Page 107 of Finding Him
Her fingers feel nice against my scalp, and I have to fight the urge to lean into her touch like a dog.
“Your roots need redoing,” she says casually, pulling her hand away, and I reach up to touch my hair.
“Ya think?”
“Yeah. Hey, do you think you could give me highlights—keep talking, don’t look at them, act natural.”
“You’re great at this spy thing, it’s almost scary—I wouldn’t wanna give you highlights. I like your hair the way it is. It’s the perfect colour.”
She smiles. “Really? You think so?”
The back door opens, making Comet bark. We both turn as if we didn’t see the two of them approach at all.
“Hey, Claire-Bear?” I grin wide. “How was the film?”
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“I'M TELLING YA, lad, it was the strangest thing,” Fitzy shakes his head, taking a sip from the little bendy straws of those juice things Finn’s parents buy for the girls.
The four of us lads are sprawled around Finn’s room, taking turns playing FIFA 06 on his Playstation. Finn’s room is the largest of ours—since it’s technically just the basement—and the lad’s got his own bathroom.
Plus, his Mam doesn’t mind if we eat down here as long as the dishes get brought up. They got us all takeaway tonight, so the smell of Chinese food mixes with the lingering scent of deodorant and dirty socks.
He’s got a couch that Fitzy and I are hoarding, while JJ and Finn are each in a bean bag. Posters of football heroes cover the walls, their faces frozen mid-celebration, a reminder of what we’re all aspiring to be.
“Like she was... afraid of me.”
I nod, my eyes still fixed on the screen as my players scramble to regain possession of the ball. I understand what he means perfectly. Well, almost. Our situations were a bit different.
The girl he was making out with didn’t have a panic attack underneath him.
All Fitz had tried to do was give this girl—Aurora Towney, one of Claire and Molly’s friends—back the ipod he'd accidentally broken last week in PE. We'd been playing rugby —a game most of us football lads admittedly sucked at—and Fitz lobbed the ball so badly it ended up on the girls' side of the field and knocked this poor girl’s iPod right out of her hands. Chloe Holland nearly ripped his head off, but Rory was sweet about it. Sweet meaning she wouldn’t really look him in the eye, mumbling that it was alright and it was old anyway, and had accepted his apology without a second thought.
But Fitzy being Fitzy had felt terrible about it. He’d brought the thing to me, knowing I’m good with my hands, and I’d spent the better part of a weekend (when I wasn’t spying on my sister and her date) fiddling with it, managing to fix the screen and get it working again.
But when Fitzy had gone to give it back to her in the hall yesterday, Rory had frozen up, her eyes going wide with panic, and had literally run away from him.
I’m not messing—sheran.
Fitz doesn’t know why, but I have a guess.
Claire thinks that she's got trouble at home, but Rory won't talk about it with anyone. She’s a quiet girl, always has been, with a shy smile and eyes that seem to be constantly darting around, as if she’s expecting something to jump out at her.
She doesn’t have very many friends in her year, though I know Molly hangs out with her a lot now. But Claire has said before that Rory can’t ever hang out outside of school. She’s notallowedwas the phrase that was used, which always rubbed me the wrong way.
It was way back in Claire’s first year, when she was bummed that Rory couldn’t come to her birthday party (they had just become friends a few months before), but I’ve never forgotten it. It just didn’t sit right with me.
The only other things I know about her is that she lives on Clover Row (the council estate), and Finn's sister Ailbhe is in the same class as a little girl named Nessa Towney, who I’m guessingis Rory’s younger sister. Finn's ma seemed to try and get over for a playdate more than once, but it never actually happened. Finn supplies this story about little Nessa to us now, and it only puts Fitz more on edge.
“What did your Mam do?” he asks, sounding deeply concerned. Lottie Marshall was something of a bulldozer, and everybody knows it. So it was practically a given that she would’ve donesomething.
“She asked around town, lad, whatdaya think?” Finn speaks around the crisps he’s shoving in his mouth. “They're bottom rung Clovers. The Towney's get a big check from the gov't every month 'cause they've got at least 5, maybe 6 kids. The Da doesn't work, but the Ma does at the Tesco. I can't tell ya where all that money goes, but if you've ever seen those kids you'd know it isn't going in their bellies.”
Fitz frowns, his dark brow furrowed in concern. “That's awful.”
Finn gives him a ‘what can you do’ kind of expression and shrugs. “That's Clover Row, lad.”
JJ shakes his head. “Whole estate feels like a separate island from the rest of Mayville. No offense to your da, of course, Nialler.”
