Chapter 34
Zoltán
“Okay, it’s slightly different for certain words. Let’s practice what we’ve learned.”
Marnie pointed to each word individually as I sounded them out.
She was back to speaking only in Hungarian when directing me. But I liked it. It meant that I was immersing myself more.
“Though, thought, through, tough, cough, bough. They all look the same, but they sound completely different.”
I hated hearing my accent twist around the words. I took my time, and Marnie was patient, despite how young she was. Her painted fingernail tapped on each word again whenever I got it wrong. “Thow… tót… tru… toof… coff… bow?”
She cocked her head from one side to the other. “Closer than before. ‘Though’ has the same ending as ‘go’ and ‘tough’ rhymes with ‘stuff.’”
I groaned, leaning back on the chair at my dining table. “Why they all look same if sound like six different language?”
Marnie smiled, a little laugh slipping free. “That’s English for you. Hardest language to learn. It’s inconsistent, illogical, but, in your case… charming. One more time.”
Not charming enough. The livestream and my letter hadn’t done anything. Some days I was miserable over it, some days I was proud I’d spoken my truth, and proud of Fia for moving on.
Because she deserved the best, and that was not me.
I sounded them out. Stuff was tough. Cough was off.
“Much better.” She grinned and started to pile her papers into her satchel. “Tomorrow, you’ll have it down.”
“Down?”
“Idiom. Tomorrow you will have it perfect.”
I nodded, looking at the space where her sheet of mean, ugly words had tormented me. I would have it perfect. Soon.
She hesitated when we stood. “Zoltán…” She turned to me, an awkward smile tilting her lips.
Her hand reached for my bicep, and I let it land there.
“I just… I watched your video. And I wanted to tell you how proud I am of how much you’ve improved.
It was really brave of you to post that online and… you deserve happiness.”
“Thank—thank you,” I said, surprised that my immediate response was to reply in English.
Her smile tightened, and the dogs and I went to walk her out when three raps sounded on the wooden door.
Two quick raps, followed by a third.
It couldn’t be— it wouldn’t be—
It was Mum coming back because she’d forgotten something. She had a key. She always knocked, though, as if to protect my privacy.
I hadn’t had privacy in months, which was why I had become a recluse in my home.
“See you tomorrow,” Marnie said and opened the door.
Cold air rushed in. She took one step, watching her feet, and then froze, her shoulders lifting. The dogs rushed forward, tails immediately up, and Vincent let out a puppy howl.
Marnie took two steps to the side, and she looked over her shoulder at me.
But I hardly saw her.
Fia.
Her hair was back, slick with rain. One gloved hand was shoved in her pocket, the other was bare, her knuckles as red as her nose in the mid-February cold. Her travel bag was at her feet. Not a suitcase.
Bodri whined, but her eyes didn’t leave mine. Her lips parted, and I didn’t breathe, waiting for her to speak.
But then she looked at Marnie, and her mouth turned into a thin line.
I couldn’t find words. Everything I’d rehearsed was so far out of reach. In Hungarian and English. My mouth wouldn’t move.
I pushed the door further open as Vincent jumped up at Fia’s knees.
“Vin, get down,” I scolded, but she stroked his head without looking at him, and he was happy enough, sitting at her feet.
“Szervusz,” I said. The first word I’d ever heard her say. Hello. I’m at your service.
“Szervusz.” It was a breath, hardly a word, but it was her sound, and I was hearing it amongst the howl of the wind on my doorstep with my ears.
Fia.
Marnie squeezed my elbow, and she said in English, “Good night, Zoltán. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Fia watched her with wide eyes and turned to make sure she left down the drive and got in her car.
Her eyes flicked from the dogs to me to the doormat. “Can we talk?” She swallowed, looking up at me with her dark, beautiful eyes. “Please.”
I stepped back, because if she came closer, I’d reach out and touch her. “Yes. Please.”
The air was thick with an awkwardness that had never existed between us. My words were coming out formal.
The unruly dogs — Vincent with his puppy energy and Bodri with his grey-muzzled defiance — were already at her feet. The others rushed to her the second she stepped over the threshold.
I closed the door, still holding onto it for dear life, in case my legs gave way.
She laughed — her voice strained and not her own — and bent to stroke them all as quickly as she could so none of them felt left out. Like she did every time she came home.
“Vinny, you’re so big now!”
He climbed her, licking her face, and she grinned, screwing her eyes shut. “I know, I know, you’ve always been a big boy!”
