“I’m-I’m scared,” she said, her knuckles turning white.
My gaze rose to meet hers. She was staring so firmly at my eyes, it sort of knocked me back a little. I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, a shuttle bus honked at us to let him by. Startled, we both staggered back onto the sidewalk. I set her bag up to stand on its own and turned toward her.
“Finley,” I whispered, sliding my hands between her hair and face and settling my palms against her cheeks and neck. Her hands raised and gripped at my wrists a little desperately. My forehead met hers and my hair slid forward, mingling with her own. “You’ve got this, Fin. You’ve got this, and I’ve got you.” She took a deep, profound breath, let it out slowly, then nodded. I stepped back a bit, breaking contact save for my hands on her face and her hands on my arms. “Acting bravely doesn’t mean there’s a lack of fear, Fin. It just means you overthrow it, stamp it down, and toss it in deep with the cowardice.”
She took another rooted breath and found that very place. Her jaw clenched and she hiked her carry-on farther up on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
We stood quietly at the ticket counter, butterflies taking residence in both our bellies. It was written all over her face. Hers for obvious reasons. Mine because I was scared for her but was trying not to show it.
There were surprisingly a lot of fliers for that early in the morning. Finley had two connecting flights, the first being in Seattle. She’d get there in only an hour and a half but she had an almost nine-hour layover when she landed. When she got her ticket, we discovered we had at least an hour to kill so I grabbed a couple cups of coffee along with a few warm croissants.
I sat next to Finley, who’d removed her flip-flops, of course, and pulled her feet into her lap.
“If Principal Healy could get a load of you, dude,” I chuckled, gesturing to her feet.
She rolled her eyes but smiled. “What an asshole, right? Why did he care if I did or did not wear shoes, anyway? He was obsessed with trying to catch me without them. He’d rant about how if I hurt my feet on school property, they’d be liable, blah, blah, blah. I asked if he was so concerned about it, why not just let me sign a waiver, and you know what he said?”
“‘Where would be the fun in that, Miss Dyer?’”
She did a double take. “How do you know that?”
“’Cause I was there that day, Fin. You wouldn’t shut up about how ‘unfair slash creepy’ he was.”
Her cheeks bloomed red. “Oh.”
I don’t know why, but I liked the color on her. “I agreed with you, though. I thought he was a little too preoccupied with catching you. I remember telling you I thought it was disturbing the amount of joy he got out of sending you home.”
“I know. What a douche canoe.” She raised her coffee in the air and announced with a terrible English accent, “His mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries!” She brought her hand back down and took a sip of her coffee.
A burst of laughter that’d been growing in me pretty much since she saved my life that first night exploded out of me, deep and guttural. It was the hardest I’d laughed in many, many months, and it was apparently catching because Finley’s shining eyes met mine and she joined me. We were both so loud, in fact, a few people stopped and stared. Tears streamed from our eyes. It was junior year bio all over again.
“This is only funny because it’s four in the morning,” she said, giggling.
“I know,” I agreed but kept laughing. After a while, I wiped my palms down my face and sighed. “Henry Kissinger, I’ve been missin’ yer.”
She nodded as she ran her fingers under her eyes, wiping away all traces of happiness it seemed because her face sobered quickly. “I am going to miss you while I’m gone,” she explained.
My face matched hers. “Same here, Fin. Same here.” I glanced down at my watch. “It’s time.”
She looked at me and her eyes glassed over. One tiny tear escaped as she nodded her head, her smile strained.
“Fin,” I quieted, my voice dropping a few octaves.
She sucked in a breath. “I wasn’t so sad to leave before you turned up,” she explained, candid.
I stood and pulled her up to me, wrapping my arms around her slender shoulders. Her hair spilled across the tops of my forearms and I tried to memorize how soft it was, tried to commit to memory the smell and color. It was such an unusual complexion, a mixture between tawny and deep red. It was a spectacular spectrum between bronze and auburn.
I took a deep breath and secreted into that hair, “I’ll be honest, I’m glad to know you again.” I hugged her tightly. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Fin, in-including Caroline.”
She sighed on a bit of a sob and nodded into my shoulder then lifted her head and looked at me, her cheeks wet. “And you’re the same for me, actually. Unrivaled.” She laughed. “Don’t tell Holly I said that. I love Holly like a sister, but you understand me more than anyone ever could, Ethan. Like we share the same sort of insides. As if we’re knitted from the same thread.”
I pulled her back and studied her. “Go,” I ordered softly then added, “before I make you stay.”
She smiled at me. I bent and grabbed her carry-on and rested it on her shoulder for her.
“Thanks for everything,” I told her.
She nodded, kissed my cheek, and left for security, not another word spoken.