Finley Embraces Heart and Home by Anyta Sunday

You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices.

K. Mansfield, “A Dill Pickle”

If a story can help me forget, even for a few minutes, it’s worth it.

I take my kindle to the river and sit back against a tree. Ethan has come and gone from his swim hours ago, so it’s just me, and right now that’s all I want. To sit in the shade on a beautiful day, dwelling in the lushness of the grass, the light reflecting off the river . . . it should be perfect.

I read a page. Two.

Every breath tastes like water and sunshine. And yet.

I rest my head back and laugh at myself. Here? I come here for mental space and clarity. I’m a fool.

I heave myself up and drift back to the house. Mum hails me to help her chase Julia into some clothes and it’s a team effort to wrangle pants and a t-shirt on her. She’s giggling the whole time though; my frustration bleeds away until I’m shaking my head at her in amusement. “You know, you can’t run around so wildly if you want the butterflies to sit on you.”

Mum is taking her to the nature exhibition, and it sounds like Ethan has volunteered to go with her.

“Five minutes, and we’re leaving,” Mum says to Julia and slinks with me to the kitchen, where her coffee is now cold. She sips it like a lifeline anyway.

I check the fridge, but I’m not hungry. I just . . . “Mum?”

“Fin?”

I shut the door and lean against the myriad photos—Ethan, Tom, me, Mum, Julia—pinned there with magnets. They shift under my back as I fold my arms.

Mum cradles her mug and looks at me. She looks tired, but . . . happy. Content.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

I whisper, “Move on from Dad?”

She doesn’t ask where the question is coming from, but sometimes I catch a spark in her eye like maybe . . . maybe she knows more than she lets on.

“He was the love of your life.”

Mum reflects quietly. She sets her mug down and moves to me. Her hug pulls me off the fridge and photos clink to the floor. Her perfume is so familiar. So comforting I immediately sag into her arms. She kisses my cheek and rubs it with her thumb. Her eyes are dark and full of compassion, understanding.

“Titiro whakamuri, kōkiri whakamua.” Look back and reflect and move ahead. “What I mean is let yourself love your past, remember it fondly, and let yourself love your future. Encourage it wholeheartedly.”

“That’s what you did?”

“I was happy then, and I’m happy now.”

“Doesn’t it ache sometimes?”

“If it didn’t, would it be love?”

I crush her tight. “Ngā mihi.”

There’s a shadow at the door. It’s Tom in shorts, polo shirt and cap. He has Julia lovingly by one hand, and his other arm is hooked around Ethan’s neck. He grins proudly and meets my eye. “You joining us, Finley?”

I shake my head. Not today. I can’t. “Gonna look at job listings.”

He inclines his head. “Sensible. I’ll look over your cover letters for you.”

I’m not looking directly at Ethan, but I glimpse his expression under his baseball cap.

Mum kisses me once more, ushers the others toward the front door, and Ethan’s face—that frown—winks out of sight.

I pickup a photo from the floor in front of the fridge. It’s Ethan and me, from the one week we shared together before I went to Europe.

I head to the porch, sit on the sunny front steps, and study it.

We’re sitting on the roof of my old car and we’re laughing. I can’t recall why we were up there. Can’t recall any of our conversations. Just a vague sense of warmth.

It’s painful, the inadequacy of memory. The fuzziness of it, when I need total recall—every minute detail.

A shadow lands over the picture and I look up. Cress has just come back from a jog; she’s deeply flushed, strands of her hair escaping from under her headband and clinging to her forehead. Her eyes are bright.

“What’cha up to?” She slings herself next to me on the step and I turn the photo over so she doesn’t see it.

“Just thinking.”

Just hoping the recent memories I’ve made with Ethan won’t fade into obscurity. That we’ll have those, at least.

She chats on and I murmur and nod. I have the vague sense she’s being nice, but doesn’t really love how much time Ethan and I spend together. She keeps asking if I’m looking forward to my boyfriend visiting.

Bennet, she means. I don’t know what Ethan has told her, but clearly there were some falsehoods. I pretend it’s true.

His falsehoods are mine too. I’ll protect them.

