Page 31 of Anxious Hearts

Something wasn’t right. Finn had been calling all day to find out how the hearing had gone but Kelly hadn’t answered or texted him back. She never did that.

Finn called again from the balcony of the art gallery. It was only marginally quieter than inside, so he still had to stick a finger in his ear to hear Kelly’s voicemail again. He hung up, put his phone away and walked back inside.

It was opening night of an exhibition of one of Ashley’s friends.

She was a modern artist but not the kind that makes you despondent about life – her paintings were vibrant and full of colour and energy.

Against that backdrop, the party was bursting at the seams with conversation, laughter and gaiety.

Finn found Ashley staring at one of the paintings, her head cocked to the left.

She wore a simple but devastatingly alluring black dress that attracted the gaze of every man at the party, yet she stood among them oblivious, or perhaps contemptuous, of their attention.

‘I think this is my favourite,’ Ashley said. ‘It actually reminds me of you.’

Finn examined the painting. It was a riot of colour and shapes all emanating from a brilliant white circle at the centre of the canvas. He couldn’t see the connection.

Ashley held his hand. ‘So much complexity and chaos all around. Uncertainty and disorder but all in full colour with an unassailable purity at its core.’ She turned to face him, her dark eyes warm and inviting.

‘I like you, Finley. I like the way I feel around you.’ She whispered into his ear: ‘I’d like to feel more of you all around me. ’

Finn shuddered. Every primal instinct screamed at him to leave with Ashley now and let her invade his innermost soul. But his phone burned in his pocket, ablaze with the unanswered calls he had made and the potential catastrophes they represented.

Ashley stepped back and narrowed her eyes. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m really sorry, Ash, but I have to go.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Kelly.’

Ashley pursed her lips.

‘She went before the board this morning but she’s not returning my calls. I’m worried that it didn’t go well and she needs my help.’

‘Well, if Kelly needs your help, fuck the rest of us. You better get going.’

Finn’s muscled tensed. ‘Come on, Ash. You and I just spent the whole long weekend together.’

Ashley crossed her arms. ‘And the moment Kelly needs you, I’m left behind.’

It started to close in on him now, the fear, the panic, the uncertainty. ‘That’s not true. Kelly called me about the hearing yesterday and I still spent the day with you.’

‘Then do it again. Stay here with me. Kelly’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.’

Finn wanted to grasp his hair in his hands and rip it out.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to collapse.

Disappear. Anything but having to make this decision.

The thought of hurting Ashley was a physical weight on his heart.

But the thought of leaving Kelly when she needed him, especially after he didn’t go to her yesterday, was a death blow.

Ashley took hold of his arm. ‘Finn, what’s happening? You’re scaring me.’

‘Air,’ he gasped. ‘I need air.’

She gripped his elbow and steered him through the crowd.

The laughter was deafening, the colourful paintings grotesque, the atmosphere thick with rejection and disgust. Of him.

They burst onto the street outside the gallery and Finn collapsed on his haunches.

Ashley crouched beside him and placed her hand on his back. ‘Finn, what do you need?’ She spoke softly but urgently.

Finn screwed his eyes shut and breathed deeply. ‘You can’t help me, Ash. I’m too fucked up.’

‘Let me try.’

Finn stood up. The world swayed but she held him steady. ‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘I’d only make you fucked up as well.’

She placed her hands on his shoulders. He gently took them in his own hands and placed them at her side. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

Ashley started to cry.

Finn ran away, as fast and as hard as he could.

***

With every step, he thought about what could have gone wrong.

Every conceivable catastrophe and all the reasons why it was his fault.

He shouldn’t have gone out tonight with Ashley when Kelly needed him.

He shouldn’t have been with Ashley’s family on Easter Sunday when he always spent it with the O’Maras.

He should have gone to her yesterday even though she told him she was fine.

He should have called her straight after the hearing instead of meeting with his agent to rehearse his upcoming audition.

He should have taken her to the hearing himself.

Fuck. What was he thinking? How could he have been so selfish?

Whatever had gone wrong was his fault. This was all his fault.

Finn didn’t even knock, just unlocked the door and flung it open. A secret part of him had expected to open the door and find everything in order, Kelly watching TV or hunched over her books. But the apartment was dark and quiet, and it made his stomach drop even further.

