Page 66 of Flourish By the Night

And fearing the front-running question to accompany this arrival, Áine stretched to take herself from the bed’s warmth where he slept, feeling detached. In search of underwear among the mess of clothes they had taken from each other’s bodies methodically, she found herself at least grateful the ensuing memory would be a longer one.

Her jaw twitched away from him as she clenched her eyes. She couldn’t think of that, or the question she hoped he wouldn’t ask before managing to sneak away; an act over five years of having casual one-night-stands that had been stealthily perfected.

Áine steadied her feet over two blemished floorboards, her naked frame a little hunched. Then rising one foot, she dipped her arched foot into the hole of her underwear, and then theother. A draft drew goosebumps out on her thighs. She felt more exposed doing this than she had when Fionn removed them, a feeling she often endured when things were less likely to be looked past for the sake of sexual predilection.

But Fionn wasn’t like the other people she’d been with.

He was different. . . wasn’t he?

No sooner did she reject the naivety of that with a second twitch of her jaw, the rustle of sheets came from behind, somehow crunchier from the stains they’d left on them.

“Áine, love?” Gentle tones of confusion persevered through his cracked, sleepy voice.

She arched her shoulders so high and constricted, an irrational worry rooted in her that in softening them, they might dislocate and cause her knuckles to primitively knock the floor.

God, why did he have to say her name this way? She thought this sternly to compensate for the frowning he also couldn’t see. But still, why did he have to say her name with such kindness and perfected colloquialism that holding her ground over him had become a vexing task rather than the usual pleasurable one.

Overcoming this perturbing state by manual force, she accepted the potential risk of dislocation and dropped her shoulders when turning to him. “I know what you’re about to say,” she said in a tired tone he might mistake for grogginess.

The brewing question forming the tip of his tongue she wished to touch again with her thumb, wasn’t a question tailored to their relationship, or understood by either party because their brains linked. It was universal and ambiguous and didn’t ever really have a default answer.

Fionn asked it anyway, “What now?”

For fuck’s sake.

She sighed out her nose in tune to the dodgy radiator letting off steam in the corner. Áine hated not having the answer. She hated speaking without substance or conviction. But most of allshe hated that Fionn was going to Australia for the rest of his life!

“Now nothing.” She drew a forearm across her chest to clutch her elbow and return to the safe place where vulnerability didn’t exist. “Now I get dressed and go back to work, and you . . . well that’s your decision.”

He clenched the sheets higher to cover his body like he could literally feel the chill of her barrier coming back up. “Fucking hell, Áine!”

“What?” she protested, indignantly, chin inclining to reclaim some of the pleasure she found in standing her ground.

“Do you do this to every person you take to bed? Tell them your woes. Tell them to come in you. And then what? Tell them to fuck off?”

All Áine could think of was her own side in this argument, her own feelings that had begun to weigh on her shoulders even more despite her battle to push the pain away. It couldn’t go on this way, which was exactly the point.

She snatched her black-padded bra from the pile of clothes, viciously fumbling to clasp the hooks above her belly button. “Can’t you see this won’t go anywhere and you being angry with me is misdirected?” Her battle with the three wonky hooks persisted. “You could be angry with the concept of causal reductionism, meaning, all paths led us to meeting again. Or maybe it’s a cruel, twisted fate that some universal overlord has dangled the possibility of ‘us’ over our heads one last time before they fail to get another chance. But please, for the love of God, don’t be angry with me for being realistic.”

The bra’s hook fastened with a sigh as the worst words, perfect but cruel, steamed from her mouth and she finally managed to look at him, “I’m not your soulmate, Fionn. I’m your stalemate.” She twisted the cups and dipped her hands into thestraps to cover herself, both wishing he was and wasn’t looking at her so exposed.

Fionn sat up from the bed, letting the covers fall to her surprise marked by how fast her exhausted gaze found his flaccid penis. It surprised Áine how bad she wanted to make it hard again, to the point where the idea of monogamy felt tempting and rewarding if these were the urges offered.

“At least look at me?” he asked, most likely mistaking her fixed stare on his groin for one of absent-mindedness.

She complied that much, although not without a tut the Meaher household had a habitual fondness for using at any inconvenience.

“I’m not angry at you for being realistic,” he said, loud but not indignant. Never that. “I’m hurt at how blunt you’re being for your own safe keeping just because your brain can’t troubleshoot us out of the inevitable.”

“That’s not what this is,” she lied. And of course, he knew that too. He always knew, a smirk delightfully twisting his lips for that knowing.

She smiled in return, hopelessly, her tongue rooting into the crevices of her mouth to suppress it.

On what she considered the precipice of eternal separation (to be dramatic) he’d found a way to bring some happiness to the situation, to her. Even back when they were in school and she felt she wasn’t worth the basics of emotion, he’d forced her to feel happiness anyway. And despite being sure her depression had never reached the point of Fionn’s, being able to feel any worth at all made that time a little more bearable on her neglected heart.

Shuddering herself from the memory, her smile recoiled, slowly, each loosening muscle on the boundary of her mouth intentionally indicating to him their night was still over.

Feelings were irrelevant.

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