Crooked Heart

Fiona’s favourite teal running tights were in the wash, so she settled for plain black ones. When she slid the closet door closed and saw her monotone appearance (usually her slate gray trainers helped tone down the neon of her tights, but now they were just boring), Fiona frowned. There was something about wearing bright clothes when the weather was so dreary that she liked.

Lost in her own head, Fiona yanked open her door and stepped out. Her shoulder collided with Harry’s chest and they both jumped back, him muttering an apology and her frowning even deeper. “Are you going to work?” she asked, balling the sleeves of her shirt into her fists.

Harry shook his head and moved into the foyer. She followed, leaning against the corner. “Day off,” Harry said. There was a duffle bag on the floor next to his feet. “I’m headed to the gym.”

“You could—“ she stopped, frowning, unsure of why she’d started asking in the first place. This wasn’t like her at all.

“I could what?” Harry prompted, pulling on his neon yellow trainers. She hated how much she liked them in comparison to her own, even though the colour was really the only difference. They probably wouldn’t have been bothering her so much if she wasn’t wearing her black tights instead of the teal or the mauve or the ones that reminded her of a kaleidoscope.

She stared at her laces. “Er, come with me, if you like. For a run. It’s nicer than a treadmill.”

“It’s five degrees out there.”

“And?” Fiona raised a challenging eyebrow at him.

Harry grinned, nodding at her. “You’re not even wearing a jacket.”

Fiona looked down at her top, a black, long-sleeved half-zip. It didn’t look like much, but it was the warmest piece of athletic wear she owned outside of an actual jacket. “This is meant for running in cold weather. Besides, it’s not that bad out. You’re the one in sodding shorts.”

“Fine, whatever, let’s go.”

“So you’re coming now? What was all that complaining for?”

“I know you love a good whinge, Fee,” Harry replied, kicking his bag to the side and standing up as she opened the door. “And how could I say no? If you’re extending an olive branch, obviously I’ll take it.”

“All right, shut up about olive branches. It’s just a run, for christssakes.”

“Well, this is exciting,” Harry drawled, when Fiona paused outside the building to stretch. He stood next to her with loose limbs, not stretching at all, which he would regret later. But because she was already in a poor mood, Fiona didn’t tell him to prepare.

“If you’re going to be annoying, I’m putting my headphones in,” she told him, adjusting the armband that held her phone. Her earbuds were tucked in so they wouldn’t be flying all over the place.

Harry’s eyes glinted. “Does conversation count as annoying?”

She stood up straight, hands on her hips. “Why don’t we just try silence?”

“Fine,” Harry said with a shrug. “Race you to the corner!”

And then he took off.

It turned out that Harry was a terrible runner, putting far too much energy into it right away and getting winded too quickly. He was fast, sure, but that was mostly thanks to his long legs. There was no way he’d be able to keep up with Fiona the whole time if he kept dashing ahead and then jogging backward so he could tease her for being slow.

“We’ll see who’s slow when you collapse in ten minutes,” she said, when she finally made it across the street where he was waiting for her, having made a break for it when there was a pause in the early morning traffic. It was the only spot on her route where there were ever any vehicles so early in the morning, so she didn’t mind the brief rest while she waited for the lights to change. Harry, however, had nearly gotten clipped by a Vauxhall when he bolted across.

“I’m not gonna collapse!” Harry protested, racing to catch up with her as she jogged easily past him standing stationary on the corner.

“Yes you are,” she replied. “You don’t breathe right, you have terrible posture, and your feet turn inward. It’s no wonder you have a bad back.”

Harry actually grinned, despite the fact she’d been criticising him. “You spend a lot of time looking at my back, Fee?”

“It’s very obvious. Even Niall’s concerned, and he ignored his knee problems for months.”

She didn’t tell him that the amount of time she spent staring at his back was starting to be cause for concern.

When she came to a halt, it was so sudden that Harry ran several metres ahead before noticing. He spun around and strode back to her, breathing much heavier than she was. “What is it?”

“You need to straighten your shoulders,” she said. “I know you’re tall, but that’s no excuse to hunch over.”

“Health advice from a smoker?”

