#chapter sixty-two

The road was easy to walk on, and Mattie had no trouble. They talked as they walked, and Amber and Riley kept their eyes searching as they headed back into the trees.

“There’s a good stand of pine and fir up here,” Amber said, following along beside Mattie’s rope. He’d continued keeping Amber as his guide, just for the sake of conversation and staying part of their group instead of moving on his own. “We used to trim out some of the better smaller trees, so they’d have room to grow nice and full for future Christmases.”

“We kinda lost that good momentum about five years ago,” Mattie said.

“Well,” said Riley, with a nod. “In that case, if we see any future trees here, I’ll cut around them.”

Amber smiled at him. She had a thought that he might be planning for their future trees, for his future here. She bit down on the moment of excitement, not wanting to get too far ahead of herself.

“Are you sure you don’t want a tree, Xav?” Riley asked. “Amber and I will come help with it.”

Mattie shook his head. “No, it’s just too messy and in the way, and I don’t really need one over there, since I just come over to Amb...” His voice trailed off. Maybe Amber wouldn’t want him hanging out there Christmas morning this year. Maybe Amber and Riley wanted to spend their Christmas alone together. Maybe he was inviting himself into something he hadn’t been invited to. Things change, he knew, but he hadn’t thought this far. “I mean, I can’t even see it anyway, so it’s pointless, really. You guys just pick one you like.”

“A big one,” Amber said with a grin. She looked at Riley. “A nice big one. I promise Xav and I will do the dragging if you do the cutting.”

“Sounds fair enough,” said Riley.

Mattie listened to their soft footsteps in the snow, and turned his head, smelling the pine. “We’re here,” he said.

“How do you know that?” asked Riley, looking up at the trees around them.

“I can smell them,” Mattie replied. “And I can hear them.”

“You can hear them?” Riley asked, a smile of disbelief across his face.

Amber nodded along with Mattie. She knew he could hear the trees, and when she listened the way he did, she could hear them, too.

“They eat the open sound. They make it sound blanketed, only higher up. They eat the sound of the air. And if it was windy, they would tell me exactly how tall they are, too.”

Riley looked back up at the trees that they were entering. He nodded back at Amber before looking at Mattie. “Things I never knew,” he said. “That’s pretty amazing.”

“It seems amazing,” Mattie informed him, “until put into practice. Then it just seems... obvious.”

Riley laughed. “I suppose that’s probably true,” he said, thinking about it. “I wish you could hear when there’s a good one.”

“Like, if it’s a Christmas tree, I can hear Christmas carols very faintly in the direction?” Mattie joked.

“That’s it! Can you do that?” Riley teased back. He was beginning to get bold about his comments to Mattie, no longer afraid of saying the wrong thing every time. In turn, Mattie had gotten more comfortable around Riley. Riley had seen how Peter joked with Mattie, and how Amber and Mattie zinged each other often and with pleasure. He’d tested the boundaries a little, and found Mattie could take it and he could dish it. He looked over at Mattie who was grinning and he laughed.

“So, can you see anything?” Mattie asked them.

“We’ll just walk a little further in and then go off the road and look in the good groves,” Amber said, starting to walk again. Mattie firmed up his hold and moved with her.

It took some time and some searching, and finally Riley called over to Amber, who was across the road in another stand of fir. Mattie stood in the snowy road track, listening to them snapping branches along the ground as they searched in the trees for the perfect one.

Amber crossed in front of Mattie, telling him they’d be a second, and headed into the trees on Riley’s side. Shortly thereafter, Mattie heard the sound of a tree trunk being sawed through. He wasn’t sure if this would be the tree, since Riley had done as he’d promised, and cut out around a few of the promising looking young trees, but he waited with hope.

Soon enough, the sound of boughs brushing against boughs and footsteps and grunts came closer and Amber called to Mattie.

“I think we have it! Here, what do you think?”

“I’ll hold it,” Riley said. “You stand back and see what you think.”

Amber linked her arms with her brother’s, standing with him to appraise the tree.

“It looks great from here,” Amber said. “Turn it a little, let us see the other side.”

