He put his hand on the table and, feeling a bit like I was reaching into a fire and was sure I was going to get burned, I reached my hand out and touched it. He smiled at me. The smile made me feel slightly fluttery, but not the bad sort of fluttery. It was kind of an odd sort of fluttery.

I ran my fingers up his arm just a little--my heart throbbing so hard I was certain the entire club could hear it. My face felt is if someone had lit it on fire and was probably that oh, so attractive radish with a sunburn color.

A little while later, after more small talk and playing with drinks that we never drank, he touched my cheek. He was--flirting with--me? I didn't know at all how to react to that. It was then--though, that my little puzzle from earlier came back. A face flashed up in front of me. I knew why that man, Henry, the one that Charlie said was Margarathe's cousin, looked familiar now. He looked like Finn--was that Henry the same as Finn's father, Henry. Because Margarathe was also cousins with Fitz-John. Oh god. My stomach dropped. Finn retracted his hand as something spasmed across my face.

"Your father, is he related to Fitz-John?" I blurt before I can stop myself. Finn jerks back like I slapped him.
"What?"
"I went to that wedding today and this man was there, Charlie said he was the cousin of the bride, he gave her away--and you look just like him."
"Yes," he admitted. "He's my uncle--my father's half-brother." I started to retreat a step.
"Damn it, Laura! Don't." His voice was both pleading and angry. "Yes, he's my uncle, but I've never even met him, Laura. He's half the reason Sawyer and I live with our aunts and not with our parents."

I hear the pain in his voice and I hate the fact that I caused it. I tentatively touch his shoulder, his breath hisses in, but he doesn't pull away from me. "I'm sorry--I-I..." I trail off, wondering why someone who is supposedly so cursedly good with words can't ever find the right ones when she needs them.
"It's okay." He shrugs. "Maybe I should have told you. I don't know."
"I don't either." I say. And I don't, I didn't have so many friends that I wanted to lose one to something that was no more in his control than the fact that my mother had been so useless was in mine. And would I have even trusted him to start with if I'd known who his uncle was?
"You're leaving for university this weekend, right?"
I nod. "Tomorrow evening, the train leaves at eight."

He pulls me into a tight embrace that leaves my head reeling--too much so to even hug him back, then he releases me, so fast I nearly stumble and melts back into the crowd, leaving me to stare after where he'd been the feeling of his arms still around me, and of his breath in my hair.

It's already dawn by the time I leave, walking home in the early morning light, feeling confused by everything that's happened.

It snowed the next day. It was odd leaving from the house. I locked the door behind me, hearing the old lock, it's tumbler turning awkwardly in the cold, for what might be the last time. My sisters had gone on the morning train, I had a few things to clear up before I left which is why I was going late.

I looked down the empty street at the old stoops and worn brick, wondering what I would find once I reached my destination, wondering if I would find anything there that would make this all make sense and somehow doubting it. Then I got into the taxi waiting to take me to the train station and left everything I knew behind.