A sweat-cooled arm bumps mine. “You seem sad. Boy trouble?”

“Gonna miss him when he leaves,” I say wistfully. Distracted.

Her laughter pulls me into the moment. “He hasn’t even arrived yet. Who knows, maybe you and Bennet will figure out how to be closer to each other.”

“Maybe.”

“It’ll all work out in the end, you’ll see.”

Footsteps come from behind us and Ford seats himself on my other side, freshly showered, hair dripping onto his dark Ride Me, Baby t-shirt.

I wait for the crass one-liners and send a silent prayer skyward for it to be painless.

His arm comes around my shoulders first. “So you want to be a writer, huh? You know,” he side-eyes me, winking, “when it comes to strokes of the pen, I’m your man.”

I groan silently. It’s so ludicrous, it’s funny.

Let yourself love your future, encourage it wholeheartedly.

Being flirted with could be distracting. Perhaps there could be reprieve in it.

I look at Ford’s twinkling green eyes and laugh.

“Fin,”Ethan hisses the next morning from his weights in the corner of our living space. Metal clunks onto the floor and Ethan is crossing toward me. “Where are you going?”

He eyes my short shorts and sneakers quizzically.

“Ford wants to go for a morning run. Something about feeling the sunrise.”

“Ford?” Ethan blinks, confused.

“Yeah, currently living in a room under us?”

“Flirts with anything that has a pulse.”

I wink at him. “That’s the one.”

He scratches a hand through his damp hair. “You’re running with him?”

“Thought it’d be fun.”

“You never run. You hate running.”

“Something new,” I amend.

Silvery eyes clash with mine, confused. “It’ll be breakfast when you get back.” What about our time on the turret?

What about the three weeks more I’m supposed to have?

“We can do it later, maybe.”

The bolt of pain crossing his face is satisfying. It’s petty of me. I can’t help it.

If it doesn’t hurt . . .?

He schools his emotion. Something he’s well-practiced at, with his dad.

Pain ricochets from him to me, slicing through muscle and bone, deeper.

He doesn’t school his emotions with me. Not with me.

His dimpled grin is the final stab. We’ve swivelled in opposite directions on the fork in the road. “Have fun with Ford.”

He usesthe car he lent Cress and moves his few boxes out on Monday. Early. So there’s no question whether or not we’ll have a moment before breakfast. When I roll out of bed, I meet him about to jog down the stairs. His hair is a mess like he hasn’t slept, or showered. Like he just needs to get out.

His bulky hiking pack is slung over one shoulder and he jumps a little to redistribute the weight. Or for something to do as I cross the last few feet.

“So this is goodbye?” My voice cracks from sleep. From waking to this new reality.

His eyes are shiny, his mouth is downturned, his cheeks are pale. A glossy line runs from the corner of one eye, forks at his cheekbone and trails toward his ear, his jaw.

He looks at me like he has a million things to say. He only says one. “Not goodbye. I’ll see you later.”

Not bye. Later. Byes are too final.

When his footsteps fade from the stairs, I stand in his emptied room. There’s nothing in his drawers, wardrobe. His desk has been cleared. His bed is neatly made, the pillow still smells of him. The air feels thick with an indescribable quality he’s left behind.

He’d only have to breathe out once, and I would know he was nearby.

How do I stop listening for that?

Ford calls my name, and I roll hurriedly off Ethan’s bed. I make it to the window before he catches me in the room.

I open the window wide, waving a hand before my face. “Needs airing.”

Ford simply grins. “How do you feel about going out for breakfast?”

“Out?”

“Yeah, you and me. Cress is still asleep. So?”

I just want to get out of Ethan’s room. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Ideas! Hardly. All I want is for you to sit across from me at a café, and give me kind smiles and maybe a few coy looks, maybe a bite of whatever you order, and talk. Share your thoughts, be interested in mine. I want you to want to know more about me, and try to convince me to get another coffee so that we can extend our conversation, and feel sad when it’s all over. Nothing else.”

It stirs a laugh out of me as I pass him at the door. “You’re all innocence.”

He snickers.

“Just breakfast,” I call over my shoulder.

Ethan watches me with Ford.

