Work Text:
Bittersweet
Emotional turmoil was something that Erin Quinn thought she’d been through before. She had, in a sense, at various points in her life, confronting something that caused her significant distress. There were too many examples to list at once, ranging from the petty and trivial to the nearly losing Clare’s friendship after her own lack of sensitivity when her friend came out to her. Each of those times, no matter how big or small, she counted them as moments where she’d experienced significant strife or fear that her world would change.
One morning in a terrifying house in Donegal, changed her perspective on the definition of emotions.
When the sun forced her eyes open, all she wanted to do was get up and explore, have a few minutes of calm before the inevitable reality storm of their situation caught up to them. Escaping Orla’s spooning, her cousin could hug with the best of them, she’d expected to be alone but then in with the wind came this new emotional turmoil that she did not expect, not then. Yes, there were moments, she knew there were even if she did not want to openly admit them to anyone... but nothing like what happened next.
There never had been a time she planned for James Maguire.
He'd been under her thumb for years, from the moment he turned his dorky look on them at the bus stop one school morning, peering out from behind Michelle as if he were checking for snipers in the distance. Ownership of the fella was with her best friend to begin with, though very quickly they’d ended up taking him into the fold, Erin acquiring a twenty-five percent stake in ownership of the Englishman. For a long time he was just there, quiet and unassuming, taking his very few moments when he could before fading into the background again, not causing a fuss. Slowly but surely though, he’d painted himself into the landscape of their lives, even if he was just a distant tree in the wind a lot of the time.
He was there.
Katya’s arrival and subsequent attempt to bruise his lips at every opportunity was the first time Erin knew she had to take her responsibility seriously. At the time it was nothing, the caring act of a friend who didn’t want to see another used for nothing more than sick pleasure. James meant more than that… he wasn’t an object, but a person too.
As time went on, she did not think about how comfortable that she was around him. All of the girls were to a point, Michelle perhaps less so but they were blood relatives, making it somewhat more understandable that there was tension. Erin wasn’t special in that regard. Or at least at the time she hadn’t thought she was that important to him. Oh how she now knew she was wrong…
Her own feelings were growing without her really knowing, though in hindsight after the events of the morning, she didn’t have to think too hard to know her own diary would betray her. The comments she made about it not feeling right when James was not going to the prom, the subsequent ones made about his appearance when he did go, to rescue her evening for her when John-Paul, rather predictably to everyone else, did not show, gave her away now. Then there was the day he nearly left, the very first time she’d ever recognised that there was more to how she felt than just caring for him as a friend, only to carefully navigate around those thoughts when she wrote that letter to him. The one that always remained in the diary, seen by her eyes alone. And maybe Orla’s… no, most certainly Orla’s…
Their strong friendship often helped to contain the growing feelings, certainly during the prior summer when they’d spent nearly all of it together. A lot of that time was without the other three around them, who could not stand the thought of sharing a room with her as she worked away at her absolutely masterful script. Then again, looking back, there were only so many times she could forget how they always seemed to find each other’s gaze wherever they happened to be.
At no point did she stop to consider what he thought though, and as such was caught off guard when his near-death experience had apparently prompted him to admit how much he liked her. Pining for boys that never once reciprocated how she wanted them to or plainly did not see her at all, the whole time there was one lad who was always looking at her. Only in her wildest dreams did a fella ever tell her that he thought she was beautiful.
None of those dreams ever allowed her to see the fella’s face, yet reality showed her that the wee English fella was the one. The moment the compliment gushed from his lips, every single reason why she shouldn’t have kissed him suddenly vanished from her mind.
He wasn’t even English anymore. He was just… James.
Pillow aside, he was her first kiss.
If that was how kissing was meant to be every time… wow!
She would never regret him being her first.
Hours on from their snogging, her lips were still burning from the taste and the touch of him. She didn’t know what she was doing, and he barely knew much more when Katya’s technique was to basically smother him. God, did it feel good though. To some it would be a sin to kiss an Englishman alone, before liking it was added to the raging fire. Not her.
She’d say a thousand Hail Mary’s if it meant experiencing… that… again. With him.
The moment was all that it was though, the taste becoming bittersweet upon Michelle’s intervention. The devastating truth of it was that as hard as it sounded in the seconds after breaking apart from James, his cousin was right. For the sake of their group, they could not explore the paths their lives had led them to any further. Though she was yet to be able to truly appreciate it other than to let him down as gently as she could, her best friend was looking out for the group’s interests, not operating a personal agenda when she very well might have done.
The thought of hurting him by accepting that Michelle was correct, pained Erin tremendously, but James being himself, took the knock back gracefully. The tough love he’d been shown by all of them perhaps helped when Michelle made sure he was regularly made to feel almost worthless, but he’d always been that unassuming, understanding type. His confidence had clearly grown, flourishing in fact since he’d decided to stay in Derry rather than return to London with his mum, but he’d never lost the gentle nature she first found in him when he walked into their lives. Into her life...
Of course, he would wait for her. It made sense. It was who he was.
However, patience was not exactly her strongest suit.
That’s why she was where she was now, her back resting on the frame of her bedroom door, head buried into her sweater whilst she cried her eyes out. They were not the same tears of disappointment that nearly trickled out on Prom night before his arrival, but pained sobs of the newly defined emotional turmoil that she now knew of. He was always going to be right there, close enough to reach out to but too far away for her to hold onto, Michelle’s words forming a line in the sand that could not be breached.
She didn’t want to wait for a fella that told her she was beautiful. She didn’t want to have to watch the spark ignited so brightly by the touch of their lips, fizzle out. Time was their enemy. Time allowed them to drift apart, to meet other people, to sacrifice their feelings as nothing more than a pretty dream when the dynamic of their group could so easily be destroyed by one misstep.
How she was supposed to even look at another fella again after being kissed so thoroughly, not just a quick peck but a passionate coming together, Erin did not know.
Her first kiss was always something she thought she would write down in her diary, going into detail about how good it felt, making it into some sort of poetic fantasy to be retold for years, to be eulogised forever.
Now though, she only wanted to cry. Words just could not describe how her chest ached in agony from knowing she could not feel so… wanted… again. For the foreseeable future, at least.
“Erin, love, yer tea’s ready!”
Speaking up from the other side of the door, her Da’s voice brought her head out of her sweater, Erin frantically trying to wipe away the tears shed, hoping to the Lord she did not look like the wreck that she felt.
Composed after a couple of seconds, she opened her bedroom door to see the concerned look of her Da, whose frown did not break even when she curved her lips up at him a little.
“Are ye alright, Erin?” Gerry had to ask.
“A-aye… I’m… I’m grand, Daddy… just tired. Long day, ye know”.
“I know”. He nodded, a small smile returned as his frown finally receded. “Ye best go before yer mother gives us both a round with the wooden spoon!”
Allowing herself a little chuckle, she beamed a better smile back to him, swiftly making her way down the stairs, the aroma of their dinner filling her nostrils and taking her back to some sort of normality.
Gerry was no fool though, even if Joe thought he was an eejit.
He did know.
He did know that there was a lot more to the bizarre escapade, one that should not have happened in his opinion, than they were being told, and more to it, he had a very strong feeling as to what the omitted details might have been. He was the first to notice before, his wife taking months longer than he did.
After all, he’d been James once.
He was aware how the story ended. He also knew that Erin was a poor liar, having heard her anguished sobs as he made his way up the stairs. There were tears now, but they would not last forever.
In the long run, time could also be a friend.