"Maybe my skin would be thicker

If I lived in a house with no mirrors."

- House With No Mirrors by Sasha Alex Sloan


Finley woke in a dark room with only the tiniest hint of sunlight peeking through the makeshift curtains.

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she took a moment to enjoy being in bed with no one's expectation of her to get up and get going. No one expected her to make coffee or tea, no one expected hot breakfast to be on the table, and no one shouted at her for forgetting to replace the shampoo they'd run out of.

She could just stay under the duvet and let herself breathe so deeply that she could feel her lungs push against her ribcage.

The sounds of her new housemates roaming around downstairs carried through the walls of the house. One was making breakfast if the smell of bacon was anything to go by. One was in the shower by the sound of running water and faint singing.

Finley ran a finger along the scar at the base of her throat. It was a constant reminder of the life she left behind, but it also served as the reminder of why she'd left.

She took another deep breath and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The girl who lived there before her had left it behind, which meant Finley had an actual mattress instead of the blow-up bed she had fully expected to buy. She stood up and pulled the bed sheet that covered her window aside to let the bright October sunlight in.

Finley readied herself for work, slipping on her jeans, the only jumper she'd brought with her, and the old but comfortable trainers that wouldn't make her feet hurt after a long, closing shift.

She looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror mounted on her closet door. The high neck of her jumper covered the scar, thank god, and her hair was as unruly as ever with her fringe curling in strange directions. Running a brush through it would only make it worse, so she refrained and instead put in her gold hoop earrings.

She grabbed her rucksack from the hook on the back of the door and unlocked her bedroom door, so she could leave out of it. In the back of her rational mind, she knew her housemates, who had been nothing but nice to her, wouldn't snoop through her things or violate her privacy in any way, but the fear of him coming after her or this all being a dream loomed. So, she locked her bedroom door to maintain some boundaries. If her housemates thought it was odd, they hadn't mentioned it.

"Morning," she said as she walked into the kitchen.

"Morning," Aisling greeted from the small dining table they'd managed to fit in the room. They both ignored the fact that it was almost noon.

Finley flipped the switch on the kettle. "I thought you had class." She leaned against the counter, her arms folded across her chest.

Aisling shook her head. "Doesn't start 'til one," she said with her mouth full of eggs and bacon. "I haven't done any of the reading, though."

"So, you're going to wing it?" Finley asked and grabbed a mug from one of the cupboards.

"Pretty much," the blonde-haired woman said with a shrug of her shoulder. "Mr Johnson basically runs through the reading word for word anyway, so there's no point, really."

"That makes sense," Finley muttered and dropped a teabag into the mug before pouring water over it.

"When are you leaving?" Aisling asked.

Finley checked the clock on the wall. "About 30 minutes," she said, adding milk to her tea. "Who's in the shower?"

"I was," Leah said as she joined them in the kitchen, her hair wet but brushed through. "Mum mentioned that Mae already has you working the closing shift."

Finley nodded, taking a sip of her tea and savouring the taste. She should eat something but wasn't really in the mood for anything in particular, so she made a silent agreement with herself to get something at work.

"She must really like you," Leah mused. "She gave me the boot after six months, and I never got to close up."

"Because you gave free drinks to all the cute boys," Aisling reminded her. Leah stuck her tongue out at her, and Finley smiled at the ease of their conversation. The complete lack of malice behind the teasing. It was refreshing and put a knot of jealousy in her stomach for all the experiences she'd missed out on while in his grasp.

"Have you seen any of the Richmond players in there?" Aisling asked, pulling her back to the kitchen.

Finley raised an eyebrow at her. "I think a bunch of rich footballers have better places to spend their money than at the local pub."

"Doesn't the manager frequent it?" Leah wondered, sipping her tea.

"Yeah," Finley replied, taking the last mouthful of her tea and placing the mug in the dishwasher.

"What's he like?" Leah asked before Finley could leave to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She considered it for a second, then smiled to herself, thinking of the moustachioed man. "American."