We’re ranking the books on the shelves that line one wall of the billiard room. A little table is between us; we’re stacking the books we’ve both read, from least enjoyable to most.

Behind us, Ethan and Cress are playing pool.

“Austen?” Ford says, sounding humorously outraged. “Better than Dickens?”

“The audiobook blew me away.”

“Audiobooks don’t count.”

“Why not? It’s reading the story.”

“There’s a whole other interpretation of the story from the narrator that isn’t necessarily your own.”

The book I set down wobbles under my fingers and slides off the pile.

A ball smacks against the others and they bang about the pool table.

“Have you read Orwell?” Ford continues, pinching it out of the shelf.

Only listened to the audiobooks.“He’s a great storyteller.”

“You have good taste.”

“Still not as good as Austen.”

“You have terrible taste.”

Mrs Norris jumps onto our table, then springs atop our waist-high pile of books before Ford can settle his on top. When he tries to slither it under her, she hisses at him and raises a warning paw.

I catch Ethan chalking the end of his cue, grinning—just—and drop my own grin to Mrs Norris.

“Oh, what’s this?” Ford says to the cat. He fans his hand behind her ears and pulls out a flower made of folded pages. Mrs Norris immediately swipes for it, and Ford teases her, shifting it out of reach.

“What did you do to the books?” I say, aghast.

He smirks. “No books were harmed in the making of this.” He reaches behind my ear and pulls out another flower. “Or this.” He taps my nose with it.

It’s all very smooth.

He’s expecting a smile, a blush, a gleeful shriek.

I see through the smoke and mirrors. I haven’t forgotten how easily he flirted with Maria.

I raise an unimpressed brow.

He taps my nose again. “You’re hard to please, Fin. But that’s okay. I like a challenge—ow, let go. That’s not for you.”

Mrs Norris has a paw in his sleeve; another flower sticks on her claw and she tries to shake it off, toppling the books.

I scoop her up and detach it, laughing.

My gaze flits to Ethan; he ducks his head and takes a hard shot at the 8 ball.

I watch him with Cress.

“Push yourself a little closer,” she whispers. “Closer.”

Ethan arranges his chair close to the harp and Cress lifts his arm, measuring his reach to the end strings.

“Now tilt the harp against your shoulder. Should balance easily. Feet flat on the floor.”

“Does this look right?”

Her eyes sparkle as she takes him in. “You look perfect.” She moves behind him, close, and reaches for the strings to pluck out a scale. “Relax,” she murmurs in his ear. “Pluck a string. Feel how it vibrates through your skin and wriggles deep.”

Ford slings himself on the couch beside me and peers at the laptop on my knees. “Aaaaaaaaaa . . . This Sven character’s really screaming.”

I lift my fingers from the keys and clap the laptop shut.

He waggles his brows. “Is he being thoroughly fucked?”

“Thoroughly haunted.”

“I drovepast your new place this morning,” Ford says to Ethan.

It’s a day later. We’re at one end of the dining table. Poker. I barely know the rules, and Ford has seated me next to him to teach me how to play.

Cress, adjacent to me on my left, gazes across at Ethan, her eyes glittering.

“You’ve seen my place?” Ethan says, puzzled.

“Finley and I were driving into town and I spotted you walking through a gate.”

Ethan glances at me and I look at the cards. “You’re sure?”

“Pretty brick cottage. Small. Kiwi wind gauge, legs spinning wildly.”

“Sounds right.”

“So much potential!”

“You got all that, just driving by?”

“I might’ve convinced Finley to stop there on our way back from the market. We thought you might be home, but no one answered our knock.”

“I might’ve gone to the market too.”

“Finley didn’t say, but I could tell he was super curious how you lived. I hauled him around the house to peer through your windows.”

Heat blooms up my neck. I had been curious. I’d also been against the suggestion.

“Oh? And?” Ethan said huskily. “What did you think?”

I know he’s talking to me, but Ford answers. “I like it. Two bedrooms all to yourself. Bit barren at the moment. Or are you expecting a flatmate?”

“I’m on my own right now.”

With the lights on at night? Wishing we could share beds?