“Running advice,” she corrected. “I know smoking is unhealthy, I don’t need to be told that. Stop hunching over and start breathing through your nose. Slow and even.”

Harry quirked his head and stared at her curiously. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because your bad posture is annoying me,” she said, because it was. “We’ve been standing here too long. Come on.”

Much to her surprise, Harry actually finished the run without collapsing. He did, however, complain about everything, from the weather to the pavement for being so hard on his feet. When they got back to the flat, Fiona made him copy her stretches in the lobby. Harry didn’t do his lunges properly, so she kicked his leg and made him fall over, partly to teach him a lesson, but really just because she wanted an excuse to kick him.

“Oi,” Harry whined, rolling flat onto his back. “What was that for?”

“How do you function on a daily basis?” she asked, standing over him with her hands on her hips. “You’re going to develop some kind of muscle problem if you keep at this the way you are. How are you even in good shape if you don’t know how to do a fucking lunge?”

“Think I’m in good shape, Fee?” Harry inquired with a cheeky smirk, ignoring most of what she’d said, as per.

Fiona rolled her eyes, kicking his foot. “Your coordination is shit, too, but I’m sure you knew that. I might be dying of any number of things from smoking cigarettes, but you’re going to die out of sheer idiocy.”

Harry scrambled to his feet, suddenly much taller than her, but he was about as intimidating as a baby deer. Fiona raised an eyebrow. “What are you getting at?”

“That you don’t know how to exercise properly, obviously.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“Don’t want to — oh, I don’t know,” Harry shrugged, folding his arms over his chest. “Teach me?”

She blinked. “Why would I do that? I don’t like you, and it would be detrimental to my own health to help you.”

Harry tried to do a squat, and toppled backward onto his bum. He gave her a hopeless look, holding his arms out wide. “I’m going to die without you, Fiona.”

“Good. You deserve it.” She strode toward the lift, ignoring the sounds of Harry’s trainers squeaking against the floor behind her.

Somehow he made it into the lift a second before the doors slid shut. “Come on, Fee,” he pleaded, continuing to stretch improperly. “You know you want to.”

“I want you to stop twisting your neck all the way round,” she replied, leaving the lift as soon as the doors slid open on her floor. Harry followed. “It’s bad for you.”

“I knew you cared.”

“Get Niall to teach you. He had to learn loads of proper stretches at physical therapy.”

“But I want you to teach me,” Harry said.

“No.”

They got inside the flat, and the lack of lights meant that Niall was either still asleep or not at home. Fiona kicked off her shoes, remembering she’d promised to give her mum a ring this morning. Frances would be up early for work, so Fiona undid her armband and pulled out her phone, tossing the band through the open doorway of her bedroom.

Harry was right on her heels until they got to the common room, then went around and stood in front of her, preventing any forward progress. “Fiona, I’m asking you to help me. I honestly didn’t know I was doing anything improperly, and I’d like to make running a regular thing, and it would be really great if you’d help me out.”

Phone in hand and her mum’s number waiting to be dialled, Fiona stared back at Harry. He wasn’t being cheeky anymore, which was a welcome change. “Fine. But I’m not going to train you or anything. You can run with me and do stretches and that, but I’m not going to the gym with you.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“All right.”

Harry smiled. “Thanks, Fee.”

“Are you going to move now?”

“Sorry. Yeah.”

Fiona shook her head as she went out onto the balcony, deciding to send Allison a quick text before she called her mum, and invited her over for a study day. Then she tapped on Frances’ name and dropped onto the chair, stretching her legs out before her.

“Fiona!”

“Hey, mum.”

“It’s quite early.”

“Yeah, I was out for a run.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Frances exclaimed, making Fiona grimace at the building across the way. “I remember when you used to play football at college. Do you remember that?”

“Obviously. I was the one playing it.”

“You loved it,” her mum continued. “Why did you ever stop?”

“Because I don’t like footballers. They’re all wankers.”

Frances sighed. “I see. Well, I’m happy to hear you’re keeping up with your exercise. Are you still...smoking?”

“Yes, mum.”

“Hmm.”

“Look, this isn’t what I rang to talk to you about.”

There was noise in the background on Frances’ end, and the distinct sound of mugs clinking together as she rummaged through the cupboard. “What would you like to talk about then?”

