35 the healing powers of pizza
35
the healing powers of pizza
Ava
‘What do you mean he’s leaving ?’ Josie flings crumbs everywhere as she anxiously snaps her pizza crusts.
‘Can you stop manhandling those? I thought we had an unspoken agreement that I get to eat your crusts.’ I’m sure Il Pulcinella is warded by magic, because I feel better just being here.
She slides her plate in my direction before lifting her glass, furiously slurping through her straw. After I’ve brushed her crumbs to the floor, she says, ‘Well? I think I must’ve misheard. Because it sounded a lot like you said Finn is moving to San Francisco in less than three weeks.’
I take a crust fragment and dip it in garlic butter. ‘Nope, you heard correctly.’ Crunch. ‘I always knew it was going to happen, just wasn’t sure when.’
For once I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but I can tell it’s turbulent in there. She blinks once, twice, three times before she speaks again. ‘And you’re completely fine with that?’
Crunch. ‘I am. With everything going on with Max, it feels like good timing; I have enough on my plate.’
‘This is terrible news,’ she says, leaning an elbow on the table and cupping her face in her hand. Her expression is tortured, which I feel is a bit much considering she’s only met the man a handful of times.
‘I didn’t realise he’d made such an impact on your life.’
‘I’m not talking about my life,’ she hisses. She taps her fingers against her face, releasing the same distressed noises she makes when she’s trying to reach something on a high shelf. For a woman who’s never been speechless in her life, this inability to find the right words feels monumental. ‘I’m talking about the fact you so clearly like him. Does he know how you feel?’
‘I’ll miss him, but I’ll be fine.’ I ignore most of what she said. Inside, it feels like my heart’s being controlled by a puppeteer, not quite within my control.
Finn leaving is the best move for so many reasons. He wants new opportunities, new experiences, new connections, and I know, however hard we pretend, that he wants more than I could ever give. I also know that he’d never ask that of me, despite how much he deserves it. He can get that more somewhere else, and I can stay here, living my small, quiet life. And we can be friends, just like we agreed.
‘Ava, you really need to work on expressing your emotions.’
‘No, I really don’t. Can’t express what’s not there.’ Any time I’ve shared feelings in the past, it’s left me feeling hollow and raw. Locking them away keeps me safe. I have so much going on in my head worrying about Max; the last thing I need is to try to untangle the complicated feelings I have for Finn too.
I’d expected him to glide into the shop today on his invisible jet stream and tell me all about his afternoon with his dad, but he didn’t come. This was good for my productivity, but bad for my feeling that our time is dwindling. He doesn’t seem like the type to have his pride hurt over me friendzoning him, but then, he is still a man.
‘We’re going to try to complete his London bucket list before he leaves.’ I want his final weeks here to be fun . I want to give him a good send-off. Especially knowing Max specifically requested continuing as normal until there’s more news.
Eventually she sighs, and it feels like resignation. ‘What’s left on the list?’
I start reading out the remaining items from my phone, until one of them sparks an idea. ‘Hey, do you think you could put me in contact with Sage?’
The next day I still haven’t heard from Finn. He’s an unhinged person who keeps his read receipts on, so I know he’s seen my texts, but so far he hasn’t responded. I accidentally pour half an Americano over my hand while I’m distracted and the customer I’m serving steps back in alarm.
‘Happens all the time,’ I tell him flatly, my barista skin immune to pretty much anything. My lack of reaction seems to scare him, and by the time he’s left the counter with a new drink and an expression of unblinking alarm, I’ve already opened my text thread with Finn, my last two messages read but unanswered.
ava: how did it go with your dad?
ava: are you coming into the office?
Ava of a few months ago would’ve cringed at the double text, but current Ava just wants to make the most of these next few weeks. Finn usually replies before I’ve even finished retroactively checking my message for spelling mistakes, and I can’t figure out why he’s staying quiet now. Is he really that wounded from our conversation the other day? I thought we’d come to an agreement when I said goodbye to him on the rooftop.
Max still hasn’t heard back about his test results and I could use some distraction in the form of a curly-haired man with a million passports. Because while I can go through the motions and keep busy at work, as soon as I’m home with nothing to do, the worry percolates, dripping into every corner of my brain and filling it up until I feel like I’m drowning.
