Page 20 of Anxious Hearts

The rain was coming down so hard it was almost impossible to discern where the downpour ended and the ocean began.

But Kelly could still see the pier, its ethereal shape seeming to float through the sheets of pelting rain.

Her windscreen wipers beat as furiously as her panicked heart.

She had to get there on time. She had to find him before it was too late.

Kelly pulled up at the end of the pier, flung open her door and ran along the puddled cement.

The further out she went, the more the storm-whipped waves crashed against the pier’s pylons, adding a salty overlay to the inescapable deluge.

A crack of lightning split the sky ahead of her and she saw a seated figure at the end of the pier hunched against the summer storm.

‘Finn!’ she screamed so hard her head pounded.

She ran on. Closer now.

‘Finn!’ She felt lightheaded. The running, the yelling, the terror; it threatened to knock her over.

‘Finn!’ One more time, but now it was a strangled cry, a desperate plea.

He turned, still hunched over, his face obscured by the hood of his jumper. When Kelly reached him, she collapsed onto his back and held him so tightly her arms ached. She sobbed uncontrollably. ‘Thank God, Finn. Thank God, you’re still here.’

Finn’s legs were hanging over the edge of the pier. He twisted his body to face her and opened his arms. She burrowed into his embrace, pressing her cheek hard against his chest.

He stroked her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Kel,’ he said.

She regained her breath, drew herself out of his embrace and sat back on her knees. ‘What happened?’

Finn hesitated. Looked down at the pier. Up into her eyes. ‘I got in.’

Kelly’s heart raged as fiercely as the sea beneath them. Waves of pride, anger, despair and joy crashed together, a violent collision that left her reeling. Fury overwhelmed her. ‘Then what the fuck are you doing here?’

Finn pulled his hood back. His face was a picture of torment and pain. His hair was plastered to his forehead and rain poured down his cheeks and off his chin in a steady stream. Kelly wiped the rain and tears from her own eyes and tucked her sodden hair behind her ears.

‘He sat here, Kel,’ Finn said. ‘Or maybe he stood. I don’t know.’

Kelly sighed and placed her hands on her knees. ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Finn.’

‘This is where he did it. This is where he cut his wrists open and slipped into the water while I slept. This is where he made the decision to leave me behind.’

‘He was sick, Finn. His mind wasn’t right.’ How she wished she could help him. How she wished her words would be enough.

‘You know the worst thing?’

Kelly blinked water out of her eyes but didn’t speak.

Finn choked on something between a bitter laugh and an anguished cry. ‘I understand. I understand why he did it. And sometimes I want to do it, too.’

Despite the rain, she saw the tears flow from his eyes. She placed her hand on the side of his cheek. ‘Never. You’ll never do that.’

He rested his elbows on his knees and brought his hands together to make a cradle for his face. He closed his eyes. ‘Why can’t I stop it, Kel? The thoughts, the guilt, the fear, the pressure. Why can’t I stop it?’

‘I wish I knew how to help you.’

‘Maybe he’s in me and I can’t escape. Maybe there’s no other way.’

‘There’s always another way, Finn. I’m your other way. And I’ll never leave you. We’re the warriors, remember?’

Finn laid his arms out, palms up. He rolled up his sleeves and stared at his wrists.

‘We try so hard to make something of our lives, but look how easy it is to give it all away.’ He snapped his palms away from his body, so his wrists were exposed.

His veins tracked up his arms like highways of indecision.

Kelly had never seen him this bad. It filled her with the lead weight of terror and dread.

She’d understood being accepted into acting school in Sydney would be stressful for him, but the paradox of Finn’s life was that whenever things went well, his mind ran wild, invariably self-sabotaging his peace and hopes of happiness.

She wasn’t sure she could let him move to another city.

Who would talk him off the edge of a pier in Sydney when the darkness came back?

He needed her there always. Needed to know she was with him, supporting him, protecting him.

He needed to be reminded.

He needed to be marked.

***

Kelly was surprised to hear a bell ring when she opened the door – it was a sound more suited to an old-fashioned corner store than a tattoo parlour.

The young guy behind the counter was equally incongruous.

Sure, he had ink all up and down his arms, but he was also clean-shaven and wore a crew cut; Kelly had expected someone much more intimidating and far less handsome.

