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Chapter Text

The backseat of Granda’s car had seen it all over the years — parades, petrol bombs, laughter, and that one time Orla tried to stuff a pretzel up her nose. Today, it was hosting a very different drama: Erin and Clare sat nervously, waiting for Erin to head into the dentist’s office.

“Do I have to, Granda?” Erin asked, trying to bargain.

“I’m sorry, love. Your mothers said you had to. Those back teeth’ve been wrecking you — how long now?”

“Six months,” Clare answered flatly. It’s all Erin had talked about since Clare had been back. Clare didn’t get to see her friends much anymore since moving to Strabane.

“It has not been six months!” Erin shot her a glare.

“Suit yourself. I’m just here for moral support.” Clare patted her knee.

“Fine. I’ll go in. Wish me luck!”

As she stepped out, Granda shouted after her, “Don’t forget to bite ’em hard, Erin! These psychopaths rob us blind!” Erin slammed the door.

“I’ll check if she actually went in,” Clare said.

She should’ve been kinder to Erin. Getting your back teeth out was a big deal, and Erin had been nervous for weeks. Wasn’t James meant to take her? Clare was even skipping her constitutional law lesson to support Erin.

Suddenly, the passenger door opened. Joe slid in. “Come up here, Clare. Views better in the front.”

“No—”

“C’mon. I’ll take us for a wee joy ride.” He patted the seat.

She climbed in. She missed Joe. She missed Mary, Gerry, the same people on the way to school — even Jenny’s singing. Everything in her new life was… nice. Her mum’s new job, the bins, the friendly teachers. But “nice” wasn’t Derry. Derry was home. Joe took her for a well earned choclate sundae.

Rain began to tap against the window.

“How about you, Joe?” she asked. She hadn’t talked to him properly in ages.

“I’m grand. Our Colm’s starting a painting business.”

“What’s he painting? Gables? Walls?”

“Nah, birds.”

“Like robins?”

“He’s more of a pigeon man, but I’m sure if you ask for a robin, he’ll paint one.” Joe took a right turn. "How's school treatin' ya?"

“Oh, aye. A couple that are good craic.” Clare caught something in his eye. “I mean... I don’t know if any of them are gay. I’m not trying to force anyone out of the closet.”

“Whoever finds you will love you.”

Those words sank deep. He was right. Laurie hadn’t worked out — she’d wanted to go start a punk band in Australia called Pink Biscuitz. It was a whole thing.

Eventually, they returned to the clinic. Erin emerged, puffy and pale, like a ghost.

“Look at you! Already looking better,” Joe beamed.

Erin tried to smile, but her face was frozen — likely her brain, too. Joe signed the papers, and off they went.

Getting her into the car was shockingly easy. Clare even sat beside her and whispered how brave she was. She had to resist giving her a treat like a dog. Joe stopped at the pharmacy for her pills.

“I ‘wissed him,” Erin murmured.

“You missed the dentist? I’m sure he was glad to see you!”

“‘Lare... I Klinked... on the lips.”

“You punched him? Jesus, were you that nervous?”

“No... he call’ me boufful.”

“What? He —” Oh no. Oh God. That’s why she hadn’t said anything in front of Joe. Erin had just turned 17. Clare grabbed her shaking hands. “Erin, that’s… illegal.”

“No!”

“Yes it is. Your dentist was coming onto you.”

Erin’s eyes widened, her brain catching up.

Joe returned with a bag of pills. “These should last you a wee while, dear.”

Later, in bed and doped up, Erin mumbled, “Care... I ‘is olking... but ‘hamze.”

“Hermes? Erin, we’ll talk when you’re lucid.”

“E codunt ‘hom today coz shell said no.”

“Michelle?” Erin nodded, rolling her eyes before slamming her face into a pillow.

Time to investigate.

Clare banged four times on Michelle’s door. Michelle opened it, annoyed. “Clare! Why didn’t you say it was you? We thought you're the TV licence man!”

“Why didn’t you let James take Erin?”

