Erase and Rewind

Finn hadn't moved from his spot at the back of the house for the past hour as Chloe's party had got into full swing around him, but he hadn't ventured further to the front of the house passed the kitchen. He had managed to avoid any familiar faces that night bar Chloe who had hovered nearby for that first half hour to make sure he didn't saunter off, at least until those older blokes she'd been hanging around with recently arrived and he was left alone in her kitchen to contend with the sea of faces crammed around every corner of her house. From here he could be his usual grumpy sod, a night out wasn't the best idea. Not after he'd ended it an hour earlier with Olivia in the pub, but Chloe had been persuasive and despite himself he didn't want to let her down. The music from the speakers in the lounge reverberated around the rest of the house till he could almost feel the music thump against him as the night wore on. Finn stood with his back to the crowd then turned around and fished a beer out from the fridge and moved to lean against the counter and looked out through the back door. Izzy and Chop were supposed to have been there an hour ago and there was still no sign of the pair of them. He considered packing it in and making an excuse to Chloe when he caught her eye from her spot through the archway of the hall.

'What's up with you?' Chloe weaved her way through the groups dotted along the hallway and folded her arm over her waist and held her drink in the other.

'Think I'm going to head off.'

'Oh, what?' Chloe lowered her drink, looking slightly dejected. 'But you've only been here five minutes.'

'Yeah but,' he gave her a small smile and let out a breath, 'I'm not really feeling it tonight Chloe. Cheers for the invite.'

'Everybody's not here yet. Archie's coming round after his shift and it's been ages since any of us has had a catch up. Please just stay for a bit.'

'Ok, Half an hour. I'm helping my dad with his vinyl in the morning.'

'Thanks Finn, I just wanted everybody round', she touched the side of his arm. 'It hasn't been the same since we started college.'

He left her to get back to her guests and ambled about for a while after that, eventually settling near the front hall so he could slip out later without the fuss. Four middle of the road songs later there was a commotion at the door and he could just make out Izzy's excited voice as she greeted Chloe at the door.

'There he is, told you he'd turn up,' Chop bellowed behind him when Finn looked round as he held his free arm out and clapped him across the back, 'alright?' Chop frowned as he looked at him properly. 'Your face looks like a slapped arse.'

'You said half nine you pilllock,' Finn hissed under his breath. 'I've been 'ere two hours.'

'Sorry, me an' arch got held up at the cash and carry. Got stuck up about IDs.' He clanked the bag of bottles together and grinned over at Chloe who gave him a thumbs up as she took them off him and stuck them in the sink with the rest.

'You came!' Izzy hugged him to her and beamed up at him. 'You coming through with us?'

'Yeah, just for a bit.' Izzy wanted to press him but must have thought better of it because she waved over at Chop who had wandered through to the lounge and followed after him along with Archie with Finn just behind him.

'Where have you been you minx?' Finn got to the doorway when he heard Chop bellow over the music from the other end of the room at someone. 'Haven't seen you in ages, we were gonna file a missing person's case lady.'

'I've been about, just busy,' Rae's voice was soft as she trailed off her excuses. Finn stayed where he stood outside the living room. They'd agreed to be mates again and he was happy with it, but seeing her with Liam made that hard.

'You coming to sit with us?' Archie asked, 'we're all just huddled over there avoiding Chloe's mates,' he offered.

'I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her tonight, haven't seen her since we sorted the music out before everybody came'.

'You're ok, we've got it sorted as well. We'll keep an eye.' Archie reassured her.

Finn turned the corner and stepped through into the room. His eyes found Rae just as Liam shot her a wolfish smirk and pulled a face at her, Rae nodded over at him. 'I should probably head back over. Maybe later, yeah?'

'You sure you don't want to come over for a bit?' Izzy shot her a rejected look.

'Better go.' She excused herself and ducked under someone's arm where he was leaning against the doorframe. He watched as she made her way back over to Liam and sat down on the small space on the couch he had left.

'Hate him,' Chloe muttered under her breath beside Finn. He hadn't seen her move, but she was standing beside him outside the living room looking in. Her voice had that hazy croakiness when she'd had a few drinks. 'I didn't even invite him. Every time I've seen her he's with her. Can't talk to my mate without him being there. It's doing my head in.' She wrapped her arms across Izzy's shoulder as she greeted her. Chloe passed her a bottle of Hooch and the two of them hovered just beside him.

'I don't even see her at college anymore. They just sit by themselves, even Izzy and Arch have tried.' Izzy nodded as she sipped at her drink. 'I want my mate back'. She put her hand over Finn's shoulder as she passed him to get back to the rest of the gang and he looked down at her, his face unreadable.

