Page 65 of Taste

I forgive you.

I hadn’t realised I’d said it out loud until he squeezed me tighter, just held me and let me say it again. “I have to start forgiving myself, because back then, I didn’t know any better. I couldn’t have stopped my dad drinking, and I couldn’t have saved my mum. I was just a kid. A scared, immature, sheltered kid. I could birth all the lambs in the world and save the sheep and grow crops and all that, but I didn’t have a clue how to get my mum to admit she was in an abusive relationship and that she had a kid who thought throwing punches was normal.”

“Good. I forgive that Fintan too. He needs to move on, preferably now, because this gorgeous man here, this all-grown-up Fintan, is an amazing human being and he has things to do and places to go. And we need to learn not to deadname him, but to call him his proper name… So, Finley, shall we get this over and done with? There’s an ice-cold pint of something fizzy with my name on it waiting in a pub. I’m very keen to meet that pint.”

“Oh, there will be several of those pints with your name on it, and perhaps a few bottles of whatever red this mysterious pub can deliver.” I smiled. I smiled and it felt so goddamn good.

“And food,” he said. “I want a good old pub meal. Greasy, dirty and satisfying.”

“And perhaps a toilet blow job between courses?”

“Oh…now we’re talking.”

“We’re having dessert.”

“Definitely. And cognac.”

“Brandy, you knobhead. We’re not posh up here in Yorkshire. I doubt they even have proper lattes up here.”

“We’re in Yorkshire, not the Middle Ages. Are you ready? Shall we go and close this chapter then? Move on?”

“Level up?”

“Onwards and upwards?

“Let’s do it.”

We walked back up to the car, scaling the wall with carefree giggles. I was scared. Fuck that. I was bloody terrified. But I had a future, and that future was filled with happiness. I wanted it, whatever happened here, and I deserved it. Because that future was mine.

I wanted a future without fear. New beginnings with no regrets. And suddenly my chest was warm, because as Mark turned the key in the ignition and steered us onto the lane leading me home, I realised.I already have it. I had everything I would ever need, right here in this little car.

THE END

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