It was only a small place, with one large reclining chair in the centre of the room and what looked like a massage table in the far corner.

The young guy held up his hand to stop them walking any further. ‘Hold it there,’ he said. ‘You’re puddling all over the floor.’

Kelly looked down to the water pooling at her feet.

She’d coerced Finn away from the pier and straight into her car, not bothering to make any attempt to dry off.

It had been a moment of frenzy and she was still riding the adrenalin high that came from her desperate attempt to save Finn from himself.

For his part, Finn stood beside her, slightly dazed and utterly drenched.

His eyes scanned the scene but there was a vacancy in them that only came at the worst of times.

The times he went into his death-like mode.

The tattooist approached warily. ‘Listen, guys, I’m happy to take walk-ins, especially on a day like this when nobody’s leaving their homes, but you’re just too soaked. You’ll get water all over the place.’

Kelly wasn’t going to back down that easily. ‘You got towels?’

He cocked his head. ‘Yeah, I got towels. But they won’t dry off your clothes.’

Kelly kicked off her shoes and started to unbutton her jeans.

‘Whoa, hang on,’ crew cut said. He took a step towards Kelly, so close that she could smell his aftershave. It was leathery and safe. He twisted the wand that closed the Venetian blinds in the storefront window.

Kelly smiled. ‘A true gentleman.’

He dipped his head. ‘I’m Xavier.’

‘Kelly. And this is Finn.’

‘You been drinking?’

‘No.’

‘All right. Formalities over. Dry yourselves off and I’ll grab you a couple of T-shirts.’

Kelly stripped down to her underwear, then pulled back her hair and tied it in a ponytail. ‘Come on, Finn, get your gear off.’

The sight of her in just a bra and undies brought a bit of life back to his eyes. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Please tell me you’re wearing underpants.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, but he unbuttoned his pants, slid them down his legs and kicked them off with his shoes.

He pulled his hoodie and shirt over his head in one fluid movement and pushed his hair back off his forehead.

His skin was damp and taut across his muscled chest and stomach, and his wet Calvin Klein trunks left nothing to the imagination.

Finn caught Kelly staring and frowned, covering his groin with both hands.

‘Shit, man, you guys are basically Ken and Barbie,’ Xavier said. He threw them each a towel and T-shirt.

Kelly wrapped the towel around her waist and slipped the T-shirt over her shoulders.

She reached back, unfastened her bra and dropped it onto the wet pile of clothes at her feet.

Then she reached up under the towel and pulled down her underpants.

They were as wet as everything else and she wasn’t sitting in sodden cotton for the next hour.

Xavier shook his head and chuckled. ‘Man, this day just got wild.’

Kelly looked at Finn, who was motionless. ‘Come on, Finn, don’t make me take yours off as well.’

Finn reluctantly dragged his trunks down underneath his towel as Kelly had done.

‘Feel better?’ Kelly said.

‘No. Just drier.’

Kelly smiled but she felt like her heart was about to break. She’d been trying to stay light, trying to take the weight off him, but it wasn’t working. It was time to go on the offensive.

She took his face between her hands and stared straight into his eyes. ‘You listen to me, Finley Walsh, and you listen good. We’re going to mark each other forever now. We’re going to tell the rest of the world that from this day on, you don’t fuck with Kelly and Finn.’

A spark lit in his eyes.

‘Say it,’ Kelly said.

‘You don’t fuck with Kelly and Finn,’ he said softly.

‘Now say it like you mean it, Finley.’

Something broke. She felt it in his tightened jaw. Saw it in the depths of his eyes. Sensed it from the energy off his body.

‘You don’t fuck with Kelly and Finn,’ he said with the quiet determination of a solider.

‘That’s my boy,’ she said. ‘Now let’s get this done.’

***

Xavier let them keep the towels. For the time being, anyway; Kelly said she would wash and return them.

Finn was pretty sure the tattoo artist would not have agreed to this request from anyone else and was just using it as an excuse to see Kelly again.

He could hardly blame him for that. She had just walked into his shop and stripped naked; that’d make any man want to follow her up.

Their shoes were still drenched so they scurried barefoot back to Kelly’s car.

Finn could feel the dirt and rainwater splashing up his calves.

