Chapter 4: You’re nothing like anyone Ive ever met
The week passed in a blur of routine and loud silence. Fiona navigated the house on autopilot, her path a careful orbit that avoided the kitchen as much as possible. When she had to be in there, to make coffee or yell at Carl to take out the trash, her eyes never drifted to the bulletin board. That small, pinned square of paper felt radioactive, a silent accusation in the clutter.
She threw herself into the laundry, into managing the kids, into the mind-numbing exhaustion that left no room for thinking about blue eyes or quiet offers.
On Thursday morning, she was hustling to get Liam’s shoes on, late for his playgroup. The familiar chaos swirled around her—Lip arguing with the toaster, Debbie searching for a missing homework sheet. A sharp, official knock cut through the din.
She yanked the door open, ready to snap at a bill collector. A man in a grey uniform stood there, a clipboard in his hand. A large, boxy dolly was on the sidewalk behind him.
“Samsung washer?” he said, his voice bored.
“Not me,” Fiona said, already turning, dismissing him. A mistake. Someone had the wrong house.
“Gallagher, number 2119?” he asked, reading from his sheet.
She stopped. That was their address. “Yeah, it’s not ours. We didn’t order a washer.”
“It’s paid for,” he said, shrugging. “Want me to hook it up? Gotta get it off my truck.”
Paid for. The words didn’t compute. Nothing in her life was ever just paid for. There was always a catch, a hidden fee, a debt called in later. Her brain scrabbled. A mistake at the store?
Before she could form another protest, Vic’s voice came from behind her. “I thought you were broke.” V was leaning against the hallway wall, a cup of coffee in hand, having let herself in the back door like she always did. Her eyebrows were nearly in her hairline.
“I am,” Fiona said, bewildered. The delivery man was already maneuvering the heavy box—pristine, cardboard, new—through the door.
“Basement?” he grunted.
She just pointed, numb, and watched him haul the future down the creaking stairs. The sounds of him working—the grunts, the clang of pipes, the tearing of tape—drifted up. V sipped her coffee, her eyes tracking Fiona’s confused panic with amused curiosity.
After twenty minutes, the man came back up, dusting his hands on his thighs. “All set. Quiet as a kitten. You’re gonna love it.” He handed her a packet of manuals, gave a nod, and was gone.
The house felt suddenly, profoundly still. Fiona stood at the top of the basement stairs, listening. There was no familiar, jackhammer thumping. No metallic groan. Just the hum of the furnace and a low, steady swish she didn’t recognize.
“Go look,” V said, nudging her.
Fiona descended the stairs slowly. The old washer, her longtime nemesis, sat hulking and unplugged in the corner, a relic of rust and frustration. Beside it, gleaming a soft white under the bare bulb, was the new one. A Samsung. Digital display. It looked like a spaceship had landed in her damp, concrete reality.
Her throat felt tight. She opened the lid. The interior was blindingly clean, smelling of crisp plastic and possibility.
And lying in the bottom of the drum, a splash of color against the white, was a bouquet. Not from a fancy florist. The kind from a supermarket cooler, wrapped in green cellophane. Simple: daisies, a few carnations, a single red rose.
Her hands were unsteady as she reached in and pulled them out. Tucked among the stems was a small, plain card.
V had followed her down. “Well?” she said.
Fiona handed her the flowers, the card still nestled inside. She couldn’t touch it.
V took them, plucked out the card, and read it. Her expression shifted from curiosity to a slow, dawning understanding. “Joseph,” she read aloud, her voice flat.
“Uh huh,” Fiona managed, staring at the silent, gleaming machine.
“Who’s Joseph?” V asked, though her tone suggested she was already piecing it together.
Fiona finally looked at her. “The other night. After the… after Jim Fitz’s guys.”
V’s eyes widened. “Ohhh.” The sound was long, drawn out, full of implication. A slow smile spread across her face, not mocking, but profoundly knowing. “The kitchen floor guy. The one who didn’t run screaming.”
