“Because he’s maddening.” She was about to drink from her coffee cup but was overtaken with thoughts and put it down. “You must’ve noticed the way his mind never settles on anything for more than, like, two minutes. He’s just so random, it’s untrue. It’s partly his fault anyway, that all this—”
She stopped abruptly, gave the minimalist shrug again as if to suggest it wasn’t worth saying, and finished her coffee.
“Why was it his fault?”
“I didn’t say it was his fault, just partly.”
“But why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
She looked more bashful than he’d so far seen her, looking down at the coffee cup as she spoke, turning it around as if searching for a maker’s mark.
“Because if he’d shown any interest in me—proper interest—I wouldn’t have gone on Facebook. I wouldn’t have done any of this.”
“Oh, I see. Maybe he didn’t realize you liked him like that.”
“Of course he did.”
She looked up at him, and Finn made a show of accepting the point, then said, “He’s certainly a very good-looking guy. We went to a coffee shop and the waitress couldn’t take her eyes off him. Two girls at a neighboring table were the same.”
“It’s like that everywhere we go, and he’s not interested. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look at a girl like that. I’m not saying I think he’s gay, he’s just . . .” Finn was smiling now, and she stopped, looking a little offended as she said, “What?”
“Hailey, Jonas doesn’t look at other girls because he’s in love with you.” She looked as if he’d said something ridiculous. “I’m serious, I’ve known him a few days and I can assure you that he’s crazy about you.”
“I would know.”
“Clearly not. But you would probably need to make the running on this one, although it might be an idea to let the dust settle. And I also think you need to make a full and frank apology first, telling him exactly the ways in which you lied to him, and why.”
Even as he spoke, he realized his advice applied more urgently to him than it did to Hailey.
She shook her head, saying, “He’d never forgive me.”
“He would.”
“Anyway, it wouldn’t work now even if he does like me. I’m in love with Anders.”
She probably expected the usual adult response, that she was too young to know what she wanted, that Anders was a grown man, a grown man who almost certainly didn’t want anything to do with her now. Instead, Finn nodded and stood up. She stood, too.
“Life is like comedy—it’s all in the timing.”
She stared at him for a second, taken with the thought, perhaps flattered because he hadn’t given the adult-to-child speech, but then said sadly, “So what happened with you?”
With you and Adrienne, was what she meant.
“I suppose I’m not as funny as I thought I was.”
She smiled.
“You’re pretty funny,” she said, encouraging. “I wouldn’t give up writing the books . . .”
He laughed a little, and they walked out of the breakfast room and retrieved their bags. He’d warmed to her through that final part of their conversation, perhaps just because of the eternally innocent situation of two kids not realizing they were each in love with the other, misunderstanding all the signals, all the words spoken.
Of course, Finn wasn’t a kid and nor was Adrienne, and she’d know exactly why he’d chosen to turn up at Mathieu’s place with Hailey. He was using the girl as a convenient shield, someone he could hide behind while he tested the water and tried to find out how things stood between them.
It was cowardly, and he wished he could follow even a little of his own advice, and be open and truthful with her—about who he was, about how little she’d known of the real him this last four years. But how could that be a solution, when the truth was worse than what she had run away from?
History
On Sunday, they drove along the coast to Sofi’s parents’ house. Neither of them had a car, but Sofi had a long-standing arrangement to borrow a colleague’s Saab now and then. It was ancient but in beautiful condition, which Sofi always cited as her reason for not letting Finn drive it—her stand was one of personal responsibility rather than based on any knowledge of his driving.
Once in the passenger seat, Finn wound down the window and slightly adjusted the wing mirror. She didn’t say anything. The first time, he’d come up with some story or other and she’d laughed and made no more of it. She’d known pretty much from the beginning, he was certain of that.