Finch.

Nicholas Neily woke up to blue eyes in his own hazel ones, and one limp arm around his waist.
“What is it?” He asked the yellow haired woman lying beside him.
“Nothing, it’s just that it’s all over, huh?”
“What do you mean?” Nicholas asked, stroking the woman’s hair and trying not to cry.
“I mean, the band, and the wedding, and the pretending, and me being sad. It’s all over, isn’t it?”
Nicholas smiled at this girl, fragile and small lying on this worn mattress.
“If you want it to be. It’s always only ever been about you anyway.”
“Not just me. There’s been so many for you.”
“I don’t give a fuck about anyone else,” Nicholas said.
“What about William?” This woman asked softly. For the first time she was a woman, and not a girl. She was real, and she would live.
“I love you. No one else. You’re the only one, darling,” Nicholas said, and stopped stroking the hair and instead stroked her waist. He could feel the hip bone through the thin cloth and the skin was warm.
“You’re going to make me cry,” she said.
“Do you love me, Eleanor?” Nicholas said, for the first time, really the first time touching her and saying her name aloud, like that was against the rules.
She didn’t speak for a while. Nicholas felt that feeling when your heart pounds too hard and it’s all tightening up like a fist is squeezing it so hard and it will just burst, and the blood will fly everywhere out of your chest. It felt like that and it was terrifying and it hurt so much. Much more terrifying than killing a man.
“Do you? Eleanor, answer me, please,” Nicholas said. He was whispering but there were already tears in his eyes and he simply couldn’t stand it. He continued to touch her warm hip, but he put his other hand on her neck, her chin, her lips. He felt the salt in his mouth.
“Nikki,” the woman began.
She looked like she might die too, her eyes going red and blue to make purple, and the early morning light showing how blond her hair was, it could have been white like an old woman’s.
“What do you say?” Nicholas asked, moving his mouth closer to hers, very carefully and steadily, his heart still tightening and ferociously beating like a monster was inside him. Eating him, eating his very organs and guts; everything hurt entirely too much.
“I say I’m scared. I say I hurt. I say I’ve known you my whole life. I say it seems right.”
“But you don’t say you love me,” Nicholas concluded, the heart finally slowing at this news, his lips trembling and turning cold, his hands shaking and covered with perspiration. He could still feel the warmth beneath the cloth. That’s all he was concentrating on.
The warmth beneath the cloth.
The warmth beneath the cloth.
You can’t force it, Nicholas.
He kept telling himself that. Over and over and over, but the pain wouldn’t stop.
“You’re it, you’re it,” He said it over and over the only woman he would ever continue to love. He loved the Mexican girl, who’s house he occupied now, but it was never nothing, ever anything, compared to the beautiful warm bird, who’s shoulders now touched his.
Then he felt warmth on his face. Warmth on his lips.
His bird was kissing him, and he hadn’t even noticed.
“Oh,” was all he said when she pulled inches away.
He went back after her though, and made sure he remembered every moment this time. He pulled away so slowly, his heart not hurting so badly now, only pounding from disbelief.
“Fuck you, Nicholas. You had me crying, okay? You didn’t even let me finish or anything,” Eleanor Mason said, touching the man’s hair.
“I’m sorry,” the man said, finally not feeling that gripping panic.
“I love you, fuck you,” the woman said.
Nicholas Neily did two things of importance that morning:
One: Let out a laugh of relief that could have shaken the whole earth.
Two: Made love to his bird in Mexico, on a mattress, in the morning light.