I lift my eyes slowly and our gazes meet. Gravity races through me in the space of a second; I’m glad I’m sitting down. We look away.

“You know, if you have an extra room,” Cress says. “Maybe I can rent it for the semester?”

Ethan’s quiet. I’m frozen.

“There’s no bed in the second room.”

She frowns at him, then shakes her head, laughing. “I sprung that on you. Forget about it. Or . . . think on it the rest of summer.”

Ford bumps my arm, tosses coins into the middle, and raises the stakes. “Maybe you and I should think about flatting together?”

I scoff and glance furtively at Ethan. “We’d kill each other in the first month.”

He looks relieved.

Ford laughs easily, like it’s just a matter of time. “Think about it.”

Cress raises again, grinning as her coins clatter atop the others. “If I lose this, it won’t be from not putting in my all.”

Her words scuttle down my spine.

When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

K. Mansfield,Journal

Bennet arrives the next day, even more gorgeous than I remember him.

He’s bright blond with dazzling blue eyes and a never-ceasing smile. He’s smart, too. And easy to talk to—catching up is a breeze, the hours fly by. The following day as well. I could hang out with him for weeks and never be bored. Longer, maybe.

And yet.

I don’t feel even a glimmer of sexual spark.

Not that I thought he’d arrive and we’d somehow find a way to pick up where we left off—

Actually, that’s exactly what I’d hoped. Someone to dull the pangs of missing Ethan. Someone who isn’t . . . Ford.

We’re in the river, concealed behind an outcrop that I want to climb and jump from. There’s a narrow ledge on this side, deep water everywhere else. Ford and I are standing on it, water lapping at our chests. He whispers in my ear, his hand caressing the back of my wet neck. “Your boyfriend doesn’t seem to touch you much.”

My brows jump to my hairline. “For someone who believes I have a boyfriend, you touch me too much.”

He laughs and drops his hand, skimming his knuckles over my arm. His smirk is smug, and I mutter, “You’re unbelievable.”

He cocks his head, green eyes boring into my profile as I begin to climb. “So you aren’t with Bennet, then?”

“He’s my ex.”

“So you’re . . . actually available?”

I heave myself up one more foot and cast a wary look down at him. “Why?”

He splashes my feet as he pushes off the rocks, floating on his back, smiling. “I’m happy to hear it.”

At the top of the outcrop, I find Ethan. He’s sitting on the edge, legs dangling over, toned stomach rippled where he’s hunched. The scar at his hip is shiny, but not as shiny as his eyes. He shuffles over, creating space for me, and my stomach twists. How much did he hear?

I sling myself next to him, the rock warm under me from the hard sun overhead. Ethan. Every half-millimetre where we accidentally brush sparks through me and despite the heat, I’m a canvas of goosebumps.

We haven’t been this close since our last night on the turret.

I yearn to heal this awkward incision between us; I want to say something, but I don’t have the words. I look away from his silvery eyes, and he looks at me. I feel the pull, the desperation leaking from him too.

He says nothing either. About us, anyway.

He clears his throat. “Bennet is shorter than I imagined.”

“Ethan!” I laugh.

“Yeah, that was a weird thing to say. I like his style.”

“He’s very comfortable in himself.”

We stare at the riverbank, where Bennet and Cress are chatting over the leftovers of our picnic.

“How are your harp lessons coming along?”

“How are your indie writer ones?”

I speak low. “He’s just helped me set up a self-publishing account. Suggested a few podcasts to listen to.”

“She’s only taught me a scale.”

The river below sparkles in the light, almost blinding. The faintest stirring of the wind hits my wet back. I was already shivering though.

“Jesus, Eth,” I whisper. “Why is this so hard?”

He rubs his temples.

Shouts come from the bank; Bennet and Cress wave at us. “Gonna jump or what?”

Ethan stands and offers a hand to pull me up.

It feels dangerous, taking his offered hand, but I do. Our fingers tighten and linger; I curse the world and do the only thing I can to maintain control.

I shove him off the ledge and he laugh-yelps as he falls, his epic splash reaching back and wetting my feet. I’ve never been so aware of my little toes.