Michelle turned her head for a second, contemplating what to do. “I’M GOING TO WORK!” she shouted inside.

“Okay, Michelle! No need to shout!” came James’s voice from upstairs.

“Where’re we going?” Clare asked, bewildered.

Dennis’s. Michelle needed a smoke to talk about it. Or them.

At the shop: “Two pound,” Dennis muttered.

Clare slapped a fiver on the counter.

“There’s no money in the till. I got robbed.”

“No to fuck you didn’t. I was working today,” Michelle snapped.

“Lunch break.”

“You go birdwatching during lunch, Dennis.”

“Fine. Take them.”

Michelle snatched the smokes. “I’ll tell the pigeons to fuck off.”

Outside, Clare exhaled. “Did Erin tell you anything?”

Michelle puffed. “She’s out of it, Clare. You know how she gets on laughing gas.”

“She said the dentist kissed her. That’s assault.”

“Clare, it’s not—”

“IT’S NOT A JOKE!”

Michelle cracked. “THIS ISN’T EASY FOR ME EITHER, CLARE!”

Clare looked stunned. Michelle took a breath.

“It was a group decision. If Mary or Joe found out, they’d kill him. James agreed with me.”

“So I’m here because I’m the last option.”

“You’re the responsible one, Clare. Always have been.”

“I just wish you’d told me.”

Michelle winced. “Because you’d have told someone. You can’t keep secrets.”

“I don’t want your secrets, Michelle.”

“It’s not mine. It’s theirs.”

“What do you mean theirs?”

Michelle looked at her. “You know who.”

Clare's eyes went wide. “No. Erin would’ve told me!”

“She didn’t because she was scared.”

Clare’s brain went silent. “You took that choice away from them.”

“I know. I panicked.”

“They’re not hurting anyone.”

“That’s exactly why it wasn’t a group decision. Because you don’t get what it’s like to be trapped. I just... wanted her safe.”

“You still lied.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence.

“You’re not pissed?”

“A wee bit. But I know why you lied.”

Michelle exhaled. “We’ll have to figure out who’s going to be maid of honour.”

“Jesus, Michelle.”

They laughed. James and Erin would get married eventually. It's clear as day now, Clare realized. The stolen glances, prom, always sitting beside each other. 

Then Clare paused. “Do you think James snuck over to Erin’s?”

“Fuck-a-doodle-do.”

Neither of them were runners. But they ran anyway.

They were not runners. Michelle had failed PE in second year for calling Mrs. Grady “Andre the Giant.” Clare just didn’t like participating. But right now, they ran — lungs burning, legs jelly, 200 yards from Erin’s house. 

Michelle cursed the cigarette. Clare cursed the sundae.

“Christ, I’m going to boke,” Clare wheezed, gripping someone’s garden gate.

“Just... boke it out,” Michelle gasped. “Is this what asthma feels like?”

“I can’t boke it out!”

“Fine. Just—let’s go!”

They stumbled to Erin’s door, breathless. Gerry opened it, raising an eyebrow.

“Want to come in, girls? Erin and Orla are upstairs.”

“Is James here!?” Clare blurted.

“I can check—”

“NO!” they said in unison. Michelle barrelled past him.

“No, thank you, Gerry,” Clare added quickly. “We’re here to see Erin.”

“Oh. Alright. I’ll drive you back after, then.”

“Thanks.”

Upstairs, they stared at Erin’s door.

“It’s shut,” Michelle whispered. “Think that means anything?”

“Gerry said Orla’s in there. They wouldn’t... with her around.”

“Good point.”

“Well? You gonna open it?”

Michelle hesitated. “Pushy or pull-y?”

“Pushy.”

It was, indeed, a pushy door.

Inside, James sat on Erin’s bed, feeding her Coco Pops. Orla was perched in a chair, also eating. They were watching Ghost.

“Glad youse FINALLY ‘ade it!” Erin said, mouth half-numb, arms in the air, nearly knocking the bowl.

Clare and Michelle plopped down by Orla’s feet.