“He’s nineteen,” Fiona blurted out, as if that explained everything, as if it negated the washing machine and the flowers and the memory of his hands on her skin.
V ignored the number. She sniffed the bouquet, then looked from the flowers to the machine and back to Fiona’s stricken face. “Fiona Gallagher. A man buys you a major appliance. A quiet one. This is not a booty call. This is a declaration of war on your bullshit.”
“It’s too much,” Fiona whispered, the words swallowed by the new machine’s gentle hum.
“It’s exactly enough,” V corrected, her voice softening. She handed the card back. “Read it.”
Fiona took the small rectangle of paper. His handwriting was neat, clear.
Fiona -
Thought you could use a break from the noise. No strings. No expectations. Just… a break.
- Joseph
P.S. The aspirin worked. Lip’s a tough kid.
She read it twice. The simplicity of it was a knife to her ribs. No strings. No expectations. He’d listened. He’d heard the rattling beast in the basement, her armor, her exhaustion. And he’d replaced it with silence.
V watched her, the smile gone, replaced by a serious, loving scrutiny. “What are you gonna do?”
Fiona didn’t answer. She carefully placed the card back among the flowers. She walked back up the stairs, through the kitchen where her siblings were now fighting over the last pop-tart, and into the hallway. She stopped in front of the bulletin board.
Her eyes found the scrap of paper immediately. The numbers he’d written a week ago. They didn’t look like a threat anymore. They looked like a lifeline she was too terrified to reach for.
She reached out, her fingers hovering just above the pin. She could take it down. Crumple it. The machine was a gift she could rationalize, but this… this was a choice.
Her fingers didn’t close on the paper. They lowered, coming to rest on the chipped wood of the board beside it. She stood there, breathing in the scent of supermarket flowers she still held, listening to the new, profound quiet rising from the basement below.
The cardstock felt flimsy in her other hand, its message a quiet detonation in her chest. In the kitchen, someone dropped a plate. The crash shattered her stillness, sending her into motion with a familiar, gritted efficiency.
The day clawed forward. At the Laundry Room, the industrial dryers roared but all she could hear was that memory of silence. She caught herself staring at washer number three, its rhythmic slosh suddenly inferior. Liam played quietly, lining up his cars in a neat row instead of crashing them. Even the chaos seemed muted, holding its breath.
Back home, the silent machine was a presence. Debbie ran a load of her school clothes, mesmerized by the digital display. “It talks, Fi,” she said, watching the numbers count down. “It doesn’t sound like it’s dying.” Fiona just nodded, the observation lodging under her ribs like a splinter.
V came over that evening with a six-pack, her expression knowing. They sat on the back steps, the chill of the concrete seeping through their jeans. “So you’re gonna call the number,” V stated, not asking, cracking open a beer.
“I’m gonna tell him to take the damn thing back,” Fiona muttered, accepting the cold can. The lie tasted bitter. “It’s… it’s inappropriate.”
“Inappropriate?” V barked a laugh. “Honey, inappropriate was Frank trying to sell your childhood swing set for crack. This is a washing machine. It’s the opposite of inappropriate. It’s profoundly, boringly sane.”
Fiona took a long pull of beer, the hops doing nothing to settle the turbulence inside her. She pictured his face in the doorway, the directness of his gaze, the way he’d said just when I thought I collared my dream girl. Not a line. A confession.
Later, the house finally slept. The silence was a thick blanket, smothering. She lay in her bed, the springs groaning a familiar tune, and stared at the water-stained ceiling. The flowers were in a mason jar on her dresser, their cheap perfume now mingling with the scent of dust and old wood.
Her phone was a cold, hard rectangle in her hand. The scrap of paper with his number was tucked under her pillow, a stupid, childish thing that made her throat ache.
She dialed. The ringing was an agony, each tone a hammer strike. She almost hung up after the fourth.
“Hello?” His voice was clear, awake. No noise in the background. Just him.