Ethan wades out of the water and throws a towel around his shoulders.

When all his ripples have stilled, I allow myself to leap.

Air rushes around me, giddiness swoops through my gut, my chest, and then the sting of water, murkiness as I sink into his depths.

Lower, and lower.

My foot presses urgently against the riverbed and I spring toward the surface, knowing instinctively I shouldn’t jump again. I will though.

I haul in air when I breach the surface, and then I’m swimming to the cliff, pulling myself up. Again. Again.

It’s the same show I do with Ethan. The rush of the fall. Confusion, heaviness, sinking when we have to pull apart.

I come out dripping, hair in my eyes, toes—even after three jumps—still frustratingly lighter than the rest of me.

Bennet and Cress are laughing over something. Ford is hopping over hot stones, and Ethan finds my folded towel.

He moves quietly toward me with it, shaking it out as if preparing to wrap it around my shoulders—

Ford seizes the towel and his grin is large, in my face, as he puts it around me.

I hate it.

I’m relieved.

Hours later,the group heads back to the house. I stay behind, packing up the picnic blanket. Ethan’s hovering nearby too, shaking out his towel. He drapes it around his neck and waits for me.

We walk slowly through the garden, barely speaking. I should tell him I’ve stopped leaping.

I should.

“Ethan . . .”

“Fin?”

The gut-wrenching sound of sobbing steals our attention. We trade worried glances and follow the sobs to the fence. On the other side, Elinor is bowed over her arms at the ornate picnic table, back heaving. We steal through the gate into the neighbour’s backyard. We’ve never known Elinor to cry before.

She looks up, wiping tears away with her baggy t-shirt.

Either side of her, we each take a chair.

“Is there anything we can help with, honey?” Ethan asks.

His voice is soft and sweet, and it’s not until this moment that I realise how much he’s been acting since Cress and Ford arrived. I see it now. This is the real Ethan.

Elinor’s hair is short, but it still falls into her eyes. She shoves it back and looks at us.

“I hate growing up.”

I wince and pat her back. “It’s a rough time.”

“No one gets it,” Elinor says, choking on the words. “I’m not like them.”

“You can only be you,” Ethan says and shuts his eyes. I feel him internalising his own words.

“It’s hard to be me in this body.” It’s a whisper and I still, sensing Ethan stilling also.

I can see him searching for a reply, wanting to be careful, sensitive. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing too.

“I’m sorry it’s hard for you.”

Elinor sniffs. “I should have been . . . I feel like I’m . . .”

We listen, we wait.

Elinor laughs. “Would you . . . would you call me Noah?”

“Of course,” Ethan and I say at the same time.

“Would you, like, useheandhimpronounsforme?” in a rush. Noah is shaking.

“Absolutely, Noah,” Ethan says. “And . . . we’re here for you.”

Noah’s smile wobbles. He wraps his arms around me and then Ethan. He’s still sobbing, but he’s smiling too.

When Zach comes out, he takes his brother by the hand. “I love you, Noah,” he says, voice breaking deeply at the end. “Mum and Dad, too. They want a signal when you’re ready to see them again.”

It’s our cue. Ethan and I are quiet again as we move back towards the house. I fish out my phone, send Noah all the links and contact information I have that could help him and add a coda of hearts. If you need to talk . . .

I look at Ethan. He looks at me. We’re both thinking the same thing.

Oh, to live our true selves.

I haven’t slept wellthe last few nights. Bennet being in Ethan’s room . . . It’s strange, knowing someone else is there. Someone who is not Ethan.

I yawn loudly. Across the felt of the pool table, Cress looks startled; Ford, at the bookshelf, amused; Bennet sympathetic, like he’s noticed how tired I am. Ethan is quiet, expression unreadable.

It’s his turn to knock the balls about, and he does, his gaze slipping from the felt to me.

He misses his shot.

I survey the table and line up.

How quickly I went from my decision to stop leaping, to this untameable hope that we might leap together.

I’m shaky.

I miss my shot.

Cress engages Ethan in conversation as she takes her turn, and I press the end of my stick against my socked foot and absently rub the end up and down.

Next to me, Bennet is frowning at his phone. “You all right?”

