Chapter 30 #2
Sweeney blinked at the admission, trying to wrap her head around her mum being with another man. Her mum who had seemed so utterly devoted to the memory of her husband. ‘But … you haven’t.’
A soft laugh came down the line. ‘That’s because I’m picky and, thanks to your father’s excellent example, I have a very high bar.
I don’t want some guy who wants a woman to look after him in his dotage—and when you get to my age, there’s a little too many of those. Trust me, I’ve been out with a few.’
Sweeney blanched. Her mother had been on dates?
‘But if the right man came along,’ her mother continued, oblivious to the reverberating circle of what the fuck echoing around Sweeney’s brain, ‘I wouldn’t hesitate.’
Sweeney had no idea how to reply to that.
Her mother had been a widow for twenty years and it had never occurred to Sweeney that she’d ever want to date, let alone become romantically entangled.
Maybe even get married. Her mum had been so emotionally crippled Sweeney had assumed she’d never make herself that kind of vulnerable again. That she was sworn off love.
Instead, it seemed, she had become its greatest champion.
‘Just think about it, sweetie,’ her mother said gently. ‘Is love a risk? Sure. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it. Because it might just be the best damn thing that ever happened to us.’
Sweeney hung up the phone a few minutes later, her mind reeling from what she’d just heard. Worse than that. The pain in her chest? It wasn’t a heart attack or anxiety or indigestion.
It was love.
Her mother was right. She’d fallen in love with Fin Murphy.
Her childhood best friend. She’d been denying it because she knew too well the flip side and couldn’t even begin to countenance it.
But if her mother could? If her mother, who had been so damaged, could love again, was open to loving again, then that put everything she’d ever believed about the calamitous consequences of falling in love into an entirely different perspective.
Sweeney didn’t feel miserable at the prospect, like she’d always thought she would. Or doomed. In fact, her heart throbbed fit to burst in her chest at the revelation, taking over from that niggly pain, which vanished like smoke into air as she breathed it out and let it go.
She felt free.
Now … what the hell was she going to do about it?
Did Fin love her back? He loved her, sure. Like she’d loved him in that lifelong friends way. But in a romantic way?
They definitely had chemistry, but sex wasn’t love. And there’d definitely been a connection that had felt other than friendship, other than sex. One she’d thought he’d felt, too. But they’d barely talked since they’d parted and Fin was starting a whole new life.
So where did that leave her?
Sweeney didn’t know. But she did know that maybe Fin was on the right track. Maybe working on herself and getting her house in order first would help crystallise a way forward. And if it turned out she’d been wrong about that connection, then she’d taken a risk.
If her mother, who’d been thrashed by love, was prepared to risk again, then Sweeney could certainly put herself out there too.
But first, she had to tell Veronica she quit.
*
A week later, Fin was sitting in his small apartment in The Liberties area of Dublin, surrounded by packing boxes.
He hadn’t collected much stuff in the two years he’d been here, but he had been given several pieces of furniture that were Murphy heirlooms, so tomorrow the removal company were picking them up, loading it into a container and putting it on a ship, and the next day, he was on a direct flight to Melbourne.
His belongings would arrive two months after he did.
Leaning back against a now bare wall, Fin shut his eyes.
He’d been out quite late last night on his final farewell to Dublin involving a pub crawl with his work colleagues.
He’d miss them and he really hoped some of them would make it out to visit as they had all drunkenly promised, but he wasn’t going to miss the bruising hangovers that were a hallmark of nights out with this crew.
Fin’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out to read yet another so-long text with photos attached from last night.
He laughed. In this one, he and three others all had traffic cones on their heads.
Did he remember putting a traffic cone on his head?
Or posing for a photo with a traffic cone on his head?
He did not.
He smiled as he returned the message. An Instagram notification flashed on the screen as he hit send. His pulse accelerated a little—Sweeney had tagged him in something? Which reminded him he still hadn’t told her about his move.
