Please, Shan. The second you see him, text me. I need to know he’s safe.
I will.
I mean it, okay? Please just… just text me, okay?
I promise. x
QUIET WARNINGS
JOEY
My father got in my head again, but this time it was different.
Because this time his words meant sense to me. They had gotten through the walls I’d built up to keep everything out. Because this time I finally understood what he meant.
If he had walked away from Mam back in the beginning, everything would be so different.
Hell, not even in the beginning, if he’d just walked away after Darren’s rape, when it was just the three of us and Mam, then we might have made it. We might have been able to pick up the pieces and build some semblance of a life for ourselves.
But he didn’t leave and the repercussions of him staying had sent shockwaves through multiple lives. Worse than sending shockwaves, the repercussions had ruined us.
Would that happen with me?
Would the baby growing in Molloy’s stomach turn around some day and resent me for not being a man enough to walk away and give him the chance of a decent life?
Would I have a son who hated me as much as I hated my old man?
Would he resent his mother like I resented mine?
Would he fall into the same pattern of addiction that I had?
Was I forever destined to repeat the cycle, and then produce more sons to carry on the fucked-up gene?
Jesus , I could barely breathe just thinking about it.
It was for those reasons that I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t go to her.
Not tonight, at least.
Dejected and thoroughly demoralized, and with my father’s words still fresh on my mind, I returned to the only place I felt some semblance of control over my life.
“Word on the street is the shades lifted your ass from that prissy private school today,” Shane said when I walked into the sitting room of his shit-hole house and slumped down on the couch. “Fighting with the rich boys, Lynchy? Never a smart move.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, dropping my head back to rest against the couch. “Sounds about right.”
“Heard you snagged yourself a fancy-assed barrister to get the charges dropped.” Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he turned to give me a hard look. “Heard you were spilling your guts to that fancy-assed barrister. Had the judge weeping like a little bitch over your sad little life story.”
I stiffened, noting the threatening lilt to his voice.
“Relax, I didn’t say shit,” I growled, giving him a what do you take me for look. “I’m no rat, Shane.”
“You better not be, kid,” he replied coolly. “Because you know what happens to rats.” He narrowed his eyes. “They get poisoned. Right along with every member of their little rat family.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I spat, forcing down the urge to shudder, as I slipped my hand into the front pocket of my school trousers and pulled out what was left of my wages. “Just give me some oxy and a few benzos to get through the night.”
He stared at the money in my hand for a long moment before blowing out a breath and reaching for it. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, kid, but if you’re palling around with lawyers, then you’re no friend of mine. If you’re thinking about jumping ship, then forget it, because you’re in as deep as I am. There’s no walking away from this world, Lynch.”
“I’m not palling around with anyone,” I bit out, watching as he retrieved the familiar tin from under his couch. “I’m just trying to get by.”
“So long as your version of getting by doesn’t result in name-dropping or throwing your old friends under the bus, we’re golden,” he replied, handing me a baggie of pills. “But the minute you even consider crossing me, it’ll be over for you, kid. I’ll come down harder on you than your daddy ever did. You remember that.”
By the time I managed to make it back to the house, every wall in my world felt like it was closing in on me and I was suffocating from the pressure.
Mam.
Dad.
Darren.
Molloy.
Shane.
The baby.
The Kavanaghs.
The kids.
Shannon’s bullies.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
With my body in pieces and my mind reeling, I barely managed to get my key out of the front door when Shannon came barreling towards me. “You’re back!” She threw her arms around me as her small body trembled. “Thank God.”
I was tired.
I was so fucking weary, and my sister’s arms felt like concrete boulders weighing down on me, pushing me deeper into the darkness.
“It’s okay, Shan. It’s all good,” I tried to soothe, because I had a love in my heart for this little girl that no volume of drugs or depths of depression could kill.
Except that she wasn’t a little girl anymore.
She was a young woman, and it gave me hope.
Hope that she’d survive what I couldn’t.
What I failed to do.
There was a family waiting to take her in.
To take all of them in.
Because something deep inside of me, in the parts that still worked, assured me that I could trust the Kavanaghs. It was the same part of me that had locked on tight to Aoife Molloy.
If I did nothing else in this world, I would see this through.
I would get these kids the fuck out of this hellhole I would.
“Wait!” Catching ahold of my arm when I tried to step around her, Shannon pulled me back to face her. “Look at me.”
Having nothing left to give or lose, I did as she asked.
“Joe.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Why?”
“Just get off my back, Shan,” I replied, too damn weary to go another round with anyone, much less her. I knew what she was upset about, but I couldn’t hide it anymore. “I’m fine.”
“Joey,” Mam cried out when I walked into the kitchen with my sister hot on my heels. “Oh, thank God.”
Thank God?
Yeah fucking right.
“Mother. You’re keeping well?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Darren demanded, stalking towards me. “Why are you shaking?” When he put his hands on me, touching and probing my face, I had to use every ounce of self-control inside of my body to not react. “For fuck’s sake, Joey,” he boomed, coming to the same conclusion as Shannon, before roughly shoving me out of his sight. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
Everything, I felt like laughing. Fucking everything, asshole.
“What’s wrong?” That was Mam.
Again, I felt like laughing manically.
Like she gave a fuck.
“What’s wrong?” Darren exclaimed. “What’s wrong is your son is back on drugs!”
“Is this true, Joey?”
Resisting the urge to laugh in their fucking faces, I made a sandwich and grabbed a drink from the fridge. “I’m not back on drugs.”
“Yeah, because you were never off them to begin with, were you?”
Fuck you, golden boy. “You’re all overreacting.”
“You’re high.” Darren narrowed his eyes. “Again.”
Whoop-de-fucking-doo. “And you’re an asshole,” I shot back. “Again.”