When he introduces himself as 'Steve', Fiona smiles at him, likes what she sees. And when they're in the kitchen together and he's talking to her, so close she can see every speck of colour in his eyes, even in the dark, she can't remember wanting someone so much. And all it's supposed to be is sex; a one night stand that they don't even finish because of Frank.
But then he comes over the next day and he calls her his "dream girl" and Fiona can't have him trying to make more out of what happened. Because she doesn't do dates, not with guys like him, and she doesn't need his pity. And then he buys them a new washing machine and she's tied between smiling so wide her face splits in two and punching something.
And he somehow gets to her, worms his way into her world with his words. He meets Frank and the kids and isn't fazed by them. He's new and exciting and Fiona wants that. Thinks she maybe deserves it, even if it's only for a little while.
...
Fiona says, "Fuck you", and Stever says, "I love you, too", and she swears her hearts stop beating for a moment. He says it so casual, like he doesn't know what that means to her. Fiona's had guys say that to her before. The boy who took her virgnity told her, but she knew he was lying and didn't care. She knew all the others were lying and it didn't bother her.
When Steve says it, though, she believes him. She believes that he actually loves her, even though he knows who she really is, knows who her family are.
She thinks she's going to fall hard for him - shit, maybe she already has - and she's scared and excited all at the same time.
...
She's worried when Steve stops picking up his phone. Worried because she doesn't really know what's going on and she hates that. Hates being lied to and being kept out of the loop. Worried about her brothers and the mess they're in. Mostly, she's worried about him. If he's okay, if he'll be okay. It makes her chest feel tight, like she's suffocating or something. And it's selfish. To care so much about him when he's gotten her brothers in trouble.
Then he's asking her to leave with him and saying that she deserves it, deserves her own life. And she's crying and she fucking loves him so much and she doesn't want him to leave but these are her kids and this is her life.
And he drops to his knees and kisses her and it's so desperate that she forgets to breathe.
...
She stands, waiting for the train and she can't make herself get on. She just can't. She knows this life, knows the kids and knows Kev and Vee and fucking Frank. She can't leave them.
...
It all goes to shit when she sees him there. Months after he left, months after she decided she wasn't going to mope and be sad over him leaving. He shows up and ruins it and she hates it so much. Hates that he's married, hates that he still tells her he loves her.
But she loves him. She loves him so fiercely; unlike anything she's felt before and in all the ways she thought were cliched and just bullshit lies told to you in fairytales to keep you optimistic.
And then he isn't Steve anymore, he's Jimmy with the rich parents and the med school. And he lied to her. All that time, he was lying to her.
She isn't mad as she hoped she'd be and it's like he's just taking all the rules she made for herself and throwing them away so it's like they never even existed.
...
He doesn't leave when Monica opens up her wrists. He doesn't leave when they get back and there's blood all over the kitchen. He helps her clean and he holds her hand and she's hit with how much she needs him, how he somehow steadies her when she feels like she's falling all over the place. She's never had a person like that before. It's different to friendship and it's different to family.
She feels weak with it and she can't care. He says, "Fiona...", but she won't let him finish because she just needs him right now, just how he is.
...
Fiona asks him if he's going to leave and he says, "No", and she says, "Everybody always leaves".
"I won't," he says, and Fiona believes him, but more than that she wants to.
...
She says, with tears in her eyes, "I trust you. That's bigger to me than 'I love you'", and she doesn't think she's ever been so honest with him.
Because Fiona loves easily, effortlessly, almost. But trust? Fiona trusted her parents; she trusted Monica and Frank and look where that's left her: the carer of five kids who are more hers than the couple that made them. Trust doesn't come easily to her, but she trusts Jimmy. She does.
...
There's a lot of shit they say to each other. Horrible words and insults spat out in fits of anger and desperation. He's been keeping things from her. She fucking hates that, hates that he makes her wonder whether or not he deserves her trust.
She forgives him, though. Feels bad. Feels even worse when he doesn't come back for days. Keeps calling him and calling him and leaving him messages that get progressively less mean until some man hands her money, tells her Jimmy left it for her, tells her she needs to move on.
And she calls him, lump in her throat, and says bye to him, because she doesn't want the last thing he hears from her to be harsh words, doesn't want that to be how they end.
...
He once said, "You make me want to enjoy my life again", and she hopes, more than she'd like, more than she wants, that he did with her. She thinks he did, at least at the beginning when things weren't complicated with with drug lord's daughters and unemployment and arguments. But she can't know for sure.
And Jimmy can't tell her that the time they spent together made him happier than he thought was possible, was the best time of his life. When he met Frank and the kids and when they skinny dipped in that hotel pool and when he came over every morning with coffee and doughnuts. When he was trying to win her back and when he helped scrub her mom's blood off the kitchen floor. When he was playing house and when he looked after Liam during the day and mopped the floors and then got to sleep beside her every night. He can't say that he's sorry for what he last said to her, can't tell her that he loves her, can't tell her that he was protecting her.
Because Jimmy's gone. And Fiona won't ever know for sure.