Ordinarily, it would have put him on edge until he could get to a shower and wash off the filth, but the freedom that had accompanied Kelly’s reckless abandon had infected him as well.

He felt invincible, like there were no more consequences.

Like nothing he could do now mattered. Only Kelly made him feel that way.

And only when she had that wildfire in her eyes.

Kelly unlocked her car and threw the garbage bag of wet clothes and shoes in the back. Then Finn opened the passenger door as she opened the driver’s side door and they bundled in at the same time, simultaneously slamming the rain out and collapsing in breathless excitement.

Finn gently rubbed his wrists against the towel that was still wrapped around his waist. It was impossible to keep the transparent dressings dry, but Xavier had double wrapped them for protection. Finn stared at his new tattoos and his blood was warmed by the exhilaration of rebellion.

‘I cannot believe we just did that. My mum is going to lose it.’

Kelly laughed. ‘You’re eighteen now, Finley, Mummy doesn’t tell you what to do anymore.’ She dried her dressings the way Finn had done and laid her hands palms up on her towel-covered thighs.

There was an awe and wonder in her eyes that stirred something deep and primal inside Finn.

Something he didn’t know was there. A desire, a need, a wickedness, a delight; it was hard to say.

But it was powerful. So powerful that his breath caught in his chest at the sight of her, drenched and steaming and burning from the inside out.

‘Ceallach and Fionn,’ Kelly said, reading the cursive script on her left wrist and then her right.

‘Ceallach and Fionn,’ Finn repeated, only he read from his right wrist first.

‘Kelly and Finn. Warriors,’ Kelly said. ‘With you at my right hand and me at yours. We can never leave each other now, Finley.’

She turned to him then, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks, her nose pink with the cold, her eyes like galaxies all their own. Finn felt as if he was seeing her for the very first time. As if he was really seeing her for all that she was and all that she could be.

The force of it burned in his chest and, as their eyes locked, there was nothing left in the universe.

Nothing outside of them as they sat in her car, in this small, deserted laneway, the sun a distant memory behind the storm clouds and the darkness closing in.

With the windows so heavily fogged, they could see nothing of the outside world, and the outside world could not see them.

They were the only two left. The only two who mattered.

Kelly slowly raised her hand and stroked Finn’s cheek. Her fingers were cool and soft and gentle, yet they also choked the very breath from his lungs. He had to close his eyes to endure it. The pain, the ecstasy, the hope, the sin, the righteousness.

And then her lips. Oh, Lord, her lips. Fashioned for him alone.

Gentle and warm. Inquisitive and torturous.

Her bite, measured and cool, drew a groan from a place he didn’t know existed.

He heard the sound as an observer does, clear in his ears but from somewhere at a distance.

Or like a man being called to wake from a thousand-year sleep.

Her tongue was impatient and commanding. It was the accelerator and the brake at the same time; regulating the pace of their connection. Now fast, now slow, now teasing, now indulgent.

Every thought he’d ever had. Every action he’d ever taken.

Every hope he’d ever cherished. They all vanished in that moment.

For the first time in his life, Finn existed for now alone.

For one more breath and then one after that; for he did not know how many he had left.

It felt as if he was going to die – or at least transcend the only existence he had ever known.

But when Kelly swung her body into his lap, her towel riding up around her thighs, Finn returned in an instant to that tiny car.

His entire body ached and he felt as close to the earth and the ancestors and the gods and the devils of this world as he ever would.

Kelly kissed his mouth, his eyes, his cheeks, his ears and his neck.

That gentle touch of her lips was sulphur to his passion.

When they became one, Finn groaned again, and Kelly whispered breathlessly in his ear: ‘It’s you and me, Finley. The warriors. Joined for now and all time.’

Finn drew her close, gripped her skin, searched for her eyes. They locked; their foreheads and the tips of their noses touching. Perfectly aligned. Nothing between them but their own breath.

When it was over, Finn buried his face in her wet hair. It was all he could do. She had rescued him, marked him and bound him to her. He had never felt so full of life and yet so close to death at the same time.

‘I could die right now, Kel,’ he whispered. ‘Die happy in your arms and want nothing more in this life.’ He meant every word.

And came to regret every single one of them with all his heart.