for / @finclgicls
participants / finn & anita!
story / a year after anita and finn said their goodbyes, he's moved parishes to the city she now lives in after overhearing that someone saw her two months ago. he's got the added excuse of moving closer to his sister, and after two weeks since moving to town, he's unexpectedly run into anita by chance at a restaurant.
setting / a cute little lunch spot that his sister diana forced him to go to
ten months, almost a whole year, since he last saw anita. (not that he was counting, of course.) finnegan wanted to believe that he was okay. that he put her in the past. that, while he would probably always have some semblance of love for her, he could put it behind him and focus on the future. most of the time, he was able to do that. keeping himself busy was how he dealt with the crushing loneliness, how he quelled the urge to drink that, like his feelings for anita, would always be part of him. it was how he dealt with those urges, those feelings, that mattered. mind over matter—exactly what he told his parishioners and the suffering souls that attended his aa meetings.
it was easy to ignore how much he missed anita when he focused on said aa meetings, or the upcoming church carnival, the bake sale, the donation drive, the weddings, the funerals, the baptisms. as long as he was doing something, he didn’t think about her or wonder how she was doing. as long as he was doing something, he didn’t feel the temptation of walking to the liquor store and buying them clean out of wyoming whiskey. he kept his suffering to himself, despite his fellow clergymen and his bishop noticing something was wrong. as the months went on, it became easier and easier to convince everyone around him that he was fine. it became easier and easier to convince himself.
until he heard it. overheard it, actually. a few parishioners were chatting before service and finn had been absently listening as he prepared the pulpit. he didn’t pay much mind to it until mrs. munsey said it. said anita’s name.
‘oh, you remember that sweet girl that used to come here with her husband? anita, i think her name was. well, i just saw her last weekend. i went over to my sister’s for my nephew’s birthday and i walked right past her at the store! i tried to catch up to her but i guess i just missed her.’
finn had stopped listening after that. his heartbeat was thudding too loud against his ribcage and it drowned out everyone inside the church. he thought maybe he was having a panic attack, so he asked father paul to take over. the moment he returned to the rectory, the tears came again. it was so much better, so much easier, when he pretended that she had ceased to exist. not dead, of course, but like she had never been there at all. anita. anita, anita, anita. her name rang in his head over and over again, louder than church bells.
one year. it had been exactly one year since he last saw anita. it had been two months since finn put in a transfer to another parish. mrs. munsey was a talker, and the moment he had asked about her nephew, she divulged freely where exactly it was that her sister lived. that same afternoon, finn had requested a meeting with his bishop and asked about moving. it took some convincing, but the priest of the parish he wanted to transfer to had been thinking about retiring anyway, and the personnel board approved the transfer. no one explicitly told him, but finn figured he was approved to move simply because everyone could see how miserable he was, and thought a fresh start in a new place was exactly what he needed. almost as if god had willed it.
despite his insistence to move, finn had been sad to leave his parish. he had fostered relationships with his parishioners, but promised them they could always reach him by email if they needed his guidance. whenever someone asked why he was moving, he said he wanted to be closer to his family, which wasn’t exactly a lie. sometimes, finn could even believe it. diana was his only sibling that still kept in regular contact with him and while she had never truly accepted him joining the priesthood, always trying to skirt around the subject awkwardly, she never wanted to lose contact with her big brother. the stokely children lost too much already. she had been happy to hear he was moving within thirty minutes of her, much to his surprise, and it had made it easier for people to buy that he was leaving if he had an actual reason.
because, of course, no one could ever know the truth. finn wouldn’t even admit it to himself, that he was leaving his parish he had been part of for five years to chase a woman that he hadn’t seen in a year. a woman that hadn’t wanted him to follow her. a woman that, if she was lucky, had forgotten all about finn and how he hurt her by not being what she needed. what he was doing was incredibly selfish, and despite how he lied to himself about his reasons for leaving, he knew it was wrong. he should’ve let that bit of parish gossip go in one ear and out the other. he shouldn’t have let an overheard conversation dictate his future, and yet here he was, transferred to a new parish in a new city as of two weeks ago.
finnegan didn’t expect to come to his new church and find anita sitting inside, waiting for him. in fact, he didn’t even really have confirmation anita was even in the city. he was working off of information from an elderly woman that said she had seen anita, but not talked to her. it could’ve easily been a case of mistaken identity. or, maybe anita had seen mrs. munsey, then ran off to a new destination. he was working off a prayer, uprooting his life for someone that didn’t want him and he didn’t even know was there.
luckily, he did have diana there. the siblings had yet to reunite, their respective schedules too chaotic until an opening on a monday when they both could meet up for lunch. it had been awkward, as all of his meetings were with his siblings, but he had hoped they’d be able to work past it. he had been able to live without a close relationship to any of his siblings, but that didn’t mean he didn’t miss them, or want that to change. diana, for her part, was the only one that wanted the same. finn refused to speak to mason and maggie refused to speak to finn, so he had to be thankful at least one other stokely wanted to see him.
so, the pair met at a restaurant that diana had said was a ‘totally cute, super trendy’ bistro that she had been dying to try for weeks. finn hadn’t cared personally. his sister had a tendency to ramble when she was nervous, so he had no problem with her dominating the conversation. she had been regaling him with customer service horror stories from the past wedding season. being a florist, she had plenty, and finn nodded when appropriate and laughed in commiseration when prompted. he even started to open up himself, telling her about the memorable weddings he officiated since he saw her last christmas (usually the only time he did see his siblings, even if diana was the only one talking to each of them).
“i didn’t attend the reception, so i only heard about it later but i guess the groom was caught hooking up with the maid of honor in the bathroom about two hours after they cut the frickin’ cake.” finn laughed with a grimace, but it quickly died on his lips when he saw the expression on diana’s face. was that the wrong story to share? diana was a bit of a sweetheart, or an ‘empath’ as she called it, so maybe he had offended her instead of entertained her. finn rolled his lips together, putting his hands in his lap. he should’ve known he would fuck it up eventually. god, why couldn’t he just be normal around his sister?
diana had been looking past finn, as it turned out. her brow quirked before she returned her attention to her brother. “there’s some woman over there looking at us.” she said, jutting her chin towards the other side of the restaurant. “do you know her?”
“what?” finn wore a similar expression of confusion as his sister, turning in his seat to look at the mysterious woman that had stolen diana’s attention.
“she’s really pretty.” diana commented, stabbing her fork into her salad idly.
there she was. anita. finn gasped sharply. “holy shit.” he uncharacteristically cursed, which made diana laugh in shock. instantly, he rose from his seat and tossed his napkin on the table. “didi, i’ll be right back.” finn announced over his shoulder, already leaving his sister at the table to follow after anita.
“uhhh—okay?” diana stuttered, hands lifting in exasperation. finn could just be so weird sometimes, she thought to herself.
