“You know I hate maths.”

She nodded and pursed her lips, resting her head back against the wall. “You used to hate mitching, too.”

I cleared my throat. “I do it a lot these days. Skip class.”

Connie frowned, eyebrows pinching together. “I’ve noticed. You know you don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t. I just…Sometimes it’s easier, skipping those classes.”

“How’s your project in English going?”

I exhaled deeply. “Really good, I think. And you?”

“It’s alright. A bit harder, I suppose, doing all the work on my own now.” What bordered on a soft smile gave way to what I could only describe as abrupt discomfort. “I, um, heard you’re mates with Julia McMahon now.”

“Oh—oh, yeah. She was in Blockbuster’s a bit over summer and obviously, we talked a lot at Aidan’s party before, and we sorta just, uh, clicked. We get along well, you know?” I nodded and nibbled at my bottom lip, my fingers almost instinctively reaching up to fiddle with the chain still dangling from my neck, over my shirt. Connie’s eyes flickered quickly downwards before snapping away.

“Cool, cool.”

“How—how are things? I mean—like—how are you?”

“I’m…I’m okay. Things aren’t bad. They’re good, I guess.” Connie gulped, her gaze wavering. “How about you?”

I shrugged. “I’m grand. Well, like—as grand as can be I suppose.”

“Good. I—yeah. That’s good.”

I let my lips twitch upwards in the secret shadow of a smile and to my surprise, she did too. Her lips parted and I waited for her to speak, a small crescent forming in between her eyes. But then she clamored to her feet and smoothened the wrinkles out of her skirt instead. “Look, I think I’m gonna—you know—head. I might just go home, I mean—I have nothing important on this afternoon.”

“You don’t have to go. You were here first.”

“It’s alright, really.” Connie glanced away, and her voice lowered to a broken whisper. “I just—I can’t be here like this, Alex. I’m sorry.”

I considered saying something more. I contemplated offering her a cigarette, or maybe asking her a question. I thought about asking her to stay with me a few minutes longer there in the shade, alone and secluded, so that I might have time to break through the façade she wore and perhaps reclaim, even for the shortest of moments, a glimmer of what we lost. She walked past me, in the direction I had entered from, out toward the car park. Just before she turned the corner, I heard myself speak. “See you around, Connie,” I said quietly. She offered me a small shy wave before carrying on and I took one long, final drag before flicking my butt away.

* * * *

It didn’t take long for news that Alex Ryan had begun hanging out with ‘that lesbian’ from Holy Faith to spread like a bad dose of chlamydia. Being seen by Orla and the others on Parnell Street coupled with the fact that we had grown markedly closer, strolling through Halford together in the afternoons, sharing a bag of chips on the pier in the evenings, fueled gossip and hearsay that would have been unfeasibly hard to control even if we wanted to. Julia never liked being at the center of attention, something I had known right from the start. I learned that most of the time she managed to slip under the radar easily and blend seamlessly into the crowd but because of me she was thrust back into the spotlight even in her own school, back into the vision of the ever-prying eyes of our peers. It discomforted her, I knew, just as it discomforted Connie to be under constant scrutiny for the wrong reasons.