Finley Embraces Heart and Home by Anyta Sunday

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives—one is so very small—but that is the satisfaction of writing—one can impersonate so many people.

K. Mansfield,Letter

We have to talk about it, of course.

Morning makes it all too clear. But first, we unstick ourselves and take turns showering, getting dressed. I drink copious cups of water to rid myself of a pounding headache. I will never drink again.

Ethan doesn’t race out for his swim; I find him in his bedroom, sitting on the edge of his perfectly made bed, head bowed, phone to his ear. His window is open and breezes waft in, summery and warm, yet I shiver.

He won’t look up.

I sit next to him and he closes his eyes. “Yeah, sure,” he says into the phone. “He’s right here, I’ll pass him on to you.”

Who is it?I mouth.

Julia, he mouths back.

My chest lurches and I take the call with shaking fingers. “Hello!” I try to be as cheerful as her little voice is.

“I miss you!” she says. “I love you with all my heart.” She hums and Mum’s voice in the background asks if she’s finished. She continues singing. “I want my brothers here. Love hims forever.”

The call goes dead. She must have ended it.

“I guess . . . that’s everything in a nutshell?” I know it is, but I’m still crazy hopeful Ethan will contradict me.

“We should probably . . . you know. Like the last time. When we found out Maata was pregnant.”

“Distract ourselves with others?”

“Try to move on.”

Everything aches. Even though I get it. Even though I agree. I think.

My voice comes out strangled. “Does this mean you won’t take this summer course with me?”

“What? Of course I will. God, Finley. I can’t have you that way, but I’ll be damned if I don’t have you every other way.” He looks up into my eyes solemnly. His hand brushes up against mine in the gap between us. “You have to know how much I—”

“Yoohoo!” Cress knocks on the door and comes in, poufy skirt swishing. She sees me there and is momentarily startled. “You two are the sweetest, always hanging out together! I wish Ford spent a little less time chasing tail and a little more time with me.”

When we don’t say anything, she frowns and leans against the doorframe. “I was hoping for a favour?” she says. “Busses into town don’t seem to follow any regular schedule here. Could you drive us to a rental place so Ford and I can get some independence?”

“I can drive you,” I offer. I want Ethan to see me being big about this. It’s tough for both of us; I want to make it as easy on him as possible.

Cress smiles, but there’s a small twitch of disappointment under one eye. Guess she’d hoped Ethan would offer first.

Ethan clears his throat. “You don’t have to rent a car. You and Ford can use mine while you’re here.”

“Really?” Cress beams. “That’d be amazing. But what about you?”

My gaze catches Ethan’s, and he looks so sad. He smiles at Cress, but it’s shaky. “Maybe I’ll tag along?”

There aretwo days left before the start of the summer semester, and Ethan spends most of it in the back of his car while Cress and Ford adventure-hop around the local area.

There’d be room for me, too. But it’s a little too soon.

I just need to reorient myself. Become the Finley I was for three years. It’s harder, now I know how good it feels to be in his arms. But. This has to happen. It will.

I spend the day voice-recording ideas for the summer play. I know the course requires writing and preforming in groups, and I’m eager to get a head start on it.

Creating stories feels good. I can escape. Become another character, care for their problems. Find solutions that just aren’t always possible in real life. I finish dictating, do my best to edit the text.

Mrs Norris finds me at my desk and decides the spot of sunshine stretched across my freshly-printed play is the only spot in the house worth bathing in. She looks at me, claws attacking my pen every time I try to add editorial notes around her.

I finally give up and lean back in my chair, shaking my head. “You’re quite something.”

Mrs Norris lifts her leg and thoroughly licks her behind.

I open my laptop on my knees and check out career options. I’ll have to do something after the summer. Pretty sure the clock is ticking on how long I can stay here at Mansfield.

My stomach twists and nausea leaps up my throat. The cusp of change feels raw, painful.

My inbox dings.

Butterflies burst into a frenzied flutter. Bennet? My first boyfriend, Bennet? I haven’t heard from him in years.

Dear Finley,

This might be a bit of a blast from the past, but I wanted to reach out and say hey. Find out how you’ve been over the years. What you’re up to now.

I missed you when you left Cubworthy. Mum and Dad weren’t happy about the whole gay thing either and when I left after high school they pretty much told me they don’t want me coming back there. It’s been torturous not being able to see my baby brother. He’s just so young, he doesn’t understand why I don’t visit. Mum lets me have one short birthday call, that’s it, and it’s hard not to cry. The first couple of years he kept saying he misses me. This year, he didn’t. I think he’s forgetting me, and it breaks my heart, because I think I broke his.