“Want a bowl?” Orla offered.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Michelle said, lying back.

“I’ll get it,” James grunted, standing. “Clare?”

“I’m grand. Still tasting chocolate regret.”

“Remember mine!” Orla shouted.

“Three it is,” James muttered, leaving.

Michelle turned to Erin. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“‘our,” Erin mumbled.

“Close enough,” Michelle smirked. “I told Clare. Or well, she figured it out.”

Erin froze. Her best friends, on each side, holding her hands like she’d died. What does James have to do with fingers?

“‘ez ‘awn st’irs?”

“She’s out of it,” Clare said.

“No, ‘am not.”

“See!” Orla chimed in. “Told you!”

“Erin,” Clare said gently, “I know about you and James.”

Erin's eyes narrowed. “What?”

“She came round mine asking why James didn’t take you to the dentist.”

“I ‘old ‘im no.”

“We know. Clare helped me see it was never a group decision.”

“‘as it? I can’ remember.” Erin poked the inside of her cheek.

“Don’t!” Orla yelped. “Aunt Mary said if you touch your stitches, you lose the telly!”

“My mouth tas’ like Mars bars...” Erin whispered as Michelle and Orla tucked her back in. “Don’t tell Mammy.”

James returned with a circus-worthy balance of three bowls of coco pops.

Clare and Michelle exchanged a look. This moment — this absurd, tender, hilarious moment — would be theirs to laugh about someday. Erin would tell Clare herself, when she was ready. And Clare would be here, like always.

Chapter Text

Winter of second year

Erin swore under her breath. The last time she’d seen James was just after Christmas, before the New Year cracked open and spilled them into separate lives. He was a dropout now. She was still trudging through her master’s in English literature at Edinburgh, surrounded by students named Minty and Percival who’d come to Scotland to “find something real.”

James had just dropped out of his film course at Queen’s. He was a dropout. A boy—no, a man. A man with a dream and a stubborn determination to make it come true. Erin was fading out of view. She was seeing Declan. They lived together now. He had money, connections, and a five-year plan. On paper, Declan was the stable choice.

James knew he couldn’t compete with that anymore. He didn’t want to. He just wanted Erin’s dreams to come true—whatever they were—as much as he wanted his own.

That night, James turned to her on a snow-covered street and said, “I’m not a saint, Erin. I’m just a man.”
He didn’t explain what it was—her, school, life—but he said it like a confession, like something he’d rehearsed. Erin had just stood there, cheeks burning, breath fogging up the air between them. He disappeared like a ghost into the snow.

She started seeing a university counsellor soon after. He got to the heart of it too quickly.
“Are you afraid of loving him?” he asked once, and she pictured James driving alone, eyes fixed on the road, a whole world spinning that didn’t include her.

“I know you love him,” the counsellor said. “But I think James wanted something more.”

More? Erin didn’t know what more she could offer. She was a skint postgrad with no money, no time, and no patience for positive affirmations. The counsellor handed her strategies she never used: deep breathing, counting steps, talking to her reflection like it owed her something. She filed them away with the rest of the useless things.

She was proud, at least, to be in the country’s top English lit program. The counsellor read her paper on Austen—The Anonymous Anomaly: How Jane Austen Kept Her Secrets by Giving Them Away—and told her she had a voice. She wasn’t so sure anymore.

She’d mailed James two boxes of manuscripts. He hadn’t read them.
The counsellor made her write him letters and burn them.
“See?” he said. “They’re just words.”

By then, Erin had started seeing Declan—the boy she leased the Marchmont flat with, the one who drank oat lattes and ironed his bedsheets. They started sleeping together over the winter holidays of second year. It made sense on paper. He was safe, orderly, ambitious in a way her parents would approve of.

She was technically with Declan the night she chased James down the snow-covered road. But Declan wasn’t someone she ever brought home. Not to Derry. Not to herself.

Declan thought those burned letters were about him—post-breakup processing, or emotional detox, or whatever the modern term was. And they were. Just not in the way he assumed.

