Page 10 of What You left in Me
“Night,” I answer immediately. And then, because I’m an idiot who opens doors he should leave shut, “How’s the mythology unit really going?”
Her mouth curves, the not-smile again. “They like the messy gods best. The ones who make mistakes and don’t apologize.”
“Sounds unhealthy,” I say.
“Sounds honest.” Her eyes hold mine longer this time. Then, because we can’t stand here looking at each other all night, she adds, “Sweet dreams, Finnick.”
She says my name, and it pulls at my chest.Finnick.How long has it been since anyone called me that? It lands lower than it should. I step aside so she can pass, and I take in her perfume, which smells crisp and slightly zesty. Nothing like Eleanor’s roses. It snags at me, and I fucking hate that it does.
My feet take me to my old room, which suddenly looks smaller than it used to. I extend my hand to open the door and notice now that the paint has chipped into little moons around the knob.
A cracked lacrosse stick leans in the corner like it’s sleeping on watch. I instinctively walk towards the self and look at the photo that’s been there for decades now. Twelve-year-old me, sunburned and grinning, my mother’s arm hooked through mine. Her hair is loose, wind-snatched and she looks like she believed in fairies. The picture hits me the way it always does when I look at it, like a blade you forgot you were still carrying.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” I whisper to myself.
I strip my shirt off, leave my slacks on because the idea of fully settling in here makes my skin itch. My phone vibrates on the nightstand. Eric’s name glows blue. I don’t open it because, once I do, I won’t be able to put my work away. He can manage like he always does. If the world ends, the email subject line will say so.
Instead, I walk toward the window and stand there.
The dock is a pale bone in the dark; the lake holds the moon like it’s considering whether to give it back. Somewhere out there, the boards remember the sound of bare feet. Stupid thought. I drink to wipe it out by pouring a glass of scotch that I keep stashed in my room.
“Three days,” I murmur to the glass. “Just get through the fucking three days.”
The scotch goes down slow, lighting a path that doesn’t lead anywhere. The house gently settles around me, its bones creaking, pipes sighing, and the last door shutting somewhere like a gentle reprimand. I lie back on my bed and stare at a ceiling that has nothing to say and count the ways this was supposed to be easy.Fly in. Shake hands. Toast the anniversary. Pretend I’m still the kind of man who can sit through a family dinner without looking for the exits.
I didn’t come here for Ariane.
She’s my step-sister.Little sister. Whether the blood matches or not. That line’s been drawn since the wedding, and I know better than anyone what happens when you cross lines you can’t uncross. I’ve had women… too many to count. They come and go, and they don’t matter. But her? She’s not supposed to be in that category. She can’t be.
Yet, still, she’s a problem my head keeps trying to solve, even as I tell it to find a different target. She’s in the place you look when you say you’re not looking.
“You can keep your distance, Finn,” I tell the dark, and my own name sounds like a warning I’ve heard before. “Three days. You can make it three days.”
Chapter 4 – Ariane – How Things have Changed
The mug is warm between my palms, steam curling up and condensing against my glasses even though I keep irately shoving them out of the way. I don’t even really like drinking tea. It always tastes too bitter, with an aftertaste sugar doesn’t entirely erase. But coffee feels too intense for the morning after a family dinner, so tea it is. It’s lukewarm comfort in a mug I don’t even like. At least it’s caffeine.
It’s too early for anyone sane to be awake on a Saturday. But I’m a teacher, so my body clock doesn’t care what the calendar says. Sunrise hits and my brain insists,Up you get, lady. Times’a wasting!No snooze buttons, no negotiations.
Except, hey, I’mnota teacher. Not anymore. I was one before. Now, I’m just unemployed. I’m an unemployed liar who was laid off a few weeks back and nobody knows anything about it. I’m here right now, pretending that I’m on a break that the school graciously offered up for some made-up reason.
The kitchen is quiet, with the exception of the persistently lethargic groan of the refrigerator and the occasional chirping of birds.
But I’m not really alone, I can tell.
Mom’s up, too. I can hear the faint shuffle of her heels overhead, quick and purposeful, like a general making her rounds before battle. She’s always up at dawn and has been since I was a little girl. My entire childhood, while I was rubbing sleep out of my eyes, she was already in her meticulously-pressed outfit and pretty lipstick, reading the paper like the world must’ve surely collapsed since the twenty-four hours since she last pored over the news.
Some things never change. There’s comfort in that, a kind I never saw coming.
Outside, the lake is already blinding with morning light, water flashing like someone tipped a mirror into the sun. My damp hair clings to the back of my neck from the shower I took first thing in the morning, my t-shirt sticking in one spot where I spilled water brushing my teeth. With my legs curled around the stool at the kitchen island, it isn’t that hard to pretend that I can start the day like any normal person in a normal family.
The dreamy haze is short-lived when my phone buzzes against the countertop, the sound cutting through with a biting reminder of the real world. But it isn’t so bad.
Julian’s name lights up the screen, and my lips tug into a smile before I even read it.
Julian:Bad news, love. Crisis with a senate donor. Can’t leave D.C. in time for the party. Maybe Monday? Will try my best
I sigh in disappointment. I know his world. I know how much pressure rides on him, and I love how hard he fights for everything. He’s ambitious, determined, and relentless. Still, somehow, he finds time to love me in ways that make me forgive and forget anything else.