I hope you never have to experience this.

Shit. That started out heavier than I planned, but it’s the truth, so I’ll keep it there. In other news, I moved to Wellington and studied at Vic. I’ve finished my bachelor’s and will do an honours year next. At the same time, I’m working on setting up my own editing business. I’ve been proofreading and line-editing for all my peers during university and it feels like a calling. I’d prefer to work on fiction projects though.

How has life been for you? Where are you? What are you up to?

I’d love to catch up. I’m taking a few weeks over summer to travel—let me know if you’re interested.

Wishing you all the best,

Bennet

I read over it again.

And again.

I hope you never have to experience this.

It’s like the world has ganged up to warn me not to slip with Ethan again.

It takes me until the following day before I have the energy to reply.

I drive Ethan to campus.He tells me all the things he got up to with Cress and Ford, and I grin and laugh and lightly punch his arm at a bad pun.

“What are they doing today?” I ask, happy we have this time just for ourselves.

“Don’t know. They left early.”

I tell him some of my ideas for scripts, and casually drop in news about Bennet.

“You’ll see him when he’s here?” Ethan asks, looking at me intently; I keep my eyes on the road, ignoring the tingles.

“I was thinking he could crash at Mansfield for a few days too?”

“Huh. Is he single?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Huh,” he says again, quietly.

“You don’t think he should stay with us?”

A pause. “No, he can. He should. It’s your home too.”

“For now.”

“It’ll always be our home, Fin. Even when we move out. There’ll be birthdays and anniversaries and Easter breaks and Christmas. Julia will want us there every other weekend. I’m pretty sure I’ll settle in town.”

“Really?” I look at him. “You’ve thought about it?”

“Haven’t you?”

I’m quiet. “I want to be close too.”

We park behind an old chapel and race through the streets and across the courtyard to make it to the theatre department on time.

We burst into the auditorium as the old clocktower bells chime.

It’s a cosy space with a wooden stage and rows of red theatre chairs. A couple of dozen students are seated there already, talking amicably while the professor organises herself.

I skip down the aisle eagerly, Ethan chuckling behind me.

Two dark heads turn in the third row at the aisle and I halt as their green eyes blaze into me.

Cress and Ford leap to their feet, grinning wildly. “We signed up when you first told us about it. Surprise!”

At home,I’m done faking smiles. I race to my room and only just manage not to slam my door.

It’s okay, it’s okay.So the four of us are grouped together? We’ll do the play and have it done with.

I pace my room, gritting my teeth. Grief. That time alone with Ethan, gone.

It’s probably for the best.

A knock comes at my door, and my veins buzz. It’ll be Ethan, coming to say how sorry he is. How he had no idea.

“Come in.”

Cress enters my room with a cheesy, hopeful smile; Ford is behind her, bent over his phone. Ethan is nowhere to be seen.

I halt, back up to the window and perch on the sill.

“Ethan said you’re a writer? That you have ideas for the script?”

I fold my arms. “Yeah, I have a few ideas. Not sure they’re any good, though.”

Ford stuffs his phone away and delivers a dazzling grin. “I’m a writer too. I’ll look over what you have.”

My smile is weak. “Sure. Under Mrs Norris.”

For the first time, Mrs Norris seems to be on my side. She refuses to get off my notes and even hisses at Ford, extending her claws.

Ford hisses back.

Mrs Norris is so startled that she rolls off my work when Ford tugs.

Cress giggles and seats herself on the end of my bed.

Quite at home, Ford plants his arse on my desk and rests his feet on my chair. He reads over the few pages of dialogue and hums.

What does that mean?

“I mean, it’s okay.”

“Okay?”

He waves a hand. “Oh, the writing itself is fine. But is fantasy really the kind of piece we want to perform?”

Cress nods in agreement. “Ambitious in the scope of a twenty-minute play.”

“What kind of character would you want to act?” I ask them.

“I think I could act any type of character you write. I’m a fan of the classics, Shakespeare, Beckett. But I could do justice to a contemporary story too. Comedy or drama.”

“I’d love a comedy!” Cress claps her hands, delighted. “Ohhh, a rom-com.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” Ford says. “Whatever scenes you write for me, I will make come to life—though I do think angst will be easier to pull off.”

“Hmm, you’re probably right,” Cress agrees.

“If we’re going to do justice to this project, we’ll need to be rehearsing at least three times a week. If you could have something scripted for us before the weekend, Finley, that’d be terrific.”

He hops off my desk, winks at me, and strides out the room.