“I dunno,” Fiona sighed.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to?”

“Uni. Work.”

“Anything else interesting happen?”

Fiona decided that telling her mum she’d had a one night stand with a man that was several years older than her was a bad idea. “I, er, have a date on Friday.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful? Is it…what’s their name?”

Fiona hugged one of her knees to her chest and stared at the floor. She appreciated the effort, even if her mum still sounded uncomfortable. “His name’s Joshua.”

“Oh,” Frances said, and Fiona could hear the happy relief in her voice. It didn’t matter to Fiona if Joshua was a boy, a girl, neither, both. She just needed to like them, but even that was negotiable if all they did was have sex.

It was frustrating, to say the least. She didn’t know what she wanted, all she could do is hope that she would when she found it.

The balcony door, already hanging ajar where Fiona had neglected to close it properly, creaked open. Harry didn’t come out onto the balcony entirely, his upper body hung through the doorway as he held out a cup of tea for her. He was shirtless, so she guessed he was going to use their shower. The last time he had, he’d used her rose and lemon body wash instead of Niall’s stupid man brand one. She’d sabotaged his cheesecake in retaliation, but Niall still ate it, so it didn’t feel like adequate payback.

What concerned her more than the prospect of him stealing her stuff again was that he might’ve heard her talking to her mum. Fiona’s family was not something she shared with her friends, except for Allison, and that was only because they’d grown up together and she knew it all already. If Fiona were to talk about them, it would be on her terms. Not because someone had listened in on a private conversation.

It hurt more when she thought about how she’d chosen to respect his privacy where the journal was concerned, and he might’ve been standing behind the door the whole time.

She didn’t take the tea, and didn’t say thanks when he set down the mug on the ground and left, closing the door behind him. Maybe he hadn’t been listening, but that didn’t stop her from being suspicious.

“Fiona? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“So,” Frances said. “Tell me about Joshua.”

“Right, well, I don’t really know anything about him. He works in an art gallery and speaks French.”

Frances made a sound of approval. “That sounds nice.”

“Nice,” Fiona repeated. She was starting to hate the word, with the amount of times it’d been thrown around (both in her head and out loud) lately. When she thought of Oliver, she thought of how nice he was, how nice their night had been, and how utterly boring it all was. She might be able to do it if she forced herself, but Fiona was not one to pretend. The moment she realized she wasn’t straight she decided that keeping up pretense for everyone else’s sake was pointless, even if the alternative was going to be difficult.

“Well tell me how it goes,” her mum said, when it was clear Fiona had nothing more to add.

“Sure.”

Frances sighed. “I suppose it’s time for me to go. We’ll talk soon?”

“Sure.”

After her mum clicked off, Fiona took a tentative sip of the tea Harry had left by the door. It had cooled down substantially from being outside in the chilly morning air, but wasn’t unpalatable yet. When she got inside she could hear the shower running, and took a moment to consider the items in the room that she could throw at Harry if he emerged smelling like her soap.

Fiona threw some cereal into a bowl and settled onto the ugly green sofa. She had one eye on the bathroom door as she ate, the telly humming quietly in the background. There was a cushion resting against her knee that she planned to use as ammo, and the butterfly on his stomach would present the perfect target when it came into view. The more she thought about it, Fiona considered throwing the cushion at Harry whether or not he’d used her body wash. He was Harry, after all, and she’d been far too nice to him recently.

He was in there for ages; only after she’d had a second bowl of cereal was fixing more tea did the door open. Fiona, in the kitchen, promptly stopped what she was doing and bolted across the room, grabbing the cushion from the sofa. She held it over one shoulder, edging toward the corridor, ready to strike.

When he emerged, towel slung low on his hips, she was hit first with the vulgar scent of Niall’s body wash, and then the sight of a semi-nude Harry with wet hair.

Fiona froze, her brain trying to figure out why something she’d seen many times before (Harry was not at all shameful of his body, and strolled around in his pants in the summer when it was hot in the flat) was affecting her differently this time, making her stomach flutter instead of rile with nausea.

“Can I help you?” Harry asked, reaching up to push damp hair out of his face.

She frowned at him, cushion still ready to throw. “You didn’t use my body wash.”

