Mistakes
"If I had the chance, I'd throw the words right back, and turn it all around, I wouldn't let you down. I don't want us to break into a beautiful mistake" - Hudson Taylor, Beautiful Mistakes.
.
He was about to leave, earlier, and that might have been a mistake. He started to move away from under her cheek but stay, she muttered, low against his chest. He did.
Finn wakes up an hour later to an empty bed and quietly pads into her living room. They're in her home the first time he sleeps with her and as stupid as it sounds he wants that to matter, wants to think that the fact that she invited him in matters. At her dinner table, she sits with a shoebox full of papers laid out in front of her, smiles at him when she looks up. She's got the broadest of smiles, Alicia, the kind of thing that fills your heart and steals it. Her gaze travels over his bare chest, makes him wonder if he looks as awkward as he feels.
(His legs felt like Jell-O, barely daring to touch the floor, on their way from the elevator and down the corridor. He never forgot the way she smiled, large and positive – certain, - sliding their room key into the door: This is it, is what he thought. This is it, as she slipped in and he followed, took her jacket off, her shirt, her skirt, ran his hand down her calf. Breathe in, breathe out, he thought. She undid the buttons of his shirt with her one hand, the other flat on his chest. She opened the front of his pants and slid his zipper down and he thought he was doing a pretty good job saving face, all things considered, but then she kissed him hard, her hand suddenly strong inside his boxers, skin on skin. 'Fuck,' he muttered, his heart spiking.
Her eyes - 'Gotcha,' they almost said, and somehow he couldn't give a damn.)
She took Finn's shirt off, earlier, worked hard to ignore the wound on his shoulder, worked almost as hard as he does.
.
He smiles back (of course, he does). The bathrobe on her skin, he notices, is grey and silk, flowery, falls just above her knee. He wants to go over and slide it off her, frankly, but he's not sure about anything yet, so he keeps his hands busy. Clean glass by the side of the sink, cold water poured out of the fridge; he nurses it between his palms like Jameson. 'Couldn't sleep?' He asks, glancing at the box.
'I didn't want to wake you.'
He nods. It's funny the amount of time they've spent, whispering to their phones well into the night. 'I've always had trouble sleeping,' she said, once, after he asked.
'What did you do?' He said. Before you met me, implied. Before.
'I just - I don't know, really –'
Finn let the lie go, likes her lies more than her silences, these days. He wonders, sometimes, if she thinks he believes her when she pretends that the fact that she calls him, now, doesn't mean that she used to call someone else. She's never asked back, so maybe she doesn't care, but his insomnia doesn't date back to the shooting, either. It started with Ann and the miscarriage, the way she would turn her back to him in her sleep and ultimately, the way the arm of the couch uncomfortably dug into his neck.
And yeah, sleeping with someone else for the sake of feeling alive may have made him a douche, by that point.
(The thing is, her adultery - because that's what it was, then, wasn't it? Adultery - it wasn't planned. He knew that, really, because when he asked her what an hour of good timing would look like, he didn't think of that. He thought Alicia and Peter and separated and put all his cowardly self away and asked a question, in the hopes of getting an answer. And he did, and her wedding ring brushed, cold, against the side of his face and 'sorry,' she muttered, and he smiled, kissed her harder for it, like Peter did on their wedding day, attempting to claim her as his.)
.
'What's that?' Finn asks, glancing at her, and the shoebox in front of her.
Alicia smiles, again, pulls up the chair next to her as a silent invitation. Looking over her shoulder as he sits, he realizes they're pictures, not papers, some of Peter and her, and the kids mostly. She doesn't seem to have a filing system, though, and everything's mixed up. It almost bothers him, for some reason.
Alicia's hand runs over her face, as if exhaustion could be wiped away. 'Zach wanted me to mail him some for his room at school and I completely forgot,' she says, in lieu of an explanation. Come to think of it, it does look like there's filing of some sort, now: the ones she's selected lay piled up on the side of the table. 'It's mostly his sister and him,' she shrugs. 'I wasn't sure –' she starts and trails off.
But that's only half the truth, really. When he takes the pile into his hands and looks over each of them, there's Peter, too, and Alicia, smiling at a baby with enough love in their eyes to fill the universe. He's pretty sure her picture selection holds some sort of truth for her son to find (and maybe, because he's her son, he will).