She smiled into the dark, a reflexive, unwilled reaction her body betrayed her with. “How much you pay for it?” she asked, the words coming out in a rushed, accusatory whisper.
He let out a soft breath, almost a laugh. “I’m not telling you that. It’s a gift, so you’d remember the phone number.” A pause, his tone shifting, gentle but firm. “Which worked.”
“Your washer’s in the yard,” she said, rolling onto her side, clutching the pillow. “We don’t need it, okay? So you gotta come pick it up before it starts rusting.”
“Oh, is it?” he asked. She could hear the smile in his voice, a patient, infuriating certainty.
“No…” she admitted, the fight leaching out of her on a sigh.
“Did the guy connect it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s working okay?”
She closed her eyes. The hum of it was a new layer of quiet in the house’s nighttime sounds. “It’s not my favourite colour.”
A beat of silence on the line. Then his voice, lower now, intimate in the dark. “So you’ve tried it?”
She hung up. The click was absurdly loud. She held the phone against her chest, feeling her heart pound against the plastic. She was shaking her head, but the smile was still there, stubborn and wide and entirely hers in the empty room.
Sleep, when it finally came, was thin and restless, filled with the ghost of a hum that wasn’t there.
The morning alarm felt louder, crueler. She moved through the rituals by muscle memory: burning the toast, pouring Liam’s juice, hunting for Carl’s other shoe. The new machine ran a load of Ian’s work shirts, its operation a quiet, efficient purr from the basement that somehow highlighted all the other noise. It unnerved her.
She got Lip out the door for his community service, her warnings sharp in the morning air. She hustled Debbie toward the bus stop, her backpack half-zipped. Liam was heavy on her hip, his head tucked into her neck. The chaos was the same, but her place in it felt different, off-balance, as if the floor had tilted slightly overnight.
Once the last kid was dispatched, the sudden quiet of the house pressed in. She stood in the kitchen, the only sound the drip from the faucet she couldn’t ever seem to fix. Her eyes went to the bulletin board. The scrap of paper was a pale flag.
She grabbed her phone from the counter. Her thumb hovered. She walked outside into the sharp, clear morning, the screen door slapping shut behind her. The air was cool on her skin. She leaned against the peeling porch rail and hit call.
It only rang once. “Hey.” His voice was a warm rumble, familiar now.
She didn’t say hello back. The question was a test, a grenade she’d been holding onto since he’d said dream girl. “If that wasn’t bullshit,” she started, her voice tight, “what was I wearing?”
“Huh?” He sounded genuinely confused, thrown.
“First time you saw me. At the bar. Before the alley, before any of it. If that wasn’t a lie.”
There was a pause on the line, a space filled with the sound of his breath. She could almost see him thinking, his eyes looking inward. “Black top with silver trim. Blue jeans, faded right across the thighs. Thin shoes, straps… uhh, sandals. With your hair pinned up high, messy. Like you did it fast.”
Fiona stopped walking. She was on the patchy lawn now, frozen.
“Dangly gold earrings,” he continued, his voice softening, becoming sure. “They caught the light when you turned your head. They made me smile. A big watch, too big for your wrist. So it slid down your arm when you lifted your drink. But it looked great.”
Fiona listened, her breathing hitched. He wasn't describing an outfit from a catalog. He was describing moments, imperfections, the specific physics of her body in motion.
“You were dancing next to a redhead in a green dress,” he finished. “You were laughing at something she said.”
The precision was a devastating quiet. It left no room for argument. She felt exposed, seen in a way that had nothing to do with skin. She walked slowly to the porch steps and sat down, the cool wood biting through her jeans.
“Yeah,” she said, the word exhaled. “Jenna. It was her birthday.” She pushed her hair back, a defensive gesture. “So you were watching her. Who’s a lot better looking than me.”
“You think so? Really?” he asked. There was no guile in it, just a pure, curious disbelief.
“How come you’re not stalking Jenna, then?” The question was meant to be sharp, but it came out tired, genuinely wondering.