And he wasn’t sure why.
It was definitely on his to-do list before he left for good.
Probably at the airport, when changing his mind was definitely no longer an option.
Not that he thought she’d try to talk him out of it, but his feelings for Sweeney had been in a constant whirl since he’d returned to Ireland and he knew, if he let them, they’d take over and confuse and complicate all the micro decisions he had to make to follow through on his plans.
Fin had needed to get everything organised and sorted so he could give the situation with Sweeney his undivided attention.
And, honestly, part of him had assumed that Connie would tell Sweeney. But there’d been no what the fuck, dude messages from her so he didn’t think Connie had said anything to her daughter.
Tapping on the notification, he waited for it to open.
Fin had last checked the app three days ago and admired Sweeney’s pics from Nuuk but had been in crazy packing mode ever since.
And, frankly, he’d been grateful for any distraction from thinking about her and what had happened between them and their awkwardness since.
He’d thought it would be relatively easy to just revert to their pre-fake engagement relationship once they were out of Ballyshannon, but had quickly realised how na?ve he’d been.
If it had just been the kissing, even the beach make-out sesh, it might have been alright.
But their Gold Coast intimacies had changed the dynamic.
Whether he’d thought they would or not, whether he liked it or not—they’d torpedoed an easy reversion.
Her grid opened directly on the post she’d tagged him in.
It was one of the photos she’d taken of him that night, lying on the bed looking at her with a half smile as she’d crouched and taken a shot from mattress level.
It was black and white and she’d cropped it—thank goodness—so it was just his head and shoulders and sex hair.
But his expression? The way he was looking at her?
Uh oh. His heart seized.
That was not a just friends look. He’d seen that look on countless faces over the years, at dozens of videoed proposals and wedding ceremonies.
He’d seen it on Donny’s face all the damn time when he looked at Mai.
He’d seen it at home constantly. On his grandfather’s face as he’d danced with Granny on the back patio.
On his father’s face as he’d looked at his mother.
Fuck. Fingers trembling, he scrolled to her post.
A very dear friend of mine made the leap into something different just recently and it made me realise that I’ve been playing it safe.
Anyone who has followed my images of a local kids’ sports team back in my home town will know I recently unlocked a passion for another type of photography, and his leap has inspired mine.
I’m going to be taking some time away from tourist brochures and landscapes to explore the many faces of humanity that make up this pale blue dot and whose stories are etched in every smile, every tear, every wrinkle. People, in all their glorious messiness.
I’m heading to Hawaii for a few days to take some pictures of a street choir in Honolulu that a friend of mine conducts. I’m starting there and then … who knows? I hope you’ll follow along.
So, here’s to me, flying blind, leaping into the great unknown. And here’s to a skinny boy with a huge head and a mop of hair who’s seen me at my worst and at my best and has loved me through it all.
Thank you Finley xxx
Fin let out a shaky breath as he read it again.
And again. Looked at the photo, again and again.
The photo showing her three hundred thousand followers how very, very much he was in love with her.
It was there as plain as day, for anyone to see, including him, and all his convoluted thoughts these past weeks crystallised into one very obvious truth.
He was in love with Sweeney Bailey.
Had she seen it when she’d looked at that photo? Seen it in his eyes, in his goofy, love-fucked smile. Is that why she’d posted it? Why she’d tagged him? What she’d meant by loving me through it all? Because she’d recognised the look?
The bigger question was, how could she not?
He didn’t know where it had started. That night under the mistletoe at Murphy’s?
Or maybe it had started with that fateful spin of the bottle all those years ago.
But it was there, glowing and fucking obvious for the world to see, and he wasn’t going to wait until he was settled and organised with a definitive career path and an apartment in Docklands.
He was going to go now.
He was going to spin the great bottle of life and take another huge leap. And if he was wrong, it’d probably be the last nail in the coffin of their friendship, but he could live with that. Because trying to maintain the old status quo just wasn’t an option any longer.