'They're good,' he tells her, touching her arm with his palm for a lack of a better thing to say. He throws a glance into the box and sees another one that seems to belong to a Highland Park photo-shoot from when the kids were little. It's Alicia and Peter, looking straight into the camera, happy, his arm wrapped around her. He drags the box over to him and picks it up. 'Add that one,' he tells her. 'Zach would want both his parents, too,' he pauses. 'And you guys look good on that one.'
It's funny, he doesn't feel the competition, with Peter; she's married and he's sleeping with her and yet it doesn't feel like there's a third party to their story, really. Alicia looks puzzled though, for an instant, like a thousand thoughts cross her mind and he should ask, maybe, but doesn't. This is one of those instances where he's 99.9% certain she'd say nothing like it means something, and most of the time, he doesn't know her well enough to figure out what that is. He could follow up and tell her to indulge him, and maybe she would, but he realizes the moment is gone, by now. He's not sure that .1% is worth the risk of her shutting him off.
For some reason, he thinks about what to say to her more and more, these days.
(I love you, is what everybody knows he almost said, but didn't.
I. Love. You. He didn't say, and that's all that never got to matter, really.)
.
The shoebox sits in front of him, now, and he can't really ignore it, the picture on top. It's an older one, of Alicia and another girl inside what looks like someone's apartment. There are legal textbooks everywhere and the girl has blond hair, blue eyes and is hugging Alicia's side. They both look young, in their twenties.
'Who's that?' he asks, the photo in his hand. He's pretty sure Alicia doesn't have a sister, and they don't look alike, anyway.
Alicia chuckles, almost. And it's a first, he realizes, because he's never seen her simply amused, just like that, without flirting, or anything, really. 'That was my roommate in 1L,' she sighs, softly. 'God, I didn't even know I still had this.'
From the look in her eyes, she still remembers the moment and he finds that he likes that, when she doesn't hide her previous lives away from him. He thinks of the pictures that exist of him at NYU and Lord, she probably wouldn't even recognize him. Alicia, on the other hand, looks exactly like herself, only younger, different hair. It was all curly and dark by then, darker than now.
He's pretty sure his mother once taught him it was rude to comment on women's hair, an advice he somehow chooses to ignore. 'Your hair was different,' he observes. She laughs, soft, like she did when he first surfed that line between flirting and not, in witness prep.
Maybe tomorrow, there'll be another photo of him going out of her apartment, and were we up to something naughty? He'll ask, if she brings it up. Yeah, is the truth he wants her to tell.
(He kissed her lips as they crossed the threshold to the bedroom, letting her softly push him against the wall. The light switch still hit full force the space between his scapulae and 'ouch,' he let out, before he could stop himself. The lights all around the room burst on at once and he wanted to kick himself (stupid, stupid, stupid) for breaking the moment but Alicia laughed, the purest, most natural thing he'd ever heard.
'Whoops, sorry,' she muttered against his ear, the lace of her bra grazing his chest. He wasn't sure if she meant it, then, wasn't sure if he should have been reassuring, like he was when she told him, 'I don't look like I did the last time we did this.'
'Oh, you're going to have to do more than that for me to accept an apology,' he joked, smiling back, his heart thumping in his chest, fear still rooted in his stomach, because he didn't know how okay – They used to laugh and tease each other, in Georgetown, but that was a lifetime ago.
He saw her take a step back, her eyes locked on his. Almost automatically, he reached up behind him on the wall before following her, looking for the switch, but stopped himself. Her gaze hadn't moved, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from her. 'On?' He asked, his arm dropping to his side, mesmerized.
'On,' she nodded, intimate, after a moment. Maybe he kissed her, then. 'I want to see you,' she added.
Will Gardner had always been a strong believer in Alicia Cavanaugh's ability to disappear out of his life. For some reason, that night, she didn't.)
.
He shouldn't. It's risky and stupid and invasive but he wants to see more of her life. He wants to see her as a little girl, wants to see her wedding, read the answers on her face to the things that he's missed. He tries to tell himself off, but when she drags the box closer to put her roommate's photo back in place, he looks, too.
She stills, the same time he does.
The picture is expected - he was bound to come up, after all - but private, and maybe that's what hurts the most. Somebody else clearly stole a moment away from them (her roommate, maybe?), and that makes him feel fucking intrusive, just looking at it. Will is young, standing in front of her in dark jeans and a pale blue t-shirt. They look like they're inside a bar, hugging or dancing, neither of them looking at the camera. His hand is on the small of her back, her lips inches from his.
She's silent, next to him, and 'Alicia,' he starts, low like I'm sorry, but. 'Is that –' Is that Will? Obviously. Is that school? Is that when you fell in love with him? Is that - Finn trails off.