“You don’t like me using it,” Harry replied. He eyed the cushion. “Were you going to hit me with that?”

“What makes you think I’m not still planning on it?”

“Because you would’ve done it right away if you were,” he said. She narrowed her eyes, slowly lowering the cushion. Harry wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were amused. “You’re staring, Fee.”

Fiona made a face and spun around, throwing the cushion back onto the sofa before going to finish making her tea. When she’d put the milk back into the fridge, she spun around to find Harry lingering in the doorway. She raised her eyebrows at him, waiting.

“I, er, I think I’m gonna go home?” he said, like he wanted her to extend an offer to stay. She noticed the bag hanging off his shoulder, the one he’d had earlier when she asked him to go for a run with her instead of going to the gym. He’d probably been planning on going to his own house afterward, too, rather than coming back here for a shower.

“Fine,” she said, and returned to her seat on the sofa.

“You don’t—” Harry paused, and she caught his grimace out of the corner of her eye. “Right. There’s leftover spaghetti in the fridge, if you—”

“Thanks.”

“Okay. Bye?”

Fiona glanced over her shoulder at him, keeping her face impassive. She was being unnecessarily rude, but the realization that they had been something close to friends lately was starting to irk her. Besides, he may or may not have eavesdropped on her conversation with her mum, and that was an invasion of privacy Fiona was reluctant to forgive.

When he realized she wasn’t going to return his farewell, Harry raked back his damp hair and sighed, muttering something she couldn’t hear before spinning on his heel and marching down the corridor.

There were voices in the foyer, Harry’s low drawl mixing in with Allison’s cheerful tone, and a few seconds later the brunette was strolling out into the main room, long shirt swirling around her hips. “Harry seemed in a bad mood,” she said, flopping down on the larger sofa and propping her feet up on the coffee table. “Did you to have a row?”

“No,” Fiona replied, because they hadn’t.

Or maybe they had. Maybe this was a new kind of fighting, one full of silent stares and unanswered questions.

She had to admit that she liked the shouting much better. At least that way she felt something afterwards that wasn’t the hollowness clawing at her stomach now. She gulped down some tea, but it didn’t help.

“Were you on a run?” Allison asked, taking in Fiona sat there still in her athletic wear.

“Yeah,” Fiona sat up, setting her tea down on the coffee table. “I’m gonna pop in the shower. Sorry I asked you over here so early.”

“I was awake,” Allison shrugged. “Niall in?”

“No, I don’t think he made it back last night.”

“Oh.”

Not sparing another glance toward her friend, Fiona headed for the bathroom. The too-strong smell of Niall’s soap still hung in the air, and she flicked on the overhead fan in hopes of getting rid of it faster.

After her shower, Fiona’s body wash had replaced the stuff Niall used as the dominant scent in the bathroom. She heard Allison humming along to music in the main room, likely having switched off the telly to study. Fiona went to her room and threw on a t-shirt and joggers, grabbed her laptop and books, and went to join her friend.

They fell into a comfortable silence, used to studying in each other’s presence without having to maintain conversation. It was always easier when it was just the two of them, no Niall or Harry around to be distracting, like it had been before they made the move for uni. Fiona wasn’t entirely sure why Allison had chosen her over the countless other people she could’ve picked as a best friend; they were plenty of people with personalities closer to hers vying for friendship at school. For Fiona, it was this easiness, the constant presence that didn’t demand her attention or explanation. The support without question, even when everything else had gone wrong.

“So, I have a date with that guy from the art gallery,” she said, twirling a strand of wet hair around her finger as she looked at Allison over her laptop.

The other girl was bent over a thick paperback textbook, highlighter poised in her small, slim hand. She didn’t glance up. “Yeah? What was his name again?”

“Joshua.”

“Right. He sounded nice from what you said.”

There was that word again. Fiona hadn’t told Allison about Oliver, and to the best of her knowledge, Niall hadn’t spread the word either. Though it wouldn’t normally have been a big deal, since she’d done this sort of thing before, somehow Oliver felt different. He was a far cry from the boys she’d been with before, with his posh shoes and accent, and a few years older than she probably should’ve been going for, but it was just one night. It didn’t matter, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell her best friend, who knew more about her than anyone else, that she’d finally broken her post-breakup slump.