Said moustachioed man walked through the doors of the Crown and Anchor several hours into her shift.

"Howdy, Finley," he greeted with a wave.

"You on your own?" She asked when he slid into a barstool.

"Yeah," he told her. "Beard had a thing with Jane."

"Ah," she said, nodding in understanding. Finley hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Coach Beard's on and off again girlfriend, but the back and forth between the pair was dangerously close to giving her whiplash, and it wasn't even her relationship.

Mae rounded the corner from the kitchen and greeted the two with a smile. "Could you take care of Baz and the others? I have some suggestions for our coaching friend."

"Uh-oh," Ted muttered, but an easy smile spread across his face. Finley grinned to herself and met pub regulars and avid Richmond supporters Baz, Paul, and Jeremy at the opposite end of the bar.

"Hiya, lads," she greeted, placing her hands on the bar top. "What can I get you?"

"Three lagers, please, Finley," said Paul, the tall and gentle-hearted one, requested.

"You got it," she said and grabbed their empty glasses, placing them in the nearly-full tray under the bar. She got three clean ones, went to the tap to refill them, and accepted the money Paul offered her.

When she came back with his change, Jeremy got her attention. "What's the gaffer doing here?"

Finley glanced over her shoulder at Coach Lasso, who listened intently to Mae's strategy suggestions. She turned back to the trio. "Getting dinner," she simply said. The press was still on him after the Earl the Greyhound incident, somehow blaming him for Dani Rojas' killing ball. Ted didn't need any more attention than he was already getting.

"Does he ever talk tactics with you?"

"I've served him a handful of times, Baz, so we haven't exchanged a lot of words beyond the usual 'enjoy your meal' spiel."

"Because I have some ideas," Jeremy interjected.

Finley offered a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, lads, you'll have to talk to him yourself. Nothing's stopped you before."

They groaned as she walked away to grab the tray of empty glasses to take into the kitchen. She sat them down next to the industrial dishwasher, but before picking up the clean tray, she checked herself in the fridge's reflective surface, making sure her jumper still covered the scar. She ruffled her fringe to fan it out more.

After taking a deep breath, she hoisted the tray into her arms and carried it back inside, meeting Mae halfway down the bar as she went to give Ted's order to the kitchen staff.

"Hey, Finley?" Ted asked as she started putting the glasses away in their respective places.

She looked up and met his kind, dark eyes and had to resist the urge to ask him about the moustache. It was still a strange look that seemed like it belonged to a bygone era, but then again, she wasn't sure she would recognize him without it.

"Where are ya from?"

Every instinct in her body told her to lie, to not let anyone know. The more people who knew, the more danger she would be in, but she couldn't exactly run from her accent.

"Up north," she replied, keeping it just vague enough.

He nodded and thanked Mae, who'd brought his dinner. "Like Manchester?"

Finley bit back a smile at his very American pronunciation of the city's name. "No, much further north," she explained.

He dug into his food and seemed to contemplate his next question, which Finley knew would come imminently. Ted never stopped talking for long.

"So, why'd you come down here?"

Finley froze. Her hands came to a halt midair as a pint glass shattered at her feet. Her eyes turned to Ted, bewildered and terrified. His mouth moved, but all Finley could hear was a high-pitched ringing as if the world had stopped moving.

"Hey," Ted tried, his voice sounding far away and muffled. "Your hands are shaking." Some distant part of her must've understood what he said because she looked down at her palms and found them violently trembling. The sight seemed to bring her back to the moment.

"I'm so sorry," she said as the noise of the pub came back and her vision sharpened. She bent down to pick up the shattered glass, ignoring Ted's concerned look and comforting words. They did little to stifle the tightening knot in her stomach. As she gathered the larger shards, she tried to get her breathing under control.

Mae came up to her, carrying a broom and dustpan.

She kneeled down next to Finley and went to put a reassuring hand on the young woman's arm, but she flinched away, almost cowering at the touch. Mae's hand fell back at her side.