“How tall is it?” Mattie asked.

“It looks shorter than it is,” said Amber. “What do you think, Ry? Eight feet?”

“At least,” he said.

“Is it full or narrow?” Mattie asked.

“It’s full, but not so full there’s nowhere to hang anything. The branches are sturdy, too, because it’s a bigger tree, so it’s good for decorating.”

“Sounds perfect for you then,” Mattie said.

“Come see,” Amber said, walking forward with him, putting his hands along the girth of the tree as Riley continued to hold it. He pulled off his gloves and brushed his hands over the branches, smelling the evergreen scent as he did so.

“You help me carry it home, Xav?” she asked him. She smiled over at Riley.

Mattie nodded and Riley let the tree down gently. Amber grabbed a heavier branch near the cut end of the tree on one side, and Mattie grabbed one on the other side, and they started homeward. Mattie stumbled in the snow a couple of times, the tree pulling him backwards, but he managed to stay off the ground. Mattie hoped Riley hadn’t been too aware of his awkward moments, but he couldn’t be sure, since Riley wouldn’t say anything if he had been.

They had enjoyed the walk, but they were glad to reach the house. The tree felt heavier as the journey progressed, and the snow pulled them back against their momentum. They veered off toward Amber’s, and Riley stood the tree in the snow, against the shed, so it could take up water until they were ready to bring it inside.

“Hot chocolate for everyone!” Amber called, heading inside. “Come on, Xav, come in for hot chocolate.”

“I’m coming,” Mattie said, following the other two. He stopped to take off his boots and coat, and he put them in their usual places in the entry. His fingers were cold, and the idea of a nice warm mug to hold onto sounded really nice right now. He pulled the cane from his waistband and hooked it beside his coat on the peg and walked into the kitchen where the other two were already setting the kettle on the stove and getting down mugs. Mattie washed his hands, but the smell of Christmas still lingered, and when he sat to drink his hot chocolate, Amber tapped an unwrapped candy cane on the back of his hand for him to stir it with, and he had that same feeling he’d had earlier, remembering Christmases past and feeling the potential of this one to join the best of the best.

The two concerts Christopher Garnet had booked were in two separate places, a week apart. The first was the university benefit, and would raise money for several student issues. This was their show now, they’d earned a following as favourites of the campus.

“Who knew?” said Garnet. “I mean, James and I just started this because we liked to jam together, and now we have a legit band. Now we just need a roadie to help with the gear, and we’re set.”

“Two concerts a year, I don’t think we require a roadie just yet,” said Kyle Dempster.

“Oh, ho, such a Donny Doubter,” teased Christopher. “Hey, Xav, you got your groupies coming tonight?”

Mattie grinned. “The whole creative writing class is coming,” he said. “And my sister and a bunch of friends.”

“Good, good recruiting. They’ll all make a lot of noise.”

“I’ve trained them all to make a lot of noise,” Mattie joked.

“We’ll head down there around six-thirty, I guess,” Garnet said. “Gives us time to rehearse a bit more and get something to eat or whatever. You guys coming with us for some food?”

“Who’s all going? Where are you going?” asked Kyle.

“Xav and I are going off campus to Giorgio’s.”

“I’m coming,” said James. “I like their chicken penne.”

Kyle and Lena both agreed that sounded good, so the plan was made, before they got back to practicing. They had four songs they would be covering, and they’d added their own flair to them. Lena sang one song, and Mattie loved it when she got to show her voice off instead of just accompanying Garnet with harmony. They’d also chosen a song that they got a kick out of watching Mattie play on the piano. It was a song that built and built into a crescendo, and Mattie became deeply involved in his playing, hammering the chords, flourishing with upper keys. James told Mattie the first time they played it that he was sure Mattie was going to stand up and kick the bench away like Jerry Lee Lewis.

Mattie hadn’t realised that, one, they were watching him, and two, he was such a showman. He often imagined no-one could see him behind the piano, and he imagined that everyone was watching the others. In his mind, they were the stars and he was just the guy playing the piano. In his world, he forgot sometimes that people could see him all the time, and not just when he felt them staring at him in an awkward situation.