Cress grins apologetically. “He’s a little bossy. But he’s a perfectionist where it counts. We’ll get you the best grade for this.”

She leaves the room. I stare at the script Ford let flutter to the chair and floor, and the fire in my gut makes everything burn.

I grab my voice recorder violently and begin dictating another story.

I stay up all night forming it.

It’s not very good, though.

I delete it and begin another. Another.

I finally print one, but I get frustrated and slash a red pen through it. I fall asleep on bleeding pages.

When I wake up, Ethan is crouched beside me, gently rubbing circles on my back.

I sit up, disoriented, a piece of paper sticking to my cheek. I peel it off. The sunshine makes it shimmer, almost translucent where my tears might have dried on it.

“Where did you go yesterday?” I blurt.

“Sorry. I was frustrated. I stayed with a friend.”

“Frustrated because of us?”

“Because Cress and Ford took this course away from us. I couldn’t stay civil, so I removed myself. I know they only meant it as a nice surprise. I’ve decided to get over it and enjoy it for what it is.”

“I was annoyed too,” I whisper.

“The thing is—what I realised, is—we’d have been paired up with other people anyway. This way, at least it’s people we like. The fact we live with them will make things easier logistically too.”

I grimace. “Why do you always have to be so reasonable?”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“It’s hard enough not to touch—I just wanted this with you.”

Ethan stands up. “Come with me.”

I follow him quietly up the turret stairs and out onto the roof. All of Mansfield opens up to us, and it’s beautiful in the dewy morning. Like a million crystals have been strewn over it. The lawn, the leaves, the rooftop gables.

“I love it up here.”

Ethan looks at me like he wants to fold me into his arms. He clutches the damp balustrade. “This space is ours. No one but you and me will come here.”

I grab the top of the parapet beside him. Electricity skitters up and down the length of our not-quite-touching arms. “Can I pitch a tent and move here?”

He chortles, breath fogging the air. “Every morning before breakfast. Ten minutes. You and me and all this.”

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.

K. Mansfield,Letter

Three days later, I finish a rough draft. Leaving Mrs Norris to flatten the pages on my desk, I take the stairs two at a time to the kitchen.

Cress is teaching Ethan how to make pancakes. They’re wearing matching aprons with golden pears printed on them, and Ethan seems happier perched on a stool watching than participating.

The windows are wide open, easing a slightly charred smell.

I back out and across the marble foyer to the living room, glancing back like it might change facts—

I trip over a lump and tumble to the ground, landing hard on my bum.

Ford is the lump. He’s doing sit-ups on the rug. He laughs like someone falling over him is the funniest thing to have happened all week. His green eyes scrunch at the corners and his ears twitch.

He sits properly and runs a hand through his sweat-slick hair, then picks at his soaked shirt.

“I wasn’t expecting . . . that.” I kneel and rub my bruised arse.

“Maria and Rush wanted to drop by,” is his explanation. So he thought, what? They’d come and find him turning a six-pack to an eight-pack and she’d forget her boyfriend and jump right on his dick?

“Dude,” I say. “She has a boyfriend.”

His eyes glitter. “He likes watching.”

I roll my eyes.

“You’re good friends with her, right?”

I hesitate. Good friends? I think she puts up with me more than anything. We never really had anyone else in class, and she liked me as a pet. Now we’re older . . . Honestly, I’ve seen her more since Ford arrived than I did all last year. “Why?”

He shrugs. “Just conversation. You’re . . . not the easiest to chat to.”

“I’m not easy?”

“You’re wound up tighter than a jack-in-the-box.” He cocks his head and eyes me. “I can’t wait to see you pop free.”

“Nothing about me will be popping free,” I tell him absolutely.

He laughs. “Why, that’s almost a challenge, Finley.”

I ignore that. “I finished a script—”

“Pancakes, pancakes,” Cress singsongs and glides in with a platter on her palm, Ethan behind her with a tray of spreads and whipped cream.

“Come on, Fin,” he says. “Dare you to try one.”

I sling myself onto a dining chair and dig in. Ford, though, is on some kind of intermittent fasting and doesn’t partake.

He comes around the back of my chair and bends close, sourly musky, “Where’s this script then?”

I lean away from him. Around a mouthful of fluffy pancake, I say, “My desk.”

He returns twenty minutes later clutching rolled up papers like a prize above his head. “This is the most fascinating and sordid thing I’ve ever read. I love it.”

I flush. Although . . . sordid?

“It only has three parts, but that should work. Finley should direct it too, and the rest of us will act.”

Three parts?

“I bags playing the dad. He’s a ferociously stubborn character and the most challenging to enact, I think. I’ll enjoy it.”