Hours later, just as I’m leaving work, I finally get a response from Finn, but it’s the single blandest text I’ve ever received from him.
finn: Feeling weird today, was working from home
I ruminate over his absence while I’m on the Tube. I ruminate so hard, in fact, that when the doors open at Stockwell, I stay seated. And then when the line ends at Brixton, I get off. He has less than three weeks left here; there’s no way I’m letting him mope for the entirety of it.
Finn lives in a Victorian terrace on a residential road, not far from the leisure centre, and when I press the intercom, his tired voice comes through. ‘Hello?’
‘Hey. It’s me.’
He’s wary when he meets me in the doorway, looking starkly different from the other day. Where the last time I saw him he was perfectly coiffed, now he’s gone the other way, scruff darkening his jaw and neck, hair dishevelled, unkempt in a white T-shirt and black sweatpants. Yet his inherent pull still draws me in, and I cross my arms so my hands won’t do something stupid like reach out and touch his face.
‘What are you doing here?’ His voice is coarse, like it’s the first time he’s spoken out loud today.
‘Nice to see you too. You were texting weirdly and I wanted to make sure you hadn’t been abducted by aliens.’
‘I’m not in the mood,’ he says, fingers running through messy hair. His eyes skim my face like he’s trying to piece a puzzle together. I didn’t cry as much last night, so the bags under my eyes probably aren’t as prominent today, but I can tell he’s noticed again that something is still off. This man needs to stop being so perceptive. It makes pretending to be okay far more difficult than it needs to be.
I barge past him and into the foyer, the movement of air whipping up his now-familiar scent. I rest an elbow on the banister and ask, ‘What floor are you?’
He continues to analyse my face, and while his frown doesn’t budge, eventually he closes the front door and says, ‘Follow me.’
He motions towards an open door when we reach the second floor. I step inside the flat and it’s not what I expected at all. It’s all chrome appliances, grey walls and sharp lines, out of place in a building with the potential for so much character. Out of place for someone as vibrant as Finn, too.
As if he can read my thoughts, he says quietly, ‘My landlord has an aversion to joy, apparently. Do you want a drink?’ When we walk to the perfectly tidy living room, glasses of water in hand, he asks, ‘What exactly were you intending to do if I had been abducted by aliens?’
‘I’m still not sure you haven’t been. Jury’s out.’
I wince when we drop on to opposite ends of the sofa and the leather doesn’t give, and I wait for him to start talking. For once, the man doesn’t say a word. Shit, maybe the aliens did get to him. ‘If you won’t talk about why you’ve been sulking in this flat for days, I’ll start. You’re coming with me on a bucket list item on Friday. I cannot express the effort I’ve gone to and I refuse to waste it. It’s for entirely selfish reasons.’
‘Ava,’ he says gently. ‘I’m not feeling up for it.’
Part of me wants to yell at him for wasting what little time we have left, another part wants to yell at him for being so weird when there are much bigger problems to despair over than whether some cold, commitment-phobe of a woman can change.
Maybe I just want to yell, come to think of it.
‘Well, get up for it. It’ll be fun. Stop sulking about being relegated to the friendzone.’
This seems to jolt him out of his stupor, and his eyes widen as he says, ‘God, I’m not moping about that. I agree it’s the best thing right now.’ He shakes his head, curls shifting with the movement. ‘You didn’t friendzone me. That makes it sound like only being your friend is a demotion, somehow. As if it’s not my favourite thing to be.’
His words embed themselves in my heart like an ice pick trying to breach the surface, and I have to clear my throat in the hope of dislodging them.
‘Then what are you brooding about?’ The seconds pass and he still doesn’t respond, and I’m beginning to ache for his easy demeanour. ‘Is this how you felt a few months ago, trying to get me to loosen up? I don’t envy you. This is tedious as fuck.’
He breathes out sharply through his nose. I think it might be a laugh. After a few moments, he admits quietly, ‘Any time you opened up, it wasn’t long before you closed yourself off again. So all I could do was try again, over and over. Like Sisyphus pushing that fucking boulder up the hill.’
‘Great workout though,’ I hedge, monitoring his posture. I poke his arm, solid with muscle. ‘Probably why you’re so hench now.’ He laughs with actual sound this time, and I know I’ve got him. I swivel on the sofa to face him, bringing one leg up under me. ‘There’s only space for one angst-ridden emo in this room. Tell me why you haven’t been in the shop to annoy me since last week.’