He’d asked them if it was too much, did he look like a madman? Did he look too blind? Did he make a scene? Did he embarrass them?

“No, Jeez, Dude,” said Garnet. “You gotta do it like that when we perform it. That was... well, that was dope, Man.”

“It was so good,” said Lena. “You look like a rock star, that’s all, a major rock star.”

Mattie smiled. “Good,” he said. “That I can deal with.”

“Now he’s gonna go put on that leather jacket and sunglasses and we won’t be able to endure the ego,” Kyle quipped from his drum-kit.

Mattie laughed out loud. “Okay,” he said. “What next, jokers?”

Amber was excited as she and Riley and Fiánne entered the front hall of the auditorium. They were meeting up with Peter and Chloë inside, and Amber was eager for Chloë to meet Fiánne, as well.

Fiánne had been quiet, and Amber knew better than to make a big deal about it. She knew from growing up with Mattie that a person didn’t push people when they fell quiet. One just carefully carried them along, making sure they didn’t panic, and getting them through whatever they felt afraid to run out and experience. She gave Fiánne some encouraging smiles, realising how well they comforted someone all over again. She missed being able to give an encouraging smile to her brother, but she had adapted by turning it into an encouraging squeeze of her hand. It seemed to work as well, Amber had found, relieved.

Amber looked at Fiánne, and winked at her, standing in the mingling crowd. Fiánne, smiled anxiously, trying to give assurance that she was completely happy. Amber knew once the music began, Fiánne would relax. The girl had admitted to running down at least six Walkmans in her youth, a Discman, and was on her third MP3 player. She couldn’t tell Amber the amount of headphones she’d gone through in a lifetime. She’d grown up needing music, she listened to the radio at night to fall asleep since she was seven. She liked many different kinds of music, and loved what she loved, and what she did not, she found actually made her feel angry and impatient inside. There were songs she played repeatedly until she stopped listening to them altogether. There were some songs, she told Amber, that she could not listen to often, because they made her feel so emotional, they were too beautiful for her to take in without shattering.

Amber told Mattie this, and she watched his face as she relayed Fiánne’s association with music. Her sensitive emotions were tied to music, and Mattie, his own music so important, was highly tuned to someone’s intrinsic attachment and emotion towards sound. Though Amber had already told Fiánne she should join them sometime when Mattie’s band played, it was Mattie who made the invitation official. He wanted Amber to bring Fiánne to the benefit to hear different music. He knew there were some jazz musicians and an opera singer, and he knew there was a small string orchestra. He had heard that there was a singer from Somalia and he was sure she would find it engaging.

Amber also wanted Fiánne to see and hear Mattie up there on the stage. So his invitation extended was the only excuse she needed to get the girl out of her comfort zone and into Mattie’s.

Chloë met them exuberantly, and greeted Fiánne with enthusiasm. Peter had mentioned driving her to Amber’s place, but he’d said nothing of his suspicions of his best friend’s interest in her. Amber also had told Chloë about Fiánne, and now Chloë understood what Amber had meant when she said Fiánne’s appearance was a mixture of Victorian, faerie, hippie, hipster, and artistic pieces.

Fiánne wore a long royal blue skirt, which looked like it was made of veleveteen. She had a pair of black boots with chunky heels and there appeared to be a white ruffle peeking out from her hem. She had taken off her coat, and underneath was a black cardigan, close-fitting, with big silver buttons. She wore a series of different bracelets on her arm. Her hair had been left loose, long down her back, a curtain she could draw across her forehead if she desired.

Amber saw that Fiánne used her hair to hide her emotions just as Mattie did when he closed his eyes or lowered his face. When she didn’t want to be seen, when she wanted to keep herself comfortably safe, she dipped her head and her hair fell across her face, instantly separating her, protecting her. Mattie did the same thing by closing those unseeing eyes, keeping his most personal pain to himself.

Chloë put her hand gently on Fiánne’s back, guiding her forward as they headed into the auditorium, chatting excitedly to her, centring her away from the crowd and into a small space of comfort. They all found their seats, up near the front, almost to the centre. Fiánne sat between Amber and Chloë, glancing at the programme on her lap.