Liam's hand gripped on the bottom of Rae's thigh where she sat chatting to some gormless looking bloke in a white t-shirt and ripped up jeans on the sofa in Chloe's lounge. Finn ran a hand through his hair and shifted where he stood as Rae's eyes met his for a brief moment before she was pulled back into the conversation. Finn could see she was all smiles and laughter over whatever the other bloke is saying. Liam shifted closer to her and put an arm over her shoulders and he could see through her closemouthed smile that it didn't make her comfortable. She looked back over at him then, like she was lost for a moment before she was once again pulled back into the conversation as she pulled down on the sleeves of her shirt. Finn glanced down at his half empty bottle and excused himself with that twinge at the top of his chest working its way down. He swallowed the rest of his beer down to kill off the feeling and headed back to his spot in the kitchen by the back door so he could have a smoke.

'Are you alright?' Izzy looked up at him with a look of sympathy across her small features.

'Fine Izz', she gave him another worried look as she moved her eyes towards where Rae was siting and back over at him, worrying her bottom lip. He loved Izzy, but he really didn't want her sympathy. Didn't want the attention. 'Thanks.'

'We'll be over there if you want to come over.' Izzy hovered for a few seconds and out of the corner of his eye he saw her pained look and go back to join Chop in their corner where he and Archie were standing near the speakers and Chop flicked through the CDs around them.

He settled back in his space, ignoring two of the girls from class attempting to start a conversation with him. They soon gave up and he was left along long enough to polish off another two drinks and blend into the furniture. He thought about getting his coat and had been distracted enough that he hadn't seen Rae move from her spot on the sofa to go into the kitchen for drinks. Too busy looking anywhere else but that direction. He didn't even know she was there until she closed the fridge over and leaned against the kitchen door.

'What are you doin' here?' She ventured, attempting nonchalance. 'Thought you'd be out with Olivia.'

'Chloe invited me at the pub earlier, dragged me here really.' His gaze stayed downcast as he fidgeted with the top of his hair.

'D'you want a drink?'

'Nah, I should probably head home in a minute.'

'Thought maybe we could have a bit of a catch up.'

'Thought you were with Liam.' He watched as she glanced over her shoulder.

'Couldn't be bothered listening to him slagging everything off anymore.' She rolled her eyes. 'He won't notice.'

'Where do you want to go? There's not much room.'

'Anywhere I can hide for a bit,' she admitted. Finn gestured over to a spot between the table and cupboard and she followed along after him.

'You alright with a beer?' She nodded and he passed her a can and took another bottle out from the fridge for himself.

It grew quiet after that and they pretended to be getting into the music in the next room. He caught her dancing absently where she stood. After a beat he joined in, nodding his head to the beat and gave her a warm smile as she looked at him. They were lost in their own world messing about through the next few songs when bloody 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' started played like some sort of cruel irony on the universe's part and they distanced themselves from each other and he felt the air between them cool once again. Rae opened her mouth to speak but he couldn't hear a word.

'You what?' he yelled, struggling to be heard over the song.

'I said…' he didn't hear the rest of the sentence when she was drowned out again when the track was abruptly changed and another one played on. The beat kicked in and the crowd in the living room lit up with movement and yells. She wrapped her fingers around his and led him through the maze of figures and back out towards the middle of the house.

'It was quieter up there earlier.' She wrapped her fingers around his as she led him through the hallway and up towards the landing at the top of the stairs. A few people had camped there at the bottom set of stairs in various slumped positions with one couple buried in each other's necks as they weaved past and up to the top of the stairs and sat down.

'What've you been up to?'

'Not much, just helping my dad, bought a load of new vinyl at a car boot,'

'Anything good?'

'Dunno, haven't listened to much, not really been in the mood.' He cleared his throat. 'What about you?'

'Not much, just college and Kester every week, nothing much'. The song changed again and Rae was mouthing along to the words when Finn looked. 'Thought you thought this was shit,' he scrunched his eyes in a laugh and met her eyes properly and had to swallow back the lump rising in his throat.

'It's shit,' she assures him offhandedly, 'just gets in your head that way.'

'Just admit you like it and take the knock to that superior taste in music of yours.'

'Not going to happen.'

'Next you'll be telling me you like Boyzone'

'I'd literally rather stick my head in a deep fat fryer'.

'I'll take your word for it then,' he smirked and tried to take another sip of his empty beer. 'I'm gonna get another drink d'you want?' He held up his bottle in question.

'I'll come with you,' she started to say before he heard Liam laugh and pass by the stairs and watched as Rae craned herself round the top bannister to hide herself where she sat.

'You can wait here if you want to. I'll bring you one back.' She gave him a wan smile of thanks and he moved down to the bottom of the stairs and attempted to make his way through the crowd of increasingly intoxicated bodies and through to the kitchen.