He flops against the back of the sofa with a grimace and finally starts to talk, the words coming out rough, like they’re scraping his throat as he pushes them out. ‘You know how I’d been planning this day with my dad for ages? His assistant messaged me early in the morning to let me know he had a last-minute meeting, so we rescheduled everything for the afternoon instead. After I left you, I showed up at his hotel like we’d agreed, and then I waited. And waited. I know he doesn’t like being nagged so I didn’t want to text him, but eventually I did.’ He looks up at the ceiling. ‘And it turned out he’d completely forgotten about the rescheduling and was already out and about with a woman. I couldn’t figure out if she was a client or someone else. It doesn’t matter. He just forgot about me.’ Anger writhes along my skin seeing how Finn’s dad makes him feel so small. ‘He told me to come to the bar they were at, and by the time I showed up, he was already a little drunk. I told him about my new job, but I dunno, I’ve never been able to read him very well. He was kind of apathetic about it. Maybe even annoyed I’m gonna be working at the same company as him.’
With a long exhale, he leans forward on to his elbows, still looking straight ahead. ‘I was about to call my mum to tell her about it before you came, but then one of the twins needed her for something so she asked to reschedule.’ He squints as he adds, ‘Happens a lot.’
‘Finn.’ It’s all I can say, but I inject it with as much sympathy as I can.
‘I think I’m just bummed nothing went how I’d hoped.’ He turns his head to give the smallest closed-mouth smile, like it doesn’t matter. But it does, and I hate seeing him so dejected.
‘You know he doesn’t deserve you, right?’ I don’t mean to say it, but it spills out of me unfettered, splashing around us like waves against a boat.
His tone is defensive when he replies. ‘He’s just really busy. It’s hard to make time for me.’
No it isn’t , I think. You’re very easy to make time for.
‘Okay.’ I can’t make him resent his dad, and I don’t want to. But I’m worried the realisation will hit him one day, that he’ll see the lack of effort clearly and it’ll break his heart. But I get it, wanting to believe something so strongly you get tunnel vision. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend as much time with him as you wanted. And I’m sorry for him too, because he missed out on spending time with you.’ At his widened eyes I laugh, and something close to a real smile touches his face when he hears it. ‘I’m making the most of being corny because you only have a few more weeks to make fun of me for it.’
He analyses me, resting a hand on the cushion between us. ‘I will come back, you know. To visit.’
I don’t know if that’s true. Not if this job is perfect for him, if he falls in love with San Francisco, if he finds someone else to listen to his endless fun facts and flower-blooming laugh. But I don’t say that. Instead, with the same half-hearted smile he just gave me, I reply, ‘I know you will.’
The universe has sent me too many signs to ignore, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. There’s too much in my head to make space for anything else. I can’t have everything. I don’t deserve everything.
‘I should go,’ I say, rising to my feet. ‘I promised Josie I’d spend the evening with her. I just wanted to check you were alive.’
We head to the door, and as always, Finn opens it for me. And then my heart breaks a little, because it hits me that maybe it’s not only politeness that makes him do this. Maybe it’s the fact that his whole life, people have shown him he’s not worth a second glance. Not worth their time. He can be forgotten about and cheated on and left to fend for himself at a school across the world, and the only person who cares is him. And maybe, subconsciously, he hopes that if he helps every stranger and holds every door, someone will think about him. Someone will value him, if only for a moment.
I pause in the doorway and my voice is even when I say, ‘I’m glad I know you, Finn. And I’m glad you’re okay.’
His throat works while his eyes warm to melted chocolate. I’m sure I’m about to liquefy too. Then his jaw clenches and he pulls me roughly to him, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I bet that if a natural disaster struck right now, we’d still be standing at the end of it, rooted to the ground and intertwined like this.
One hand clutches my waist while the other slides up to the back of my head, fingers knitting into my hair and pressing my face against his neck. My own arms tighten around him, and I keep my eyes shut so that I can focus on his steady presence; the thrum of his heart in his chest, the worn fabric of his T-shirt, the comforting smell of him.
He doesn’t know that smoke has filled my head ever since Max told me his news, that I’ve been lying awake for the past few nights with thoughts churning through my mind like silt dislodging from a riverbed; murky and muddy and moving too fast to ever settle. But with his arms around me, the current slows. It doesn’t stop, but it doesn’t drag me under either. I might be able to take a breath.
When we eventually pull apart, I pretend he hasn’t left open wounds everywhere we were touching.