"Go in the back," Mae urged. "Collect yourself, and don't let them see you cry."

Finley nodded and stood, speed-walking down the length of the bar, ignoring the questions from the lads. She snuck past the kitchen and into the hall that served as the entry to the main house.

Finley leaned against a wall, putting her head between her knees, trying to will the tears back into the tear ducts where they belonged. It was a futile attempt as they started streaming down her cheeks in uncontrollable waves.

She sobbed through the deep breaths, and after what felt like an eternity, her heartbeat started to settle back to a steady pace. The tears eventually stopped, too.

The simple question of why had sent her into a tailspin. She had accepted that it would be one of the frequently asked questions about her sudden appearance in Richmond without any possessions other than her rucksack. Still, she could never have anticipated how visceral her reaction would be.

She didn't know how long she stood there, but eventually, she wiped her cheeks and went to the kitchen to blow her nose. Her limbs felt heavy, and exhaustion sat in her bones. She suddenly hated that she had the closing shift.

"You okay?" Mae asked when she found Finley lingering at the edge of the doorway that led back into the pub and behind the bar.

She nodded. "Yeah," she mumbled half-heartedly. "I'm sorry about that. I don't know what happened."

She ignored Mae's sceptical look and stepped back in, ready to get back to work because she had to be.

She found the guests pretty much as she'd left them except for a young man that had joined Ted at the end of the bar.

He wore a white and army green tie dye hoodie, a gold chain hung around his neck, and a few rings adorned his fingers. His hair was slicked back, and his cheekbones were so high and sharp that Finley found it hard to look away. She wasn't the only one with that problem, though, as the three regulars openly stared at him.

He did look vaguely familiar, to be fair.

Mae brought Ted and the young man pints, only to abruptly turn to Jeremy, Baz, and Paul to tell them to fuck off. Finley minded her business tending to the other patrons waiting to be served.

She poured pints and collected dirty plates from guests who had finished their meals. After a patron asked for a beer that wasn't on tap, Finley wandered down the bar towards Ted and his friend to get it from the fridge.

She smiled at Ted when they made eye contact. He raised a brow as if asking if she were okay, and she gave a small nod to tell him she was.

"Hey, Finley," he said to her. "Do people deserve a second chance?"

She froze in place, her large dark eyes glazed with something he couldn't pinpoint. He looked at her and thought she resembled a deer caught in headlights. She was pretty, though. Her brown hair was pulled back, leaving only a curly fringe and a few loose curls framing her face. The gold hoops in her ears dangled back and forth.

Jamie waited with bated breath for her reply.

"Uh…" she said, trailing off. "Yeah, I think they do." Her eyes flicked from Ted's to his, but only briefly before she excused herself to go back to the man she'd grabbed a beer for. He watched her as she pulled open the beer and placed it in front of the man along with the card machine.

"Who's that?" He asked Ted.

Ted looked from Jamie to the young woman who stood further down the bar. "Finley," he said. "She's from up north. That's all I know."

Jamie nodded, going back to what he was really here for. "So, what do you say then, Coach?"

Ted bopped his head up and down. "Jamie, you're an amazing player," he said, though his tone didn't give Jamie much hope. "But I don't think it's a good idea."

Jamie couldn't hide his disappointment, but he didn't want Ted to feel bad. "Yeah," he said just to say something.

He turned back to his pint, and when Jamie lifted it towards his lips, his eyes found the dark ones that belonged to Finley. The barmaid offered him a small smile, and he considered her for a moment. Ted's question to her was vague enough that he could have been talking about anyone, but Jamie would wager that it was pretty obvious they were talking about him. Finley might not have known it, but hearing her say that he deserved a second chance meant something to him. It stirred something inside that he'd long since buried.

To Jamie, that small act of unintentional kindness was everything.


A/N: I hope you've enjoyed the first (proper) chapter of Avalanche! Any comments and reviews are much appreciated, and they help keep me motivated to continue the story. Remember, you can find me on tumblr at itscapokaybye.