’t left open wounds everywhere we were touching.
36
we're what killed the dinosaurs
F I N N
I meet Ava outsideSouth Kensington Tube station at six-thirty. Well, no, I arrive at six-thirty as planned and she shows up eight minutes later, but it’s better than I expected. As soon as she comes into view I have to smooth my features so she won’t see me react. I’ve been expending a lot of energy trying to keep our relationship platonic. The part of me that’s desperately trying to forget everything that happened between us last weekend has been constantly warring with the part that replays it on repeat at extremely inopportune moments.
Her hair’s tied back in her usual ponytail and she’s wearing clothes that lead me to believe she’s either going camping or on a hike, but I know her well enough by now to know we are doing neither of these things. She gave me instructions to wear comfy clothes too and I’ve obliged, although I’d imagine seeing me in my sweatpants doesn’t make her heart stutter the way mine does at the sight of her in hers.
I pull her in for a hug. It’s self-serving, sure, but she relaxes against me too. When I pull away her shoulders inch up again like she’s on edge. It’s subtle, but I notice. She’s been like this for a fewdays now and I can’t figure out why.
‘What’s in the bag?’ I nod towards the giant backpack she’s wearing. Maybe distracting her will make her feel more at ease.
‘Do you really want to know?’ She removes the bag from her shoulders and positions it against the wall as she opens it to show me the contents.
My head shoots up. ‘Sorry, is that myunderwear?’