'Haven't seen you all night mate, you coming to sit with us?'

'Maybe after,' Finn's gaze travelled back up involuntarily to where Rae was sat and Chop's eyes followed. He gave Rae a wave and she gave a small one back from the top of the stairs when he looked back at him with a look of understanding. 'Right, we'll leave you to it then.'

'We're just talking.' Chop clapped him on the shoulder and sat back down beside Izzy and Archie. Out of the side of his eye he could see them shoot another worried look his way from where they were, but he didn't stop to make his way back to the top of the stairs.

Since he'd been gone a queue had formed outside the upstairs bathroom beside where Rae was sitting. Finn passed her her drink and settled back down beside her when Rae shifted closer and leaned against him to let someone past and caught the ghost of her scented shampoo till she moved back and it got quiet between then once more.

'Are you and Liam together properly then?'

'I dunno,' Rae shrugged it off and moved to turn the conversation again. 'What about you? You still seeing Olivia?'

'No, we split up, sort of had a date earlier, but I cut it short and went round The Swan when Chloe found me'.

'Why'd you leave?'

Finn scrapped at the paper on his beer bottle as a distraction and looked out towards the bottom of the stairs as he answered. 'We just weren't clicking, she had a mortgage and I haven't even got an overdraft for fucks sake,' he managed a half laugh, 'and it's not fair to mess somebody about, so I left it.'

'Right. Sorry mate.' He hated that word, he was never her mate. They were always more than that. They would never be just mates.

'It's alright.'

'What about that Amy? Thought she was giving you a hard time.'

'She was, but she took a swing at me outside English and so she's suspended again for a bit.' He looked over at her with concern flashing across his face, she simply shrugged.

'What are you going to do when she comes back?'

'No idea, assume a new identity probably.'

'Rae.'

'I'm alright. I know how to dodge people.'

'I know,' he murmured, but not low enough that she didn't catch it. Even if she pretended not to. He stared at her for a few beats, she wouldn't look him in the eye.

It's not a good idea, opening up old wounds like this; but it's hard to think of anything else with her sitting so close and still managing to feel a million miles away. He could hear the first few bars of some Peter Andre track.

'Right, now that is shit.' Rae excused herself with the music change, backed away as far as she could get from him and stood up to lean over the bannister and yell through to the living room. 'Chloe, get that shit off.' Finn could just about make out the back of Chloe's bright red dress and watched as she looked over towards them and shot Rae a look of annoyance for getting interrupted from chatting to her group and switched the stereo over to the next track with an irritated flick of her hand.

'Wish you would've said ought about it.' He said, louder this time over the music, not looking her in the eye and staring ahead towards the off white walls. 'Would have done something.' If she was hoping to escape talking about it she would be disappointed. It took so long for her to answer that he thought maybe she wasn't going to.

'You shouldn't have to get dragged into everything…' she shook her head, not knowing what to say. He waited for her to finish, peeling off the label on his bottle. 'All of that. The stuff in my head,' he snapped his head up towards her then, his face scrunched up in confusion. 'You don't deserve to have to deal with it. You don't deserve to get all that shit about us at school. I know you hear stuff. People say things and I didn't want you to be embarrassed of us. I was embarrassed for you.'

'You know that's total bollocks Rae.'

'It's the truth.'

'I would've told you that I don't care. I don't give a toss what a lot of knobheads at college think.'

'Yeah, but I do.'

Finn felt his jaw clench and this throat tighten. He downed the last dregs of his beer and rolled it between his hands and chewed at the side of his cheeks. The silence got so heavy he was about to leave when she turned towards him on the stair, hands jammed tightly between her knees.

'You don't get it. You haven't had people saying stuff behind your back or to your face every day. For years. You've never had to deal with any of that.

'Because I didn't know it was happening. You didn't speak to me.'

'You think you won't, but it gets to you. You'd look at me different. Same as them, and I'm not doing it. I can't.'

'That's bollocks' he scrunched his face. 'Is that really what you think of me? That I'm that shallow, do you?'

'That's not what I'm saying.' Her voice was quiet but he wasn't letting her get away with it.

'Then what are you saying then?' The hurt cut through in his voice for a moment before it went back to a flat anger. 'Because it sounds like you dumped me because you think I give a toss about what they think of me or you. That you think I'm the same as them.' She moved to get up and leave.

'Rae'. He held her wrist lightly and she stopped for a moment. Long enough for him to finish. 'I'm sorry I didn't notice any of those pricks saying things. I'm sorry I didn't know or I would've done something about it if you'd told me. I never cared about any of that, never heard any of it, and I just cared what you thought. I just cared about you, I still do Rae.'