“Yeah, I don’t know if that’s such a good thing,” she said instead.

That made Allison look up, her brow furrowed. “Why’s that?”

“Dunno,” Fiona shrugged. “It’s…boring.”

Allison laughed. “Jesus, Fiona, does nothing work for you?”

“It’s fine in the short term, just not if…”

“If you want something more?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “But I don’t even like dating, it’s exhausting and weird and you have to share everything—it’s not for me.”

Allison’s eyes softened. “You didn’t seem to mind it with Wren.”

“That was different.”

“So find someone it’s different for,” Allison said. Fiona tugged on her hair, frowning. “Not like it was with Wren, obviously, because she’s horrible. Someone you…well, you know what I mean.”

Fiona sighed. “I thought your lack of dating experience made you unaware of how this sort of thing works?”

The other girl rolled her eyes. “I might not know what I’m doing, but I know you. I only suggested you try seeing someone nice because I thought the change might be good, you obviously weren’t happy going on as you were. But I guess you’ve got to find that person who’s both, right?”

“Too much effort,” Fiona flicked her hair dismissively, her hand falling back onto the keyboard. “I’d rather sleep with people I know I’m not going to like the next day than search for the person I will. I’m too impatient to go looking for my true love or whatever.”

Allison’s expression made it obvious that she didn’t agree, but Fiona didn’t care. “I didn’t say anything about true love, Fiona, I just want you to be happy.”

“I don’t need to be with someone to be happy.”

“I know that. But are you happy, Fiona? Tell me honestly.”

She didn’t meet her friend’s gaze. “Right now I’m annoyed.”

“See? You aren’t letting yourself loosen up. I bet you’d feel loads better if you just let yourself relax once in a while.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Of course it isn’t, but it’s not one big thing you can make go away either,” Allison said, less patient now. “If you had someone — someone who’s not me — there to help you, to be there for you in ways I can’t be, it would be good for you, don’t you think?”

Fiona managed a noncommittal shrug.

“I can’t be the only one you talk to forever, Fiona,” she continued. “Eventually you’re going to have to open up to someone else or you’ll never start getting better.”

“I talk to Zayn.”

“Yeah, but Zayn isn’t your boyfriend, is he? I may not have ever experienced it myself, but there’s an intimacy that you can’t get anywhere else. I love you to death, and I’m sure Zayn does too, but we can only do so much.”

The corners of Fiona’s mouth quirked up as she looked at Allison. “You can’t kiss it better, is that what you’re trying to say?”

Allison threw a cushion at her, narrowly missing Fiona’s head. “And here I thought you were serious all the time.”

“Well, not all the time.”

Allison’s smile was reflected in her eyes. “A month ago you wouldn’t have made a joke like that. You would’ve gotten mad at me for trying to broach the subject in the first place.”

Fiona shrugged, wanting to brush off the turn that the conversation had taken. “Yeah, well. When you bring up how much progress I’m making it makes me uncomfortable.”

Allison grinned properly then. “Oh, I know.”

When Fiona threw the cushion back, Allison kept on laughing, even as it hit her in the shoulder. It felt like a natural end to the conversation, though Fiona was sure Allison had plenty more to say, and their laughter dissolved into silence as they both picked up their revision where they’d left off.

But it was short-lived, because the front door was slamming shut a few minutes later and Niall was hollering his arrival from the foyer. Fiona caught Allison’s pinched brow when she turned around, peering toward the corridor. A second later, Niall appeared, in the jeans and jumper he’d been wearing when he’d gone out with some mates the night before, his cheeks pink from being outside.

“Good night?” Fiona asked.

“Great night,” Niall corrected, sitting next to Allison. She shuffled away from him, staring intently down at her book. “What are you ladies up to?”

“Did you actually not notice all the books or are you choosing to ignore them?” Allison asked sharply.

Niall, oblivious as he was, noticed her tone. Allison was usually the epitome of kindness, after all, and the slightest hint of irritation from her was like a slap in the face. “All right, there?”

“Fine,” she muttered, though the force she put behind her highlighter suggested otherwise.