He stuffs the phone into his back pocket. “Sure. Just a message. My gift card wasn’t claimed.”

“Gift card?”

“For Lyon.”

His little brother.

“It was his birthday at the end of January.” He lets the rest hang there, and I feel his ache, deeply. In the background, Julia is giggling for Tom to find her in what sounds like a game of hide-and-seek.

Bennet’s phone dings again and he hurries to check. His shoulders sag. “Just one of my editing clients.”

“Oh? How’s that going?”

He takes his turn at the pool table. “I’m not sure it’ll work. I’ve only got two clients at the moment.”

“Don’t give up already. You’ve only just started, you need time to build up a reputation. I’m sure you will. Kia kaha.” Keep at it.

My words momentarily transport me to my desk at fifteen, tearing out the pages of my notebook after getting the results of my English mock exam.

Ethan dragged my chair from the desk with me in it. He knelt before me, his solemn eyes pinned on mine. “So you didn’t pass the way you wanted. So what? Stop being afraid this means you can’t be a writer. You will become one. Kia kaha.”

“Oh, I have a great idea!” Cress’s elevated voice rips me to the present. She’s bouncing on her feet, close to Ethan. Bennet is thanking me for the encouragement and Ford is mucking around at the bookshelf, obviously eavesdropping.

“You should have a house-warming party!” Cress continues.

Ethan hums.

“You could have a theme. It’d be fun.”

“You’d all come?” Ethan says, glancing at me.

Cress and Ford heartily agree. “We could have it this Saturday. Should be enough time to tell all your friends about it.”

I waver. “I don’t know. That’s Bennet’s last night—”

“Count me in,” Bennet says. “A themed party sounds like a ball.”

“Ohhh, a ball-like theme. Dressing up nice, that sounds good.” Cress clicks her fingers. “Masks and mimosas. It’s perfect.”

Ethan’s gaze covertly clashes with mine and it feels like I’m falling from the cliff into the river again. The last time we went to a masked party was the first and only time we kissed.

“Masks.” The word is torn from me, deep and guttural.

“And mimosas!” Cress says. “Who’s in?”

“Your stepdad doesn’t seemto know you and Bennet aren’t together,” Ford whispers.

I look away from Ford to Bennet and Tom across the breakfast table. Tom is deeply engaged in their conversation, like he has been in all their conversations during the week. Tom approves of Bennet. His eyes are always alight with humour around him.

How much of it is relief?

I shrug in response to Ford, and he lets out a soft, curious “huh,” then adds a small laugh. “I get it. You and Bennet aren’t together, but you want to be.”

I don’t tell him he’s wrong. I tune him out and tune in to Tom’s conversation instead.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” Bennet says.

“You’re welcome here whenever you like. Do you know what Finley’s plans are? Do you think he’ll move to Wellington?”

Bennet looks over at me, brow wavering in confusion. “I’m not sure what his plans are. He hasn’t talked to you about them?”

Tom’s eyes meet mine and there’s something sad in their depths. “Not so much. He still hasn’t taken up my offer to look over his job applications.”

I bow my head to my poached eggs on toast and cut into them. The yolk spills out of the egg and it might as well be my heart. How can he love me and hate me at the same time? Pick one and stick with it!

Like I’ve stuck with hating him.

The thought is jarring and I can’t bring myself to eat.

Have I been as cold to him as he is when it comes to me and Ethan? Is part of our broken relationship my stubbornness about accepting him?

I scooch my chair back and quietly leave the chattering around the table.

Cress bumps into me in the foyer. Her phone is in her hand and she’s smiling. I’m certain she’s just finished a call with Ethan. Maybe going over party plans for tonight.

She frowns. “You okay, Fin?”

“Fine.”

She hesitates. “Ethan is on his way.”

“Really, I’m fine.”

“Oh. Um . . . want to see what Ford and I were up to last night?” She grabs my wrist and leads me through the house. Her room tastes like perfume, intensified by the sun streaming in. Spread out on the desk, in the only corner of shade, are hundreds of coloured feathers and mirrored tiles and fake jewels.