My entryway was full of wagging tails and excited pants.
And my erratic heartbeat.
The moment she righted herself and stood straight, she was back to the Fia from outside. Straight-faced, looking at me with hesitation or suspicion.
“Who is she? The woman.” Her voice was harsh, clipped.
“She’s a friend. Just a friend.”
She sucked in her bottom lip, looking over her shoulder at the door. “Just a friend you see two days in a row.”
Did she think there was something there? That I was capable of moving on? That I had even thought of a woman in any romantic way in the last year since meeting her?
“Well, I pay her.”
She almost gave herself whiplash the way she turned back to me. Her voice was shrill, “You pay her?”
“Yes. Well… yes.” How was this what we were talking about? And how was I getting this so wrong? “But I think she’s a friend, too.”
Fia’s movements were slow as she let her bag slump down from her shoulder to the floor. She peered over at the paper on the table. “What do you pay her for?”
“She’s helping me with my English.” I cleared my throat. “I’m much better.”
Fia blinked her long lashes at me. It wasn’t a flirtatious flutter. More shock.
“Your video was very clear.” English. Testing me.
“Did you get the letter?”
She nodded. “I opened it today. It’s why I’m here.”
But then she didn’t speak. Her smile broke, her voice shook, and then she was ranting with watery eyes, looking down and playing with the turul bracelet. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so worried you wouldn’t be and—and I knew, really, you would be, but I…”
“I’m okay,” I said softly and stepped forward. “We’re okay.”
I meant her and me. Separately.
I knew there wasn’t a ‘we’ anymore.
Even knowing that and seeing her made it hurt far worse.
She nodded again, quickly, as if reassuring herself. When she looked up at me, her lip wobbled, and she stepped closer. “I’m not okay.”
And I was stunned, mouth open, torn between holding her and asking why. I didn’t want to be cold. I didn’t want to push boundaries. I wanted her to be happy.
But I didn’t need to act because she did.
Just like that afternoon on the dirt track, she threw herself into my arms, looping her arms around my neck, and wept into my chest. “I love this jumper you’re wearing,” she sobbed. “It’s really cute.”
I held her, rubbing her back and dropping my head to her shoulder, and the words slipped out, into her hair, “And I love you.”
I shouldn’t have said it. She cried harder, head buried in the jumper she liked, and I carried her to the sofa, where I plopped us down. She was in my lap, soaking me with her tears.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
She looked up, shuffled off of me, leaving her feet on my thighs, and sniffed. “No. No, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She snatched her feet back, pulling her knees to her chest. “Can I change? I’ve been on a bit of a journey today and… I haven’t had a chance to clean up since leaving home.”
“Yeah, of course. There’s some of your stuff in our room still. Ever didn’t grab everything.” And I’d been too dependent to give it back.
Would she find it weird I’d left it on the side? That four months after seeing her, her perfume and toothbrush were beside mine?
But she was off, and I was left staring at the place on the sofa she had sat. Fia was back home. Here. With me.
She’d had ‘a bit of a journey’ which probably meant she hadn’t eaten properly. I got to work, preparing a pasta with the kale she had planted in the summer.
When she came down, Vincent following her every step, I was transported back months by her perfume and the smell of her skin, remembering just how I ran my nose and tongue down her neck.
Her hair was wet around her temples, and she was make-up free, looking refreshed, her face still flushed from the hot water.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I saw what I looked like and… I showered. I put the towel I used in the washing basket.” She came to the stove and inhaled deeply through her nose. “That smells amazing.”
She dipped a finger in the pasta sauce, and I took her hand before she could taste it. “Hey, hey, chef gets first taste.”
It was a running joke we had, but I realised what I said, what I wanted — her finger in my mouth — and dropped her hand immediately.
The laughter froze on her face, and she cleared her throat before taking a napkin and wiping her finger clean.
“Sorry. I forgot where I was for a minute.”
Not where we were. Who we were now.
“Have you got somewhere to stay tonight?”
She stopped wiping her finger and went to the bin. “Yeah. A hotel not too far.”
“You could stay here.”
She kept her back to me as she put the paper towel in the bin.
“In the guest room,” I added quickly. “Every hotel is miles away.”
She turned on her heel.
“I just know how quickly you like to get into your pyjamas.”
“I didn’t bring any with me. I left in quite the rush.”
A rush to see me? I stirred the sauce into the pasta, trying not to smile because it wasn’t the time. “You can borrow my clothes.”