His answer didn’t come immediately. When it did, the words were measured, deliberate, like he was handing her something fragile.
“Because you think like that, and Jenna doesn’t. Jenna dances for an audience. You dance like there’s no one else in the room.” He let that hang for a second. “Your life’s not simple, Fiona. And you can’t stop it from showing. Because you’re no fake. You’re not lost. You don’t need finding.”
She closed her eyes, the phone pressed hard to her ear.
“The whole city belongs to the Jennas,” he said, and for the first time, she heard a thread of weariness in him, a depth that matched her own. “I’m sick of them. I swear, Fiona, you’re nothing like anyone I’ve ever met.”
The line hummed with silence. Not empty, but full. She had nothing to lob back, no deflection that could penetrate the raw honesty of what he’d just laid at her feet.
The silence on the line stretched, a live wire humming between them. It wasn’t empty. It was thick with everything she’d never let herself want, everything his quiet, certain words made suddenly, terrifyingly possible.
She laughed, a soft, breathy sound of pure disbelief, smiling into the phone. Then it went silent for a moment.
“Are you there?” he asked. “Fiona?” he asked quietly, the name a careful touch in the stillness.
Her thumb traced the rough grain of the porch step. She watched a brown sedan putter down the street, its muffler coughing. Her voice, when it came, didn’t sound like her own. It was decisive, stripped of armor. “Meet me at the train station. Dinner?”
“Okay,” he said, the word instant, a single breath of relief. Then the line went dead.
He hung up. She stood, her legs feeling new and unsteady. She walked back inside, the screen door whispering shut. The house watched her, full of its sleeping responsibilities. She moved through the kitchen, past the silent washing machine’s ghost of a hum, and grabbed her jacket from the back of a chair.
She walked to the train station. The late afternoon sun slanted gold and long, painting the cracked sidewalks. Her sneakers scuffed against concrete. Each block was a decision she didn’t talk herself out of. The air smelled of exhaust and coming rain.
Joseph ran. He’d been three blocks away, helping a neighbor haul an old mattress to the curb. He dropped his end, a rushed apology tossed over his shoulder. He sprinted, his long legs eating up the pavement, his heart hammering against his ribs. He took the station stairs two at a time, the metal echoing under his feet.
He burst onto the platform just as the 5:15 local was pulling out, its doors closing with a final sigh. The train’s bulk filled the space, a slow, gray wall separating the platforms.
“Fuck.” He mumbled, bending over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. The noise was immense, grinding steel and rushing wind.
When the train passed, the world rushed back in. And there she was, standing on the opposite side. She was leaning against a rusted beam, her arms crossed, watching him. She smiled, a small, private thing, and waved with just her fingers.
He straightened up, his breath still coming hard. He smiled back, a wide, unreserved grin that made him look every bit of nineteen. She pointed down at the stairs on her side, then turned and walked toward them.
He was moving before he thought, taking the steps down to the underpass in a controlled fall. The tiled corridor was cool and smelled of damp concrete and urine. He walked through it, his footsteps loud in the echo.
He came up the stairs on her side. She was waiting at the top, the evening sky a bruised purple behind her. He walked over to her, the few feet between them feeling like a distance he’d been crossing for weeks. He didn’t hesitate. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, his palms warm and slightly rough against her skin.
She looked at him, her green eyes searching his face, seeing the earnest certainty there, the want that had no sharp edges. He leaned down and kissed her.
It was soft, a question and an answer at once. Her hand went to the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the soft, black hair at his collar. She kissed him back, pulling him closer, the last of her resistance melting into the solid warmth of him. The world narrowed to the press of his mouth, the scent of his skin like clean cotton and summer air, the distant, rhythmic clatter of another train arriving somewhere they weren’t.
They broke apart slowly, foreheads touching. Their breath mingled in the cool station air. He kept his hands on her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones.
“Hi,” he said, the word a laugh, a prayer.
“Hi back,” she whispered.