The dad?

Does he mean the dairy-owner?

“You and Ethan,” —he winks at Cress— “will play the brother and sister.”

My heart pounds hard, ringing in my ears. Ford unrolls the paper, the aged paper, and scans it. “Grey and Alex.”

The air leaves my lungs in a rush and my stomach roils.

I shake my head over and over. “That’s the wrong play.”

“Is it? It was in the top drawer of your desk.”

“That one’s nothing. Silly.” I glance at Ethan, whose concerned eyes are tracking my every movement. “I wrote that years ago.”

There’s a note of panic in my voice, and Ethan hears it. He stands. “Should I grab the right one?”

“Oh no!” Ford says, hitting my play against the table like a gavel. “This is it. This has everything. Angst. Heartbreak. Incest. A lover’s declaration.”

I burn. I can’t look at Ethan, but I can imagine him paling.

A great, awkward silence stretches between him and I, and Cress breaks it. “Well, pass it here then.” She leans over and snatches the pages from Ford. “I don’t mind playing an incestuous sister as long as I don’t have to do it with my actual brother.” She shudders and Ford laughs heartily.

“In theatre and erotic short stories, it’s simply wonderful,” Ford says. “Good grief if it happens in real life.”

“Aye, aye.”

“They’re step-siblings,” I say defensively. I don’t say that Alex is meant to be a boy. I don’t want them guessing. I scan over the contents in my head, analysing for clues that might give us away. I hope I changed things up just enough. I think I did. But scratch just a little and it’s obvious.

“It doesn’t say that in the script,” Ford flexes his hands like he wants to break into character right away. “But growing up together like that? Same difference. Anyway, it’s just brilliant, Fin. We should start practicing.”

The doorbell rings, and I’m still silently hyperventilating, staring at my story in Cress’s clutches as Maria and Rush enter on a thick waft of perfume.

I feel exposed, like any one line might give me away. Their disgusted laughter is already enough to deal with.

I can’t . . . I just can’t.

My chair squeals against the floor; I turn my back on all of them and race upstairs.

Mrs Norris.

If she wasn’t so evil . . . I just know she completely obscured my play from view on purpose. Ford wouldn’t have gone digging through my drawers for it if it hadn’t been for her.

“No more cuddles from me,” I tell her.

Her little lips lift in a smile.

Ethan rushes into my room, and I jerk my finger at Mrs Norris. “Take her. I never want to see her again.”

He looks at his cat, sprawled happily over my work, and crosses to me, his lips curving in gentle amusement, his eyes still filled with concern.

He wants to hug me and he won’t, and it makes everything worse. I shove his chest, and he rocks back with it. Let’s me do it again.

Just hold me in your arms!

“Fin. Fin, talk to me.”

I slump against the windowsill, and he perches next to me. He speaks so quietly, I almost don’t hear him. “You wrote a story about us?”

I swallow. The sun warms our backs. We grip the lip of the sill under us. “You were away for a year. I missed you.”

He nods, like this is understandable. How is he so calm about this when he’s the one who freaks out about touching me?

Because in his mind, that part of us is over. He doesn’t wallow in it like I do. He’s just made it a rule to move on.

“I didn’t think he’d find it, Eth. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

I struggle to lift my head and meet his confusion. “It’s not autobiographical, exactly.”

He shrugs this off with a chuckle. “You changed the names. Ford would have said something if he’d known it was based on us. I’m sure it’s fine.”

I shake my head. He’s not getting it. “It’s a fantasy.”

“Okay.”

He’s still not . . . “It’s everything I couldn’t tell you and wanted to.” My face is hot. “It’s everything I imagined you couldn’t tell me.”

He swallows. “Ah.”

“Exactly. It’s like being caught jerking off.”

“You don’t want me to read it?”

“And less, perform it!”

He nods.

God, when will he be comfortable enough—when will he trust himself enough—to hold me again?

If he trusts himself, he’s over you.

I still at the icy realization.

“I’ll convince them to swap the play,” he says.

I don’t want him ever trusting himself around me.

Ethan pushes off the sill and I grab his elbow, halting him. I let go quickly.

“I don’t think you can.”

“Sure I can. I will.”

“No, I mean. If you do, they’ll see its importance. They’ll guess the truth.”

Ethan absorbs this slowly, sinking back onto the sill. “Oh, shit. What if . . . what if . . .”

Neither of us have any what ifs.

I lean my head against the glass and laugh hollowly. “You’re going to read it. You’re going to act it.”

“Fin—”

“And I’m going to watch and pretend they’re not dreams I wish would come true.”