Because when Erin cried in the shower, it wasn’t for Declan. And when she dreamed, it was never of clean sheets or oat lattes. It was always James. And snow. 

Chapter Text

Summer holiday's 

Erin was sweating balls; it was the hottest summer in her lifetime. She was working at Foyle’s while George was on holiday in Tralee. Fiona had retired the year before, and someone had to man the shop. Foyle’s was empty; all of Derry was too busy trying to stay cool. Yesterday, Orla told her she found Tina Teaspoon nestled inside the Tesco freezer aisle. "It was the veg, Erin. She was sweating on the oriental mix!"

Usually Erin would be disgusted. Right now, she’d have gladly laid naked in a pile of frozen peas if it meant not melting like a wax candle during exam season. 

She’d taped tinfoil over the windows to keep the books from igniting. On days like this, with no customers, she read. Last week she finally finished Portrait of the Artist. Decent, she thought. Joyce moans about convent school and university, Dedalus wanders around searching for Emma in his delusions of grandeur. Erin wanted him to find her, just to see if it would make him better. Or worse.

She glanced at the clock. Quarter to four. Time to close. Mary had turned the back garden into a makeshift spa. Hopefully Sarah wasn’t hogging the pool again. Erin would deal with her third-degree sunburn later. 

There was a knock on the door. 

“Sorry, closed!” she called. Probably one of the wee boys who chased cats and stole plungers. Another knock.

“Open tomorrow at nine!”

“No, you’re not. It’s a bank holiday tomorrow!” James called out. 

He’d come into town from Belfast the week before to go fishing with Niall and the lads by the River Roe. Erin blamed the sudden thumping in her ears on heatstroke. Last time she saw him was Christmas, just before New Year. He was a dropout. She was halfway through her course in Edinburgh. He told her, "I can’t do it anymore, Erin. I’m not a saint. I’m just a man."  After their time apart Erin realized he was right. He was just a man.

He’d been working assistant gigs on horror sets around Northern Ireland. Not what dreams were made of—but maybe how they were made. Shoots and shite films. James was changing. Erin still felt seventeen, like the girl who first kissed him.

The shrink handed her a list of strategies: mirror affirmations, counting steps, breathing exercises. Erin never used them. They didn’t help.

She opened the door. The words came out without a second thought. 

“What are you wearing?”

James’s blue bucket hat was covered in fishing tackles. He scratched his neck and winced.

James looked confused. “Oh—this?” He pricked his finger trying to remove it. “Sam brought his niece. She decorated it.”

Erin returned with a plaster. He wrapped it around his finger.

“This place looks... dead,” he smiled. She disappeared again—her signature move.

“Right.” She grabbed her handbag from the counter and brushed past him, a gust of warm wind trailing her. Her hair was darker now. He noticed, but didn’t comment. They were both walking on eggshells.

He talked about the fishing trip. He’d fallen in the Roe. The wellies had weighed him down. "When they said 'fly fishing,' I thought we were using flies. Not going in the actual water."

They ended up at Tesco, sitting half inside a freezer with the doors propped open. The freezers were empty—no peas in sight.

“I love Foyle’s, so I do—but Christ, that place is dense in this weather.” Her boots dangled above the floor as she slid deeper into the freezer.

She looked over at him. His hair was shorter, no curls teasing the nape of his neck. “You cut your hair?”

He took off the hat. He hadn’t cut it—he’d buzzed it all off.

“Who do you think you are, David Beckham?”

It was just hair. It would grow back. But what else had changed? Did he have a girlfriend now? Was he doing yoga on Saturdays?

He grinned. “Chris is apprenticing at a barber near my flat. Offered me a free cut. Not many curly-haired lads walking around Shankill.” 

“Why’re you living in Shankill?” she whispered.

“I said near my flat.”

“I didn’t mean them,” she said quietly. “It’s a dangerous area.”

She didn’t want to ask where he lived now. She wasn’t his groupie. Or some stalker. James never asked about her place. Why should she ask about his?

