#foxhunter

Like Declan asked, you make it to class on time the following Tuesday. This month your period has been a ravage on your body, so he’s lucky you came at all. 

While you were cooped up in bed all weekend, Declan hadn’t texted you anything else — thank god, or you seriously pondered blocking him for your own sanity. 

This was a game you started, and you’ll take full credit for that, but if it ever got too real you’re frightened of what you’d do, what Declan would do. It might be cruel, you or him or both of you might be leading the other one on, but for now it’s safe. Neither of you have done anything that can’t be excused otherwise, and it’ll be better to keep it this way. Limited contact will only help maintain that restraint. 

Staring down at Declan over the sea of students as he gives his lecture, it feels strange being the only other person in the room who knew exactly where he had been for the past few days. Declan was proud of his job at the BBC, but he didn’t boast about it; not yet, at least. When he gets promoted to host, you’re sure he won’t let anyone know the end of it. But for now, as an editor who works behind the camera, only faculty know about his second job. The intimate knowledge feels like a fishing line tethered between the two of you, and a simple tug will let the other know that you’re thinking about them. At least that’s the daydream your mind conjures up every time Declan’s eyes land on you during the lecture. 

You wonder if he wears the same suits to the BBC that he does to teach. He doesn’t have to since he isn’t on camera, but he’s the kind of person that you envision wearing the same clothes all the time. Decades will pass and he’ll still wear his knitted ties, his wool blazers. It makes the other day when you saw him disheveled, standing in the doorway to his hall in his underwear, all the more tantalizing. 

At the end of class, he calls out the page numbers that students need to read for their homework. As everyone bends to scribble it down for later, Declan sends you a sly wink. It takes your breath away and on your next inhale it feels like you just ran a marathon. 

The weak sound catches Lauren’s attention. From her seat beside yours, she asks quietly, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” you answer. But your ill-hidden smirk gives you away. Lauren looks up at Declan, the usual culprit of your flushing, and she gasps softly when she sees his expression is a mirror of yours. 

“You slag,” she teases fondly with a radiant smile. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you excuse yourself away as you pack your bag with haste to evade her interrogation. 

You can already hear her litany of questions, but then your phone rings. 

Lauren sees your expression fall and she pats your shoulder, “You’ve got this, kid. Whitney and I’ll be waiting for you at the cafe.” 

You see your friend off with a tight-lipped smile. Guilt still gnaws at the lining of your stomach because despite the emotional support you have from your friends, it won’t make taking this call any less harrowing. You answer and hold the screen that reads “Mom” up to your ear.

Her tone is joyful like it always is, and it still wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad if her tone matched the bitterness behind her words. 

“The least you could do is answer your phone. I called you over the weekend.”

“Mom, I’ve been really busy. I was trying to catch up on sleep, I got my period—“

“If your periods are that bad, you need to go to the doctor. I bet it’s a nightmare getting an appointment over there, though. Did you know that when they lived in Scotland, Aunt Anne took Chucky because he broke his arm—“

“And they were in the waiting room for hours, yes. That happens in the States, too.”

She pauses to choose her next weapon. “It would’ve been so much easier if you had just done your pre-med here. You’d be right down the street and I could do anything you needed.”

“I think it’s time I get in some healthy exercises of independence, don’t you think?”

“I’m still your mom”

“I know that.”

“But what do I know, right? Nobody listens to me anymore. Not you, or your father, or—“

“What are you talking about? We listen all the time.”

“You’re not here anymore so you don’t know what it’s like.” A self-pitying sigh before, “Well, go and have fun with your new friends. Pam Pembroke, you remember her, your fifth grade teacher? I ran into her at Target and she said that English majors have some of the worst job prospects—“

“I don’t care what she thinks. She hasn’t seen me in over ten years.”

“But I thought you liked her?”

“Mom, I have to go.”

“Okay. But oh, wait… can you call me back later when you have time? I wanted to post a collage on Facebook but it won’t let me…”

“Can’t Dad help you? I saw he just posted one with his work friends on a boat.”

“Ugh, that’s a whole other story. That’s why I’m asking you. He’s useless.”

Fire licks down your arm, seers your wrist and you throw your phone across the room. You bury your face in your hands, talking loud enough for Declan to hear through your shaky fingers, “I’m sorry.” Tears squeeze themselves out from behind your bottom lids and drop down your cheeks. You dab them away quickly.

You hear Declan’s shoes on the stairs, shuffling up slowly towards you. You place your hands on your hips and take a look around at the mess you’ve made. Sniffling, you raise your hand to the wall that now has a phone-sized dent in it, “Fuck, I’ll patch that. I’m sorry.”

Declan stops at your desk, about a foot away from you. You can feel the static in the air and you hate it. 