Once the entertainment began, Fiánne didn’t think about the audience around her. She closed her eyes, listening, and sometimes she leaned forward, as if she needed to breathe in the music, to see it and feel it as well as hear it. There was a dance number with a couple that performed in many different styles, and Amber could see the adoration on Fiánne’s face. She was glad Fiánne had agreed to come.

Their meal had been what they’d needed, both a boost to their energy, and to calm any nerves, and Mattie and his friends paid the bill and headed back to the university auditorium. They were all directed to a room in the back to wait.

“Well, it’s bigger than some of the ones we get put into,” said Garnet as they went in. “It’s not a broom closet, anyway.”

Mattie, holding Lena’s elbow, entered the room with the others. They put their instruments down and Lena showed Mattie to a chair. They tried to keep their stage jitters to a minimum and kept things light and joking. They tuned and retuned the guitars and the bass. Mattie knew the auditorium piano would be already in place when he got out there, and he was assured it was the same upright piano he’d played on each year before, so he was already acquainted with its sound.

They were given a ten-minute call, and then a five-minute call, and they were ready to go when the woman with the clipboard came for them. Kyle, who, like Mattie, had his instrument on stage already, gave Mattie his elbow, and they followed behind Lena, who looked like she might burst out giggling with nervousness.

Mattie felt the sound get small as they went up the little back stage steps into the wings behind the curtains, and then it burst forth as they moved out to the stage. He took a deep breath, letting his whole body relax as he exhaled, and he carefully made his way across the stage with Kyle guiding him, his cane alerting him to any amplifier cables that might trip him up. He couldn’t help but smile when he heard the cheer from the crowd, and Garnet’s laughter.

Kyle slowed up and Mattie reached out, feeling the end of the piano keyboard, the polished old wood comforting under his fingers. He reached down and felt the bench, and slid onto it, collapsing his cane and locating the microphone attached to the piano cover.

“Y’okay?” Kyle asked before moving to his drum kit when Mattie nodded in response.

Mattie knew the set list order. He knew Garnet would give him a heads up if anything changed. The one thing he hated on stage was the inability to make the connection with the other band members, the acknowledgement of a glance, the appreciative nod of a particular moment in playing together. He was left out of that, and they noticed it, too. The music had to be enough. They had to keep their connection with him through the music, because otherwise, he was in his own world right in the middle of theirs.

Amber clapped hard, hearing the others around her cheering as Mattie and his band crossed the auditorium stage. She grinned over at Fiánne, who, in one of her rare moments of genuine happiness, had sparkling eyes and an open smile as she returned Amber’s gaze. They both turned back to watch Mattie find his seat and the drummer to return to his kit.

“Whoo, Matt-ee!” Amber yelled, and she saw her brother smile and dip his head bashfully. She’d just let him know he was full in view, and she was glad she’d done it. He needed to know he wasn’t invisible, he was just as important as all the others.

The band started in on their playlist, and with every song, the crowd grew more excited, most staying standing. Amber and Chloë danced in place, and coaxed Fiánne to join them. Fiánne desired nothing more than to dance, but she felt restricted, tied to her place. She smiled and nodded her head to the beat, bopping up and down a little every now and then. But though her body barely moved, Amber saw the younger woman’s face, and her eyes, which danced with joy. She had closed her eyes to the earlier music, taking it in through her ears and her body, but now, her eyes remained fixed on the man at the piano. When she saw Amber looking at her, she’d move her focus to the bass player or the drummer, admiring them all as a cover for her obvious attention, until Amber had gone back to her dancing and cheering.

“Aw,” said Amber, “Last song!”

“Really?” said Fiánne. She’d lost track, the songs had become one, or a dozen, she couldn’t remember. It hadn’t been long enough a set, she knew that. But Amber had looked at the programme, and Amber had paid attention. She tried to stretch the last song out, to feel each note and remember it. For a moment, she felt like this moment would end, and nothing would come after it, but Amber squeezed her arm, and Fiánne knew that there would be more, that the goodness would not be over.