Her eyes swept over his outfit — red Hawaiian shirt, jean shorts, Reeboks, that ridiculous hat. It was a full get-up, like Aristotle on holiday. He even had the pose down: elbow resting on his knee, scratching at his jaw. The curls would’ve made it perfect. 

She tried to read his mind. “Mhm… what’s a better ratio: 4:3 or 21:9?”

He turned his head, catching her stare. “What are you looking at?”

Erin meant to play it cool — maybe throw him a double take — but instead she slipped, landing further into the freezer and flat on her arse. The back of her head smacked against the freezer wall.

Suddenly, she was back in December. Except this time, James was here. Helping her out of this blasted freezer.

“Do you not own a pair of sandals or something?” he said, eyeing her boots — the ever-reliable Doctor Martens.

She’d dared to lift her feet like Icarus, and just like him, she’d been doomed to fall.

“C’mon, I saw one of the employees rat us out,” James said, lifting her out of the freezer in one easy swing.

She had a habit of being clumsy around him.

Erin stumbled, dazed, and he caught her hand before she could fall again and give herself permanent memory loss. Her gaze flicked to his arm — tanned. Noticeably so.

Michelle used bronzer. But James?

“James?” she asked, squinting up at him.

“Mhm.” They were in the car park now — James scanning for his car, Erin trying to remember what she was supposed to be doing.

She let go of his hand. “Never mind.”

He stopped. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

He held out four.

“Four,” she muttered, scowling slightly. 

“I can drop you off at A&E,” James offered, glancing sideways as he unlocked the car.

“Shame Dièdre’s away,” he added, opening the passenger door. Erin hadn’t moved.

“Erin?”

“Aye,” she said, blinking into the late afternoon glare.

“You getting in?”

She stared at him like she’d just woken from a nap. Then climbed in without a word.

James chuckled under his breath.

“What’s so funny?” Erin asked, buckling her seatbelt.

“You just—” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

She looked out the window, cheeks flushed. Last Christmas was still echoing in her chest. That night in the snow. The words she couldn’t say. The kiss. His retreat with Niall's former convict friends. 

“This is new,” she said eventually, patting the dashboard. The car smelled like lemon wipes and petrol.

“Helps me get places on time,” he replied, adjusting the mirror.

Right. James had a job now. A life. A different one from the life where they were still each other’s person.

Silence spread between them like condensation on the windows.

She stared straight ahead. Time always moved too fast with him. She wanted to crack it open and live inside. Her shrink said that wasn’t how it worked. That time was slippery. That love wasn’t a clock you could turn backwards.

“You can’t control it, Erin,” her Shrink said. “No matter how much you want to.”

Then: Are you afraid of loving him?

Erin looked at James — his focus on the road, the way the light touched the curve of his jaw. He didn’t look back.

She wanted to ask what more could he want from her — what more she was supposed to be. But she didn’t say anything.

James broke the silence first. “You’ve arrived at your final destination,” he said in a robotic voice, mimicking the satnav.

She smiled, just barely.

“Erin,” he said again, quieter this time. “You alright?”

She looked like a ghost. Paler than usual — not in the classic Derry way. Something else. Drained.

“Have you had water today?”

She didn’t answer.

Her hand rested lightly on the door handle, half-gripping, like she might bolt.

He went to get out — to fetch Mary, maybe, or just get her air — but she stopped him with a hand on his arm. Her touch didn’t spark like it used to. It was warm, though. Her hands were always warm. He wouldn't wear gloves to school just so he'd have an excuse to hold them when Michelle wasn't around. 

“Can you take me to yours?” she asked, eyes scanning the street, as if checking for witnesses. As if afraid a secret girlfriend might leap from the bushes. Or something worse — rejection. 

James froze.

He licked his lips. “Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

He nodded like he was syncing his heart with his mouth.

“You bringing anything?” he asked gently, glancing at her house.

Erin blinked. “No… no, I—”

“Erin, if you’re not feeling well—”

“I can’t say it, alright?” she snapped. “Just drive.”