'Then I'm sorry, right. I know I fucked up, right' there's anger in her voice, but it's not at him anymore. 'I always fuck things up. '

'You haven't fucked anything up. Half our mates are downstairs wishing you'd come back and hang about again. Everybody misses you'. I miss you.

'I'm sorry, right, I'm sorry.' Her voice waivered under the strain, the hurt and anger at his pushbacks breaking down and he looked at her, feeling stricken.

'No, I didn't mean…' He didn't like seeing the red creeping around the bottom of her eyelids as she held back tears. It's all bad timing and mixed emotions. He knows it's wrong, a totally stupid idea that he's going to regret in the morning. They've both had a bit to drink and neither of them are thinking straight enough to remember any of it, but she's all he can see as the music dulls around him and her eyes are looking at him like that. Like he was still the best thing to ever happen to her through the hurt. He'd imagined this scenario for weeks, months after it had all gone to shit, but not like this. Not when there's all these things between them, all the things he hasn't had time to talk out.

None of it mattered, not then. Not in that moment. His hands were already buried in her hair and caressing the side of her jaw. His lips found hers and blotted everything else out. He poured everything into it, into the kiss. All the feelings that hadn't gone away, all the things he wanted to say but didn't have the words for. His thumb stroked at the soft skin of her cheek as their mouths found each other properly. It felt like being able to breathe again where he'd been floundering in her absence. Like searching for air and finding it in her touch.

'You must be well pissed mate, fuckin' hell.' Rae pulled away and he was dazed long enough for the figure standing in front of them to worm his way past them. He was an older guy, one of the ones Chloe had invited. Heavy set with dull eyes and skin and patchy facial hair and a sore around his mouth. His words were loud enough for the group at the bottom of the stairs to look over at them as Rae's face dropped. Finn paid no attention to their audience, he tried to stop her hands from breaking away from his as she scrambled up. Her face crumbled under the strain not to show how upset it made her and in that moment it hit him with painful clarity. He really hadn't noticed half of the stuff she was dealing with. In that moment he wanted to tell every person looking over at him in either a smirk or morbid curiosity exactly where they could shove it.

'I'm gonna go.' She pulled at the ends of her shift sleeve and stood up before he knew what was happening.

'No, Rae, wait.' He shouted out at her desperately while she had pushed her way through the throng and disappeared into the crowd downstairs and he lost sight of her altogether. He cursed under his breath and by the time he'd pushed his way past he saw her just as she'd ran into Liam outside the living room, cornering her between Finn and the door. Finn closed the distance and stood at the bottom of the stairs.

'Alright chief?' Liam looked him over briefly with a smirk, like he'd won. He wasn't into knocking people about, apart from setting a few twats in town straight, but Finn struggled not to wipe from his smarmy face. He swallowed it down and raised his jaw in greeting, not sure he could manage much else.

'Where'd you get off to?' Liam leaned on the wall opposite her and gave Rae a look somewhere between amusement and overconfidence. Rae looked over at him with a look of mock irritation, a painted on jokiness he seemed to buy, but not Finn.

'Got distracted' she avoided looking Finn's way. 'I've been sat round here all night, we just ran into each other there', she lied, looking at Finn then back to Liam. 'Where have you been?'

'Got caught up chatting. This party's total shite'. Rae looked uncomfortable and risked a glance at Finn, but she didn't disagree. Something unspoken passed between them until he shot her a bored look. 'You ready?'

'Yeah' she sighed and pushed her hair back. 'Just need my jacket. I'll just get it.' she needed the excuse to get away from it, from the two of them and bounded up to Chloe's room where she'd let just the gang leave their stuff and pulled her leather jacket out from where it lay under Finn's.

She shrugged it on and shoved her hands deep in her pockets as she made her way back downstairs. She was guarded then as she stood between the pair of them, looking straight ahead, not meeting either of their gazes as though he might have tried to touch her.

'We're probably going to catch a bus, back to mine?' He looked at Rae who shifted from one foot to the other.

'I think I might call it a night actually and just head home.' The knot in Finn's stomach loosened twinge as she said it, but continued to sting as he watched them.

'Suit yourself, let's get on then.' He was already halfway out the door and didn't look back as Rae caught up with him, but not before a last guilt ridden look at Finn fleetingly before the door closed behind her.

Finn left not long after despite pleas from the gang to stay, just long enough to avoid crossing them. He said his goodbyes, collected his jacket and left. The walk home was silent, but his mind wouldn't shut up. He kept replaying everything they'd said. Remembering the way her lips felt against his. It was over all too quickly and not quickly enough. Finn didn't know which one he wanted more; if he wished he could wind it all back to before or just pretend it had never happened in the first place. It would go round his head for the rest of the night. He tried to blot it out of his head as he slipped his cold hands into his jacket pockets and bowed his head against the cold night air.