“We made, like, a dozen masks. I’m wearing the peacock one there on the corner.”

“Looks beautiful.”

“Do you have one yet?”

I’d searched my rooms high and low for the Venetian mask I’d worn that day . . . Lost. “Not yet.”

“Then you have to have one of these. Any one you like.”

I hesitate. Wearing one of Cress and Ford’s? It feels . . . wrong. Like accepting them, their importance. Like I’m stepping away from the fork and onto this . . . path.

“This one with the gold would look stunning with your complexion.”

She urges me to try it on.

It sits heavily on my nose, and I readjust the straps. The mirror tosses my reflection back at me; simple, but stunning.

Cress claps her hands. “That looks incredible on you. You have to wear it.”

“Um, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Ford made that one specifically with you in mind.”

“He did?”

“He didn’t stop talking about you the whole night. I think he was disappointed you had plans with Bennet and couldn’t join us.” She wraps an arm around me and squeezes. “He’ll be flattered when he sees you wearing this.”

I look at her smile in the mirror. She comes across so nice and thoughtful, but I haven’t forgotten. “Flattered?”

“Of course. He likes you, Fin.” She sounds serious, sincere.

“Uh huh.”

“I mean it.”

I runupstairs to drop off the mask and stall, one step into my room. Ethan is there, scribbling a note at my desk.

“Fin,” he says and sets down the pen. “Ford said you ran out, he thought you’d gone for a walk. I wasn’t sure I’d see you before tonight. I only came by to pick up Cress and to give you this.”

My Venetian mask, the one I thought I’d lost. “Somehow I took both when I left.” I cross over and touch it, relief flowing through me. “I thought you might like it for tonight.” He eyes the golden mask dangling in my other hand. “But it looks like you’ve found something else.”

He sets the mask on my desk and stands quickly. He angles his cap over the disappointment crossing his face.

“Wait,” I say softly. “I’ve been searching for that.” I’ve felt sick not finding it.

“It’s here.”

I lift the new mask and it twists on the ribbon. “Cress gave me this one. She and Ford were making masks yesterday.”

He lifts his gaze to mine. Hope twinkles there for a moment, then passes. “Guess you’d better wear that one then. Don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

“I wish you’d found me ten minutes ago. I’d have told her I didn’t need one.”

Ethan smiles. His words feel poignant. “You’re probably right to wear something new. Not cling on to things of the past.”

My stomach twists.

Yet he’s here, bringing me my mask, a twin to his.He had to be hoping I’d wear it.

He looks ready to flee. I don’t want him to.

“Do you need any help setting up your place?” I ask croakily.

He shakes his head. “Cress and I are on it. You’re all to come at eight and be surprised.”

“Have you . . .”

I clear my throat and finally expel the question I’ve been holding in for days. “Have you thought any more about living with her for a semester?”

“I . . . don’t know.” He looks away. “You and Ford? He seems to like hanging with you.” There’s an edge to his voice, and I find it . . . satisfying. A relief.

“I don’t know. He’s an excellent actor, Eth.”

“It’s more than acting.”

I step closer; my voice drops. “If it is . . . what would you think?”

The quiet drags between us. “I mean, if you’re happy . . .” He struggles to smile as I meet his eyes.

“If I’m not?”

His breath falls heavily. So does mine.

Silence says too much of what I don’t want to hear. It feels like giving up a fight. I rock back on my feet as the truth punches through me.

That’s what I want.

To fight.

For him to fight.

For us to fight.

Bringing my mask, so laden with memories . . . some part of Ethan doesn’t want to give up. Can’t give up.

I stare into his eyes. “I want you to be happy too.”

He shivers and shifts closer, torn, confused . . .

Cress calls Ethan’s name in the distance. Her feet pad up the stairs.

Ethan steps back. I set my golden mask on the desk and he leaves my room.

His voice changes as he greets Cress; he sounds humoured, easy-going, and I shut my eyes until it fades.

Shakily, I crumple into my chair and read Ethan’s note.

Fin,

I hope to see you in it tonight.

I read his handwriting, carefully printed for my benefit, over and over. It makes my heart beat faster. Makes me long to be there already.

Makes me hope.