He watches her as she shakes her head, finds the lid and pushes the box away from her. 'Let's just not. Not tonight.'
He's very tempted to argue that it hasn't been tonight since that day she came to see him at the hospital, that of all the things they've talked about, paradoxically, Will has never been one of them. 'Okay,' he mutters, tries not to sound bitter: it's not like he has the strength to push a wall, anyway. He lets the minutes go by, lets her mind drift off; he thinks he hears her yawn, once. 'I'd say penny for your thoughts,' he chances, 'but then –'
But then a million dollars might not even be enough, he thinks. It occurs to him, just then, that in years, he's probably the only man she's slept with who wasn't either Will or her husband. He wonders how that makes her feel.
'I hate pictures,' she says and it sort of bursts out, like a truth he didn't expect. Like when she drinks and says things, sometimes. 'When my father died, I took all the ones I found and hid them away in my closet.'
'They're a neutral recount of the past,' he makes a point, but –
'There's nothing neutral about the past,' she says. And that's that, really. 'Finn,' she stops, looking at him. 'I don't want us to be awkward.'
'Then, we won't be.' He says, and he's pretty sure about that. He's positive about that. And maybe a bit ignorant, too.
'Yeah,' she sighs and there's a contemptuous touch to her gaze, like I've heard that one before.
He wants it to be true, this time, and it pisses him off, really pisses him off that she doesn't, and that she doesn't even try to see it. 'I think you're holding something against us that neither of us are responsible for,' he tells her.
It stings and he knows he's crossed a line as soon as he says it. Yet, there's a ton of things in his life that he regrets, and this doesn't even make it to top one hundred. He pretends, though, holds her gaze for a moment, tests the waters by letting his fingers play with the hem of her robe. She doesn't push him away so, he goes on, for a while, uncovering inch after inch of skin.
'I want to slide that off you and take you back to bed,' he finally adds her, his stare back on her face. He studies the way she reacts, the smallest once of shock and desire that she hides, coiled under her eyelids. He's never quite liked how she's always taken his answers for granted, how she always assumes she understands everything he says. 'Is that straightforward and not awkward enough for you? And what about if I stand and leave and you to follow me, is that too awkward, now?'
'Stop,' she snaps, her voice raw and sharp. He thinks he's getting kicked out, by then, but instead, Alicia kisses him. His stomach does that flip flop thing that it's always done, since the age of twelve when that girl with red hair and light green eyes kissed him under an oak tree. 'Stop,' she says again, against his lips, and he's not sure what she means anymore, stop talking or stop me.
'Alicia,' he breathes, low, his mouth against her collarbone.
.
'For the record,' she starts to tell him, later, in the dark, her head resting on his chest. She looks like she's collecting her thoughts, like people do before they bend their heads down to pray. He remembers his grandmother muttering something under her breath, every Sunday at the end of mass. It was scribbled in her Bible and he remembers asking once, who wrote that.
'My mother,' she said, with a hand on his shoulder; her voice echoed a bit in the empty church. He remembers thinking that was strange, frankly, remembers being young enough to think that old people didn't have parents and that no one ever died.
In ainm an Athar agus an Mhic agus an Spioraid Naoimh, Amen, was scribbled behind her cover and he tried to read it out loud, but couldn't.
(Under the soft light of the bedside lamps, Will glanced as his phone, much later, whispered into her ear, smiling, 'we were more than an hour.'
'Were we?' She laughed, quiet and calm. Her hand stilled against his chest; Alicia looked at him, like naughty things and accomplices. 'I'm sure we'll have time to beat that, later,' she said.
He kissed her, then, too.)
'For the record,' she insists, her fingers tracing circles at the back of his neck. 'Not everything was Will's fault. I used to think that but I – I think I was wrong.'
And he thinks it's a weird way to put it, really, but he nods, anyway. He's never seen Alicia admit to being wrong, before.
'Okay.'
The thing is, there are different kinds of mistakes, and the time that she spends making them with Finn, it doesn't hurt as much.
Notes:
[1] After reading much debate on the Internet on genitive and grammar gimmicks, 'In ainm an Athar agus an Mhic agus an Spioraid Naoimh, Amen' appears to be the standard Irish Gaelic for 'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.' If that is not, I deeply apologize. I should know this, because I used to live in Ireland, but I don't.
[2] The title of this song was inspired by the song Beautiful Mistakes by the band Hudson Taylor.
[3] Many, many thanks to Orbythesea.