Fiona stared at her friend with narrowed eyes. It was obvious that Niall’s presence had put her off somehow, because she’d been all smiles a moment before. But Allison had never been particularly bothered by Niall in the past. They weren’t the best of friends, their relationship practically only existed because of Fiona herself. Still, Allison was nice to almost everyone, unless they gave her a reason not to be.

What Niall could have done to make Allison change her tune was beyond her.

+++

When she saw that it was raining, Fiona immediately regretted wearing her more fashionable jacket over her parka. She had an umbrella with her, of course, but it would be annoying toting around the dripping thing all night. On the other hand, she didn’t regret her outfit choice at all, because Niall had given her an encouraging whoop when he saw the cropped vest and tight jeans combination while Harry gloomily added salt and pepper to his vegetable stew and refused to look at her.

In the end, it seemed like she’d made the right decision.

Fiona got to The Gallery to find it overflowing with people, which was only to be expected for a campus pub on a Friday night. Since she’d been worrying about her date with Joshua being awful all week, she felt a little more at ease knowing that the noise would prevent them from having some kind of intimate conversation. That just wasn’t what she was looking for. Only she knew she might have given Joshua a different impression, with the smiley flirting they’d engaged in at his work, and that worried her even more.

She deposited herself on a stool at the bar in the absence of any free tables and ordered herself a pint, figuring Joshua wouldn’t mind if she started without him. The conversation might flow easier if she were a little bit drunk, anyway, as it had with Oliver.

But she didn’t want to start comparing them, because she knew it was only setting herself up for disaster. Joshua was nice, sure, but he was also intelligent and had a brilliant job. He spoke French, which was a new one, because Wren, in spite of having a French surname and ancestry, hadn’t spoken a word of it. Fiona stopped herself — comparing Joshua to Wren was even worse than comparing him to Oliver.

She had to start following her own advice.

Joshua arrived a few minutes later, rain spotting the shoulders of his mack. He found her quickly, thanks to her seat at the bar (she’d propped her feet up on the stool to her left when the man sitting there vacated it, annoying a few people) and raised an eyebrow at her already half-gone pint.

“How was London?” she asked, sliding her feet off the stool so he could sit down.

“All right,” Joshua nodded, shrugging off his jacket. He draped it over his knees, then tapped on the bar to get the barmaid’s attention. It was the same redhead Fiona had tried to get off with several times before, to no avail. “Has the weather been shit all week?”

“Ever since you left,” Fiona answered. It was a lie and a feeble attempt at a line, but the first taste of alcohol had left her wanting the rest of the night to go well.

Joshua seemed to appreciate her effort. He sent her a sideways grin before ordering himself a Jack and Coke.

“Not a pint?” she asked, as the drink was set down on the beermat in front of him.

“I don’t drink beer,” Joshua replied casually, like this was a common thing.

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t like it.”

Fiona clapped a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing, but it bubbled through her fingers and she smacked her palm against the bar. “Are you serious?”

She’d known he was an artsy fucker, but she definitely wasn’t expecting this.

He didn’t look offended at her reaction, and instead turned around to admire the various artworks on the walls. “This place is well cool. Can’t believe I’ve never been here before. Must be because it’s not at the art uni, yeah?”

“It’s our favourite. There’s an all right balance of people, not too underground and hipster but not one of the places crawling with footballers Louis likes.” Fiona was used to speaking for her group of friends that the words came easily, but Joshua looked confused.

“I’ve heard that name, Louis?” he said, brow furrowed as he tried to place the name. “He lives with Zayn, yeah? The one who’s always in joggers and looks like he just woke up?”

“Well, that’s probably because he has.”

Joshua chuckled into his drink. “There’s one more living with them, though, right?”

Fiona grimaced. “Harry.”

“Oh, it’s him? I thought the other guy was a Robert or something.”

“Yeah, he lived there before Harry, I think,” she supplied. She’d been given the spiel once from Zayn and didn’t remember most of it, but the name was familiar.

Joshua stared at her for a moment, his gaze lingering on her mouth — but not for the reason she would’ve liked, since her lips were pursed in irritation at having brought up Harry — and she promptly smoothed out her expression. “You know, back when we met it sure seemed like you two had some kind of history. And I know you said he wasn’t even a friend of yours, but—”

“I really don’t want to talk about Harry right now,” Fiona interrupted. “This is supposed to be a date, isn’t it? You don’t talk about other people on dates.”