Fiánne joined in when everyone cheered, and she even stomped her feet with everyone else, gleeful at the look of pure happiness on Mattie’s face as he stood up from his bench to acknowledge their applause. Garnet gave a nod to the crowd, a thank you for their appreciation, and Lena smiled over the audience, feeling both proud and embarrassed.

“Merry Christmas,” said James in a deep voice, into the microphone.

“Yeah!” said Garnet. “Merry Christmas!”

That was Mattie’s cue. They’d planned it that if there was enough of a reaction, they would encore with a jazzed-up version of The First Noel, and Garnet would utter the phrase Merry Christmas. James had prompted him, and with Garnet’s words, Mattie hit the coda of the Christmas carol and Garnet and Lena began singing.

Mattie wished at that moment that he had concert piano training. He wanted to do a rolling crescendo with gigantic flourishes, like he imagined in his head. He wanted to pull out the Liberace-style moves, and totally drop jaws. He did his best to give it everything he had, just concentrating on the music coming back to him, and the feel of the keys under his fingers. Everything else disappeared, and Mattie could see the piano keys so clearly behind his eyes that he wondered if maybe his sight had been there all along.

It was over before he knew it, and he sat, breathing heavily, realising how much effort had gone into the music he’d thrown out there. There was huge applause, and for a moment, he was glad they were distracted, so he could catch his breath and listen as the band took their deserved praise. But Garnet wasn’t having that, he ran over and tapped Mattie’s arm.

“Hey, Man, come on, you deserve yours.”

Mattie snapped back into focus. He was on the stage, he was part of the band, and Garnet wanted him to stand to get his applause with them. He reached for his cane, and fumbled with it. Garnet waited patiently and in a moment, Mattie was walking out to meet the others, holding Garnet’s elbow. The crowd clapped harder, and Mattie could hear Chloë and his sister yelling his name. He could hear Peter give a whoop and a big wolf whistle, and he grinned, abashed. Garnet held up Mattie’s hand, and then pulled him with him as he bowed.

Fiánne clapped until her hands stung. She watched as the singer with the guitar walked behind the piano to get Amber’s brother. Her heart felt warm and ready to burst inside her chest as Mattie carefully made his way across the cables and around the equipment, holding Garnet’s elbow and his cane. She hadn’t expected them to be so good. She hadn’t expected Mattie to be a rock star, but there he was, in a group bow on the front of the stage. The band members all laughed, thrilled at the response to all their hard rehearsing, and they took up their instruments and headed from the stage.

“Come on!” said Amber, her cheeks flushed. “Get your stuff together, we’ll go back and get him.” She ushered the two women and two men quickly to the doors so they could loop around and head to the backstage. They searched the people mingling around, looking for Mattie.

Amber saw him first, and called for him. Lena saw her and nudged Mattie, letting him know his fan club had arrived, and she turned Mattie in the direction of his friends squeezing through the groups of people.

“Hey, Rock Star!” Amber called to him, and he grinned. She ran over, patting his arm before hugging him. “You were so awesome!” She glanced around at the others in the band. “You were all so awesome. That was amazing!”

Chloë, Peter, and Riley all joined, patting his back, hugging him, giving the band their appreciation.

Amber, her arm around Mattie’s waist, nodded at Fiánne. “Someone came to see you play,” she told Mattie. She clarified so that Fiánne didn’t have to, and so that Mattie didn’t need to wonder for long. “We have Fiánne with us.”

Mattie’s smile got even brighter. “Fiánne?”

“Hi, Matthew,” Fiánne said, shyly. Mattie stepped forward, and Fiánne felt braver. “Wow, you can really play that piano!”

“Yeah? Thanks. I can play, Amber wasn’t exaggerating much.”

“No, I mean, you can really play that piano,” Fiánne said, her meaning more clearly emphasised. “I didn’t disbelieve Amber. I just didn’t know you would bring down the house.”

Mattie laughed, trying to shrug off her praise. “I have a good band around me.”