“Don’t worry about that,” he looks you up and down carefully. Softly, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It’s just my mom. She’s…” you take a deep breath. Wrong choice. More tears well in your eyes and you fight the way your mouth twitches downward into a frown. You're an ugly crier, she told you once. You can’t do this here, not in front of Declan. He hasn’t done anything to deserve the collateral from your dysfunctional family, who — you remind yourself bitterly — are overseas. You swipe your hand across the bottom of your nose, not caring about the clear streak your sadness leaves on your forearm. You’ll clean yourself up later when you’re alone; you need to get there now before this gets any worse. 

“She’s a lot sometimes,” you sling your backpack on, quickly making your way over to pick up your phone from the other side of the room. With your teeth clenched, you flip it over — screen is intact, thank god. 

Declan’s tall frame that had silently followed your footsteps startles you. You twist around him, getting to the stairs that lead down to the hallway. “It’s fine,” you excuse. “I’ll be fine. I’m sorry for that, that was rude of me to do.”

Your professor catches your arm, gently. You’re not sure who is more surprised, yourself or Declan, that you don’t pull away. 

“I’ve never seen you this upset,” he says quietly, boring his big, brown, mournful eyes into yours. His hand falls to his side when he’s sure you won’t scamper away. 

“It’s nothing I haven’t had to deal with before.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. 

You shrug, “It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” you tell him. 

“It’s not yours, either,” he says. He gazes at your shoulder, at the lock of hair begging to be put back after being rustled out of place in your frenzy, but he thinks otherwise. Ever quieter, he nearly whispers, “I hope someone has told you that before.” 

You nod, “I did—people have. Doesn’t make it any easier sometimes, though.” 

Declan contemplates, “I won’t hold you accountable for this week’s assignment. Go home and rest.”

Your heart pounds, pupils dilate, “No. Please, no. I need work to… disappear into.” Speaking the words that you’ve used to describe your thoughts only in your own mind out loud for the first time felt strange, but not unwelcome. Not in Declan’s presence. You up your persuasion, “Your class is easy. I can do it from my bed.”

A sparkle crosses his gaze, “I learned that when you sent me the picture of my book in your lap,” he teases.

The first break of laughter after being trodden by such grief was always funnier in itself than whatever inspired it. No more than ten minutes ago, you were bursting at the seams with rage. Now, deflated, you’re not sure how you ever got to that point. 

“If anything, I’d like something extra to read,” you sniffle, shifting your weight between your feet with uncertainty.

Declan stoops to meet your downturned eyes and only speaks when you look at him and mirror his smirk.

“Is that a request I’m hearing?”

You nod shyly. Declan tilts his head toward his desk, “C’mere.” 

There, he flips through thick pages of paper all stamped with the viscous ink and mechanical letters of a typewriter. Declan scans across them quickly, his lips moving silently as if cataloguing his thoughts to himself. 

He pauses on one where the text takes up less than half the page. He reads it over, twice, before he takes it from the pile and hands it to you. “Read this,” he says. “I think it’ll… be beneficial to you,” he shrugs and his nose scrunches like he’s unsatisfied by the choice of his words but doesn’t know what else to say. 

You put your bag on his desk and slide the typed poem carefully into the folder you keep for his class. “Thank you,” you chirrup before walking to the door. 

With your hand on the doorknob, Declan calls, “If you ever need anything…” 

His shoulders soften when you turn to face him. 

“I’m your friend.” 

He takes a steadying breath, “I know that processing pain can seem clearer when you’re alone.” His hands tighten into fists in his pockets, “Please don’t do that.” 

“I won’t now that I have something to accompany me,” you pat your bag fondly.

—

Hours later, when the moon hangs like a lure in the night sky, Declan O’Hara comes to a stop in his leisurely stroll to cure a wicked bout of insomnia and refills the tobacco in his pipe. 

The moonlight bleaches your skin as your hand reaches out to slam the shutters closed and blot out the pungent smoke from some rambling freeloader down on the sidewalk. 

Declan stares at the moon until green crescents photocopy themselves behind every blink. To calm himself while he untangles the mess in his heart, he whistles a tune that his grandfather taught him. 

You impatiently pinch at the knots in your headphone wire and shove them into your ears to drown out the midnight crooner. Thankfully, their interruption seems to be descending away from your window. On your second time reading through the poem Declan gave you, the words trip and fall over the mountains of frustration in your mind. The linguistic hares topple the jagged peaks into a quiet heap of rubble that is fit enough for you to sleep on. 

Memory

by William Butler Yeats

(1916)

One had a lovely face, 

And two or three had charm.

But charm and face were in vain,

Because the mountain grass

Cannot but keep the form

Where the mountain hare has lain. 

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next chapter! ->

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