“So you do have a history.”

“Oh, for—” she sighed, raking her hair back. “We don’t. There is no history. None whatsoever. He’s awful and annoying and I can’t stand him. There, do you believe me now?”

Joshua bit his lip, hesitant. “I’m sorry, but no. You’re only getting more frustrated every time I bring him up.”

“So why do you keep doing it?”

“I like you, Fiona, you seem like an interesting person. You’re fit as hell, too, which doesn’t hurt. But you don’t really feel that way about me, do you?”

“I don’t know you yet,” she replied. “How am I supposed to like you if we’ve never had a conversation longer than five minutes?”

“Fair point. But you’re still holding back, I can tell.”

“Look, I understand where you’re coming from. I’m shit at this. It’s been…a while since I’ve done the whole dating thing, and I’m good at the flirting part and the getting into bed part, but not so much the rest of it,” she admitted. Fiona saw no sense in lying, and he deserved an explanation. Joshua, at least, looked amused when she mentioned getting into bed.

“You didn’t mention Harry.”

“Because there’s no reason to! He’s just my flatmate’s annoying friend, and maybe we were starting to be friends too, but I’ve realized that’s pointless and I don’t want anything to do with him. Now can we please try and salvage this night by getting horrendously drunk?”

Joshua downed the rest of his Jack and Coke by way of answering.

+++

He only got nicer and more understanding the more they drank. Fiona wanted to throttle him by the time she finished her third pint, because he was curious about her degree and what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, and that was number three on the list of questions she hated being asked.

It wasn’t that the date was going badly by any regular standards, either. Joshua was doing all the things and asking all the questions most boys (who weren’t twats) did on a first date, buying her drinks, asking where she was from, what her dream holiday was. But he was doing all the sort of things Fiona didn’t like, the things that made her bored and uninterested in him, and he didn’t seem to notice.

Him reading her wrong the first time they met didn’t appear to be a one time thing.

While he told her about doing an exchange in France when he was at uni, Fiona only half-listened. She was busy twirling a spare beermat between her fingers and watching a man wearing a faded Stones t-shirt argue with his friend in a equally as faded NASA shirt about whether or not they’d watch the new Hobbit movie over Christmas hols.

“I think that weekend we spent driving through the country was the best part of the exchange, really,” Joshua was saying, his shift toward her making her snap back to attention. “All these narrow roads through tiny villages, gorgeous landscape. I thought it’d remind me of England, but it didn’t at all.”

“Right, yeah,” she nodded.

“You weren’t listening, were you?” Joshua asked, looking the slightest bit put out for the first time that night.

She was impressed he’d lasted this long, and felt bad for being such a jerk. “Sorry.”

“I’ve been trying, Fiona,” he said. “But if you really aren’t at all interested, tell me now. Or else I’m just gonna go.”

Fiona blinked, caught off guard. Had she been that unresponsive?

“I’m sorry,” she said again, unsure of how to proceed. She wasn’t good at this part either. “I don’t know what to say.”

Joshua set down his empty glass on the table and grabbed his coat. “That’s a good enough answer.”

“Joshua,” she started. He paused behind his chair, adjusting the collar of his jacket. “Just for the record, I do think you’re brilliant. And I’m sorry again for being an arsehole.”

He didn’t disagree with her, just nodded and left. Fiona ignored the looks from the people around her who’d just witnessed her date walk out, finished her pint, and got ready to leave. She should’ve known that it would go horribly and it would be her own fault. Regardless of what Cassidy or Allison said, Fiona just wasn’t cut out for dating.

There had never been any dating with Wren. They’d been friends, then lovers, and that was it, no in between. Anyone she’d been with before Wren had begun as a one-night stand, then maybe a few more nights if they liked each other well enough, but nothing more. Even Stephen, who she’d seen on and off for months, had never taken her out to dinner or the cinema.

Fiona lit a cigarette outside The Gallery with her umbrella tucked to her shoulder, then started toward the bus stop. She needed to stop kidding herself; the type of people who dated were the people she wasn’t meant to be with, if past experience was anything to go off of. Joshua was like the nail in the coffin, confirming everything she’d believed about herself.