The group of friends stayed and talked to the band members for a while, and then Amber, still with her arm around her brother, nudged Mattie. “You coming with us? Or are you going out with the band to celebrate?”

“We went out and celebrated first,” Mattie said. “Now, I think I’m ready to head home.”

They bade farewell to Mattie’s band mates, and invited Peter and Chloë to stop into Amber’s on their way home.

They headed to Riley’s car, and Amber opened the back door for Mattie as he collapsed the cane and took off his messenger bag. “You can have the front, if you want,” she told him.

Mattie shook his head. “No, that’s okay. You can sit with your beau.”

It hadn’t been lost on him that the only other place left open for Fiánne was the seat beside him as he climbed into the car, careful to keep his hand on the rim of the roof so as not to hit his head. He heard the door on his left open, and Fiánne slid into the seat, shutting the door and locking her seatbelt around her middle.

He tried keeping a friendly smile on his face, without looking like a serial killer clown, and he was glad it was dark, and that he was hiding behind sunglasses. He couldn’t let anyone in on how much his heart was thudding in his chest, and how her scent was making his imagination soar. He couldn’t let this crush make him weak. He wasn’t going through all that again.

“You guys really were amazing,” Fiánne said. “Thank you for inviting me to come, you guys.”

“Of course!” said Amber. “You are always welcome to join us.”

Mattie nodded. “I’m glad you had a good time,” he told her.

Amber started discussing the acts and they soon were remembering the different performers of the night, listing top picks. Amber told Mattie the favourite bits in his band’s playlist, and Riley and Fiánne joined in with their own. Mattie was still on a concert high, and took every comment and compliment with pride and pleasure.

“So, I take it you’re coming out to Amber’s,” he said to Fiánne.

“Yes. She invited me back, so I guess I didn’t wear out my welcome.”

“You will never wear out your welcome with me,” Amber told her, turning back toward Fiánne.

Fiánne smiled, and took a sideways glance toward Mattie, and smiled a little more to herself.

When they reached the house, Peter and Chloë were already parked in the driveway, waiting. Amber let everyone in and Riley headed to get the wood stove pumping and Amber turned up the baseboard heating until the stove was putting out heat. Amber put on tea and coffee, and took out a tin of Scotch Cakes she’d made a few days earlier in her Christmas baking preparations. She took two out of the tin as she put it on the coffee table, and put them into her brother’s hand before heading back to the kitchen. Chloë told Mattie his favourite seat was free, so he didn’t have to guess if he was going to attempt to sit on someone’s lap.

“Thanks,” he said, nodding gratefully.

Mattie was praised and complimented some more, and once again, different acts were discussed and chosen as favourites. Peter said he might consider being Mattie’s roadie if the pay was good, and he wanted a band jacket in the deal.

Mattie listened for Fiánne’s voice, and his intrigue only grew, as the girl shyly sat listening and not interjecting much at all. But he knew she was sitting on the far end of the chesterfield, and he felt her there, somehow. His focus was drawn to that spot, he felt on edge with that spot, that obvious presence she didn’t know she had. He knew he wasn’t making it up. It was like how people could hear electricity in one of those power company boxes, one could feel it, and yet, if a person looked, there was nothing to see. There was nothing for Mattie to see, and yet, she was giving off electricity. He wondered if anyone else felt it.

Peter rolled joints, and Mattie soon found his thoughts running even further away. Somehow, he managed to maintain his cool. He didn’t ignore Fiánne, nor did he focus all his attention on her. He and Peter started razzing each other, and everyone giggled when they got on a roll.

Though Mattie was highly tuned into Fiánne’s presence on the other side of the table, he didn’t know that Fiánne saw him joking with his friends, and having a good time, and she felt mixed emotions. She wanted to be next to him, she wanted him to want to be next to her, she had thought when he sat in the back in the car that maybe he wanted to get to know her better. But he wasn’t being any different to her than Riley or Peter, and her small hope that maybe he liked her was only just in her imagination. She knew he had no reason to be interested in her, she was mixed up in some stupid ex-fiancé drama, and unlike Mattie, she didn’t have a close family to warm to anyone, anyway. Her mother was so spiteful, she still insisted Fiánne had made a huge mistake by leaving the only man who could ever love her and provide for her. Her mother had made it clear that Fiánne was too quiet, too intense, too different, too eccentric, too quirky, too weird. She wasn’t worth the effort of accepting all that, her mother said.