James didn’t reply. He just turned the key in the ignition back on. 

She watched him in the rearview, watched the muscle in his jaw tighten, watched him not look at her. She tried not to notice that his hands had changed position on the steering wheel. 

They drove mostly in silence. Erin’s legs stuck to the seat. Her head throbbed dully where it had hit the freezer, but she didn’t mention it.

James started a conversation like someone testing the temperature of bathwater.

“You writing anything recently?”

She looked at him, then away. “What’s the point if you don’t read any of it?”

He didn’t reply. She knew he’d never opened the two boxes she sent him—drafts, plays, essays—brimming with all the things she couldn’t say out loud. Her shrink had told her to burn the ones she didn’t send. “They’re just words,” they said. “Let them go.” Declan, idiotically, had assumed they were about him. They were. But not the way he thought.

“What are you doing in Derry?” she asked, her voice low. 

“Do I need a reason?” he said lightly, like he wasn’t touching every tense nerve in her semi-concused head. She didn’t answer. Derry was his as well now. 

“I knew you’d be at Foyle’s,” he added. “Figured I’d catch you.”

He looked over at her again, eyes off the road.

She panicked. “Keep your eyes on the road!”

She grabbed the wheel without thinking. “Do you want to die?! Jesus, James—”

“Do you want to drive?” he snapped back. “You’re not insured.”

“Then stop looking at me like you’re trying to memorize my face!”

That shut them both up. She sank back into her seat, humiliated.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, eyes fixed forward.

“In my mind, I thought Foyle’s was the best chance,” he said eventually. “I tried last Christmas. You were out with Michelle. I wanted to tell you I’d dropped out. Wanted you to hear it from me, not her.”

She glanced at him. His forehead creased in concentration. She imagined time carving permanent lines there — not in a bad way. A statue of James, if such a thing existed, would always be frowning and full of intent.

“I didn’t know about him,” James added suddenly. “It wasn’t part of my plan.”

She scoffed. “Your plan?”

“Drop out, show up in the autobiography aisle, confess your undying love, and expect me to run off with you?” she said. “Catch yourself on, James.”

“You never told me about the girlfriends,” she muttered. 

He shrugged. “I always broke up with them before coming home.”

As if that made anything better.

They pulled up to a row of terraces lined with trees.

He opened her door. “Come up — I’ll give you the tour.”

Erin followed, the soles of her boots squeaking faintly on the stairs. She wasn’t sure why she’d said yes. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the look on his face when she asked. Whatever it was, she was here now, standing in the hallway of his flat like she hadn’t spent the last year trying to move on.

He didn’t let go of her hand as they moved through the flat — his grip familiar, like muscle memory.

“This,” he said, stopping in front of a poster pinned unevenly on the wall, “I got you this for your birthday. It’s still yours. Was collecting dust in the art department office — they did a production of Philadelphia, Here I Come!”

Erin let go of his hand and stepped closer.

It was slightly warped from humidity. Friel, printed in greyscale, stared out beyond the edges of the frame — not at anything in particular, just away. Like he was trying to remember why he left Ballybeg in the first place.

“You remembered,” she said, voice low.

She stood there for a moment, tracing the edge of the frame with her finger.

Friel’s gaze felt too familiar. Like he knew exactly what it was to leave home and still want it. To want someone and still leave.

“I can’t say it,” Erin said softly, almost to herself.

James turned toward her. “What?”

She didn’t look at him. Instead, she reached out again—this time not for the poster, but for his hand. Her fingers found his absentmindedly, fiddling with the edge of the plaster on his thumb.

“I’ve been seeing a shrink at uni,” she said. “They think… no, they believe you want something more.”

She finally met his eyes.

“And I can’t. Because I’m me.”

James didn’t speak. Just wrapped his arms around her, gently but firmly, like she might vanish if he didn’t hold on.

The heat in the room didn’t matter anymore. The window could’ve been steamed or snowed over, the sky falling or standing still. With him, it was always bearable. Always twenty degrees, no matter the season.