‘Kelly! Kelly, are you here?’

He raced from room to room. Empty bathroom, empty bedrooms. There was nowhere else she could be and yet it was like he could feel her. Like he knew by some sixth sense that she was there. He stood at the entrance and scanned the open-plan living area again. Nothing.

The narrow kitchen was on his left behind a high breakfast bar. A small body was propped up against the wall there, hidden in the shadows.

‘Kelly!’

Finn slid to his knees beside her. He took her face in his hands but she stared at him with vacant eyes.

‘Talk to me, Kel. Are you all right?’

Still, the vacant stare.

He drew her close. She breathed softly and without conviction, as though her body’s instinct for survival was the only thing keeping her alive.

‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Tell me, Kel. What happened?’

No response.

He sat her back up and looked hard into her eyes. A wave of panic seized him. Had she taken something?

‘It’s over,’ Kelly whispered, the words laboured and dull. ‘I’ve been stood down from the hospital. Suspended from the Society.’

Finn clenched his jaw until it felt like it would shatter with the pressure.

‘I’m so sorry, Kel. This is all my fault.

I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve done more after you told me about the video.

Fuck! I shouldn’t have gone on the telethon with you or posted on your Instagram.

I should have helped you prepare for the hearing instead of being with Ashley.

If it wasn’t for me, everything would be fine. ’

Kelly lolled her head towards him. ‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t make this about you. I don’t have it in me.’ Kelly’s hands were resting beside her thighs. She moved her left hand slightly and Finn noticed, for the first time, that she was holding a large kitchen knife. ‘What’s left when they take it all away, Finn?’

‘I don’t know what you mean. Please, Kel. Let’s get up now.’

She lifted the knife and placed its sharp tip on her thigh, halfway between her hip and knee where her skirt had ridden up and left her skin exposed and vulnerable. ‘Just pain,’ she whispered.

‘Give me the knife, Kel.’

She held it still and a small bead of blood formed around the tip. She dragged the knife slowly up her leg, blood running freely down the inside of her thigh.

Dark spots appeared in Finn’s vision. The blood, the knife, the wilful destruction of the one he cared for most in all the world.

Everything went black.

***

‘Mum wants me to drop Drama,’ Finn said.

Kelly screwed up her face in disgust. ‘What? Why would you do that?’

‘She thinks it’s a waste of time.’

Kelly rolled her eyes. ‘For fuck’s sake, Finn. How many times are you going to have this conversation with her? You want to be an actor, not a fucking accountant.’

Finn chuckled. ‘Take it easy, Tarantino.’

They stood in front of the new release section.

The DVD store had the titles stacked three and four deep rather than along the shelves, so you’d know straight away if a movie was unavailable by the big fat Rent me next time!

sticker on the last copy. The exception was the movie of the month guarantee, which had so many copies it filled its own section.

This month it was Thor , the latest instalment in a disturbing trend of comic book movies that were taking over the world.

Finn reached out and picked up a copy. ‘How about this?’

Kelly shook her head in mock disgust. ‘What am I, twelve?’

Finn put Thor back where he belonged. ‘You’re an impossible person, you know that?’

Kelly shrugged. ‘What? You want to be an actor. Shouldn’t we watch something that actually contains acting?’

‘Fine. You choose.’

Kelly scanned the shelves and, more to infuriate Finn than anything else, she picked up Transformers: Dark of the Moon . ‘This one.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m more of a Shia LaBeouf girl than Chris Hemsworth. If you’re going to make me watch a brain-dead action film, I might as well enjoy the view.’

Finn shook his head. He was trying to look disdainful, but she saw the grin at the corners of his lips. ‘You’re paying.’

‘What’s new?’

***

It was a short bus ride and then a ten-minute walk back to Finn’s place.

They didn’t speak much on the bus; neither of them liked talking when other people were around.

It felt, to Kelly, like strangers were invading their personal space, threatening their special connection.

Not that they were going out. They’d never even kissed. That would ruin everything.

Finn was the kindest, smartest and most complex person she had ever met.

She knew he was damaged in some fundamental way, and it called to the brokenness in her own soul.

A brokenness she didn’t understand or know how to manage.

But she had found a companion in this tall, strong, sixteen-year-old boy with the haunted eyes.

There was no way she was going to risk all that for a stupid teenage romance.