But she could not damper down the warm feeling in her middle as she watched him, and every time he addressed her, it grew up into her chest, and she felt it in the blush on her cheeks.

Mattie handed Peter the joint he had just taken a puff off of, and leaned back, happily buzzed from adrenaline and THC. He lifted his sunglasses, rubbing at his eyes, chuckling at Peter’s latest comment, and then pushed the glasses back up his nose. He’d forgotten he’d had them on, and that realisation seemed kind of funny. He wondered if anyone else thought it was strange that he left them on in the house, at night. He felt like if he took them off now, it would be more obvious, and all of a sudden, the thought made him feel naked. He decided he was over-thinking the whole thing, again. He left them on and turned his attention back to Peter.

The evening was over, in Fiánne’s opinion, too quickly. The music, the excitement, the wonderful friends Amber had, and the memory of Matthew up on the stage, playing that piano so intently all made her never want to go to sleep again, for fear that the memory and the new-found joy might disappear.

Chloë and Peter said good night, and Chloë gave everyone a hug, including Fiánne, telling her how glad she was to meet her at last. Riley was heading to the northern part of the province in the morning, so he was going to go back into the city. Fiánne felt badly, saying she didn’t want him to leave on her account. Amber and Riley both assured her that she shouldn’t feel that way, he couldn’t stay anyway, and either way, she was welcome, no matter what.

Mattie left when Riley did. He had the foresight to know that if he left later, it would feel awkward. Somehow, it would become obvious and stupid, and he did not want to choose that feeling. So, wishing the girls to have a great night, he went out the door with Riley, waving over his shoulder as he reached the post with his guide rope.

This time, he was one-hundred per cent glad he was heading home. He knew he would have been ridiculous to linger back there. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself when he knew the outcome. Lovesick was not becoming to him, that he knew as well.

The moment the door closed, Fiánne felt her heart deflate. She smiled at Amber who returned from the kitchen with another cup of tea for her.

“What a fun night,” she said to Amber. “I’m so glad you invited me. I really like your friends. They’re all so nice.”

“They are. And they are sincere and trustworthy and honest, so what you see is what you get. I love them all. Peter and Chloë are pretty much newlyweds. They are such an amazing couple, really good people.” Amber smiled at Fiánne. “That’s why you’re going to fit in nicely.”

Fiánne smiled and shook her head. “I never fit in,” she said.

Amber’s smile faded, and then reappeared. “That’s because you never met us until now.”

Fiánne smiled more genuinely. “Is that it?” she asked

“I reckon,” Amber replied.

Fiánne chuckled.

“You are so cool, Fee. I’m so happy to know you. We all are. So you just be you, and we will enjoy your youness.”

Fiánne laughed, and nodded again. She always felt like she needed to be someone else, that who she was was never going to be right, never good enough for any situation. She wanted to believe Amber’s thinking that she would be accepted and they wouldn’t push her away once they knew more about her, but she couldn’t really ever crush that hateful little feeling. It wouldn’t go away, no matter how much she wanted to trust Amber’s words.

“Come on, Hun, let’s go put on our jammies, and see what is on television. We’ll just sit and girl-talk until we get drowsy. Oh, and I’ll show you my new shoes, I think you’ll appreciate them.”

Fiánne felt her heart warm again. She hadn’t had girl-talk and best-friends-in-jammies-sleepovers in a long time, since she’d lived with her foster-sister. She felt wary of thinking things were starting to really get better, she was starting to feel pleasure and joy in the days that passed, and she anticipated days ahead, but it could all go away again. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. Hope lost was one of the worse feelings ever, and it was much easier to expect nothing than to feel the pain of a lost dream.

However, in pyjamas, she rejoined Amber in the living room, the little golden ray of hope and love and friendship quietly getting bigger than the hateful little feeling of worthlessness beside it.