Even when she couldn’t say the words. Even when he broke her heart.

Even now.

James held her in his arms. They didn't speak, there was nothing left to say between them.

Erin let herself lean into it. Let herself be small, for once. He smelled like the river and cheap suncream, like someone trying to be okay. She didn’t cry. Not quite. But her breath caught somewhere deep in her chest, and when she exhaled, it came out shaky.

“I missed you,” he admitted. 

She didn’t answer with words. Just nodded, her forehead brushing his collarbone.

He pulled back, just enough to see her face. His eyes searched hers — not in that intense, theatrical way she hated, but quietly. Like he needed to confirm something he already knew. When he kissed her, it wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t sudden. It felt like finally. Like the thing they’d been circling around for months — maybe years — had just been waiting for both of them to stop pretending it wasn’t real.

Her hands slid up beneath his stupid Hawaiian shirt. He flinched — just slightly — when her fingers grazed the bandage. “Still sore?” she murmured, already grinning.

“Only when you look at me like that.”

Erin laughed — a real laugh, not one of the guarded ones. It startled her a bit.

They moved toward his bedroom like it wasn’t a decision but a natural progression. His place was a mess, but she didn’t care. The bed wasn’t made. She didn’t care. They undressed each other slowly, not as some performance but as if reminding themselves that none of this had to be perfect to be good. To be real.

There was nothing dramatic. No swelling music. Just skin and breath and the word finally echoing between every touch. After, she curled against him, skin damp and limbs tangled. His fingers traced light circles on her back — absentminded, steady. Neither of them said I love you. Not again. It had already been said.

Erin woke with the thinnest thread of sweat on her neck and a feeling like she’d been dropped into someone else’s life. Light filtered in through the slats of James’s blinds — weak, yellow, indifferent. His room smelled like old books, citronella, and whatever washing powder he’d picked off the shelf without thinking.

James was facedown, drooling into his pillow. Snoring softly. One arm flung across the empty half of the bed like a half-finished thought.

It was the first time in months — maybe years — that Erin had woken up without panic boiling in her throat. Her mind was still, for once. No to-do lists. No scripts. Just: James is asleep, and I don’t want to wake him.

She scanned the room for her boots. Nowhere. Of course. Putting them on would be loud — too loud for a light sleeper from anywhere but Derry. James could probably hear a sigh through brick.

She spotted a pen and a crumpled pad on his desk. She scribbled her Edinburgh address on a sticky note, stuck it on his lamp, and stared at it for a second too long. What was she doing? What did it mean? She didn’t know. Not yet. But it felt right. That was enough for now.

Her boots were a lost cause. If she pulled them on, he’d wake. And she didn’t want their goodbye to be anything other than quiet. So she scanned the room for options. It would be great if James had a girlfriend, at least I could not go home barefoot, she thought. She supposed she would be the girlfriend now... she stopped her brain from projecting a film into her future. 

At the edge of the bed: Homer Simpson slippers. Faded yellow. Too big. Perfect. She slipped them on. The floorboards groaned, but James didn’t stir. She crept toward the door like she was breaking out of a convent. Down the stairs. Out the front door.

The sun slapped her in the face as soon as she stepped outside. She blinked hard. Adjusted. Tried to look normal walking down the road in novelty slippers that flapped like wet fish. By some miracle, she made it to Magazine Street by ten to nine.

“Erin!” Michelle’s voice rang out like a fire alarm.

Erin flinched. Looked down at her feet. Braced for impact.

Michelle power-walked across the road, arms raised. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I know,” Erin said quickly, “don’t be cross with me—”

Michelle blinked. “I just crossed the road, what are you on about?”

She gave her a once-over. Paused on the slippers.

“I thought it was just a rumour — but Charlene Kavanagh was right,” Michelle muttered. “Said she saw you sprinting down Pump Street in a pair of Homer Simpson slippers on.”

The next time Erin saw her beloved Doc Marten's her feet were the same size as James. Declan was a stranger on the street. She published a handful of novels. Oh, and she married James.