It was a less than stellar way to end an already shit week, full of bad weather and poor marks on her last few assignments and silent fights with Harry. Things had just been starting to get better too, her sleeping was more regular and she’d actually pushed herself back into the world, even if it didn’t work out the way she wanted. But now she was right back in the hollow, angry place she’d been at the start of term.

If things were only going backward here, she might be able to start making home a better place to go back to. Though Fiona usually dreaded going back to London for Christmas, she wanted to see Eli. But the prospect of being stuck in a house with a mum who didn’t know how to act around her and a father who found fault in everything she did still made Fiona feel miserable, only adding to the frustration at her actions in the pub and the simmering irritation just under her skin that never seemed to go away.

By the time she got back to the flat, Fiona was already in need of another cigarette. She left her shoes and jacket at the door and pulled a thick jumper over her head, stomping through the dark flat on her way to the balcony. She slammed the balcony door shut, not caring that she was making enough noise to wake even Champion Sleeper Niall Horan up, and threw herself into the chair in the corner, letting her socks get pelted with rain. It hadn’t let up all evening, and after waiting in the downpour for her bus back to the flat her jeans were plastered to her legs where the umbrella hadn’t covered them and her socks had gotten damp through her shoes. Fiona couldn’t be bothered to take them off or change.

“Everything all right, Fee?” Harry had stuck his head through the doorway, curls falling around his face and his eyes half-asleep. “You were being pretty loud just then.”

She was going to apologize for waking him up, but stopped herself. Fiona didn’t even know when she’d gotten to the point of apologizing to Harry, who she couldn’t stand. Even with the weird place they’d been in this past week, not actually arguing but not talking either, saying sorry to him was a reflex she didn’t remember developing.

“It’s my flat,” she muttered, taking a drag of her cigarette. Harry shuffled out onto the balcony, one arm crossed over his torso and tucked into his armpit. He had on what she suspected were a pair of Niall’s shorts and a jumper, and wrinkled his nose the closer he got to her and the smoke from her cigarette drifted in his direction.

“I take it your date didn’t go so well,” he said, stopping when he’d come within a foot of her chair. He leaned against the wall, out of the rain, and watched it splatter over the edge of the balcony. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

“Don’t care.”

“You’ll be poorly,” he warned her.

“Good.”

“Fiona.”

His tone was soft, but she refused to look at him, putting her cigarette back between her lips. “What do you want, Harry?”

“Thought you could use some company. You don’t usually mind when you’re out here. It’s like a safe zone.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”

“‘S true, though,” Harry said. She could hear him shifting next to her, but kept her eyes on the buildings across the way. “So, your date?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Then she felt it, a light brush of fingers against her shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She jerked her head around, blinking at Harry, and he snapped his hand away.

“I thought—never mind,” Harry shook his head and looked in the other direction so she couldn’t see his face, only the jump of a muscle in his jaw.

“Look, just because we aren’t fighting all the time doesn’t mean we’re friends, all right?”

“Don’t you want to be friends?” Harry asked, turning back to her with a confused expression on his face. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing? Trying to figure out how to be friends?”

She didn’t know what they’d been doing, but all of the rapid fire changes in their relationship were wearing her out. Everything was only getting more complicated and confusing with every step they took, and simply being nice to each other was the least of it. “Look, I really don’t want to talk about it right now, Harry. I’ve had a shit night and you really aren’t helping.”

“What’s happened, Fiona? Why are you suddenly back to shutting me out all the time? I thought we were getting somewhere.”

“I never wanted to get anywhere with you.”

“But you did,” he insisted. “You told me if I kept trying then—”

“Would you just leave me alone?” Fiona interrupted sharply. Harry’s mouth froze mid-word, but quickly looked to be shaping up to argue, so she said her next words as firmly as she could. “I want to be left alone.”

Harry went back inside without another word. She sighed heavily, not feeling any better after having gotten rid of him. Usually snapping at Harry came with a satisfaction from getting the frustration out of her system, but the twisting in her stomach had only gotten worse.

But if her words had stuck, Fiona didn’t think she’d have to worry about Harry any longer.