IN THE HOURS BETWEEN • TC

38. Reflecting

Una wraps her arms around herself as she walks home briskly. It's not the kind of area where people lurk with knives in bushes, but that doesn't stop her from worrying. Doesn't stop her from turning her head at the slightest noise, staying in the path of the street lamps.

Timmy and Frank.

Should she have known? Should it have been obvious?

He was dancing with girls all evening. He was flirting with that girl in the kitchen.

(It would take a lot for Una to forget that. To forget the initial pang of something that felt like jealousy, and then the burn of anger travelling up her throat. Of course it had to be someone beautiful. Someone the furthest from Una possible.)

She thinks about it. Timmy, all this time, looking at her like that. All those times he's been caught staring, all those times he's touched her even when he hasn't needed to. Has she misinterpreted it all?

It's not even that he's gay. He could be...well, he could be anything. Una isn't entirely surprised. When you look like him, when you act like him and have that smile that makes people drawn to you, makes them sidle up to you and stick around you like moths to a lamp-

It's not surprising. And Una wouldn't care.

But he was kissing someone who wasn't her, her brother, no less, and she was angry about it. Is.

She's angry about Timmy. About him being with Frank this entire time, and the realisation makes her mouth tremble a little.

All those moments they'd had, the brushes of hands, the quiet smiles, all the times when she thought they were sharing something private. She realises now that her secret relationship with Timmy was actually complicity in her own deception.

Everything she thought was special was something Timothée had done with Frank too.

She holds in a whimper and sniffs, holding her head up. Tears slip down her face as she rounds the corner into a road she doesn't recognise.

She's gone the wrong way.

She's been thinking too much and she's gone the wrong way.

No, she hasn't. There's the bus stop. It's only ten minutes from here, but Una doesn't know if she can walk any further. She’ll take a break. She’ll sit down on one of the little sloping benches and she’ll compose herself before the last stretch home. She doesn’t want to come through the front door with bright red eyes and a blotchy nose.

Una swallows as she perches on the bench at the bus stop, trying to regulate her breathing. Little wheezing moans escape her mouth and she has to clutch the seat to stop herself from breaking down. Calm. Calm.

Her head falls back against the plastic of the bus stop and she reads the bus timings for something to do, something to take her mind off of it. She says the words out loud. Reads the Service column, the Destination column, the Due Column. Nothing gets here until six. It would be going the wrong way, anyway.

Her cheeks ache from trying to smile, trying to hold everything in. She wipes the tears from where they’ve gathered at her chin, at the tip of her nose, and stands up. She’ll go home, take a nice hot shower, and evaluate this all in the morning. She might have a proper drink when she gets in, actually. Something strong.

That is enough motivation for the walk home. She’s spurred on by the thought of a shot of something, something harsh and warm as it travels down her throat and sinks to her stomach. Gin, maybe. Scotch whiskey. There’s a bottle left over from Christmas.

Una trudges along the final street home. Her feet hurt from standing up all evening, and she tries to regulate her sobs. She doesn't need any neighbours peeking out of their windows, telling her parents they saw her shrieking on the street.