“Joey, don’t go!”
“Joey, think about this!”
Forcing myself to block out their voices, I hurried down the staircase and moved for the front door, needing to get the fuck away from these children before I lost my nerve.
They would be okay.
I had to believe it.
“Do something, Mam. Say something. Please! Stop him!”
“Joey, don’t go!”
“You swore. You fucking promised you wouldn’t leave us!”
“Don’t rush out,” Darren tried to plead, blocking my exit. “Please. Just sleep on it and we can talk about it in the morning when you have a clear head.”
“I can’t do this,” I replied lifelessly. “Get out of the way.”
“Joey, no. Talk to me.”
“Get out of the way, Darren,” I repeated. “Now.”
“O-ee. O-ee.”
Sean’s voice almost broke me, and I sucked in a shuddering breath, too afraid to turn around and look at the baby I’d given up so much of my life to raise. “I’m so sorry.”
I could only hope in time that he would forgive me.
That he would be able to understand why I had to do it.
Why I had to go.
The Kavanagh’s would give him a good home.
They could give him what I never could.
“Stay, Joey,” Darren pleaded, voice breaking. “I can’t do this without you.”
“You’re going to have to,” I deadpanned, before stepping around him and opening the door. “Don’t let them down.”
Don’t hold them back like you held me back.
Let them have the life we were both deprived of.
Stepping outside, I closed the front door behind me, pulled my hood up, and moved for the wall, only to stop dead in my tracks when my eyes landed on Molloy.
She was standing in the middle of the driveway, in a pair of yellow pajama bottoms and my hoodie, with her arms folded across her chest.
“You were going to leave without telling me?” Her tear-filled eyes flicked to the bag thrown over my shoulder and devastation and fury encompassed her features. “I’m not even worth a fucking goodbye!”
Of course she was worth a goodbye.
She deserved an explanation more than anyone else on this planet.
Problem was, I couldn’t tell her any of that to her face.
The only way I could give her my truth was on paper.
On pages of paper that I had neatly folded in the ass pocket of my school trousers.
On pages of paper that I had planned to put through her letterbox.
“Look at me.”
I couldn’t.
She was my breaking point.
If I looked at her, I would do what he did and that might be the right thing for me, but it wasn’t the right thing for her.
“Goddammit, Joey Lynch, you better look at me.”
“Aoife, please.” I could feel my tears soaking my cheeks, but I didn’t look up. “Just let me go.”
“I can’t.” Her perfume filled my senses when she closed the space between us. “I won’t.”
“I have nothing to give you,” I said brokenly. “I’m not good for you. Why can’t you get that into your head?”
“I don’t care about stuff, Joey,” she cried, throwing her arms around me. “I only want you.”
“I’m done.” I had to be. For both of their sakes. Trembling, I reached into my pocket and retrieved the folded-up letter I’d written her after leaving Shane’s. “I’m done dragging you down with me,” I whispered, slipping it into the front pocket of her hoodie without her noticing. “I’m sorry.”
“Please!”
“I can’t.” I would not turn her into the woman in my kitchen. I loved her too much to allow that to happen. My father didn’t do the right thing for the mother of his children, but I would do it for mine. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t go,” she cried out, when I stepped around her and moved for the road. “Please. Please don’t go, Joey. Joey! I love you!”
I love you too.
More than this life.
“I know,” I forced myself to shout. “And it’s not good for you to love me.”
“Joey, I need you.”
“No, you don’t!” What she needed was for me to get the fuck away from our baby before I turned him into another version of me. Another version of his grandfather. “You need to let me go, Aoife. That’s what you need to do!” It was the only thing I could do for her. It was the right thing to do for her.
“What about the—”
“Just go home, and don’t come back here,” I called over my shoulder, blinking the tears from my eyes, as I forced myself to walk away from her. It’ll all be over soon. “Do yourself a favor and forget about me!”
EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED
AOIFE
Hysterical, I sat on the cold concrete path, watching as Joey Lynch disappeared from sight, leaving me alone, with only his sister to comfort me.
Come back.
I wasn’t sure if I was thinking the words or screaming them.
But I knew.
I knew this was different.
Something had changed in Joey.
I saw it in his eyes.
He was resigned.
He was finished.
For him, the fight was over.
The fire inside of him, the one that had kept his heart beating through all the hardship and pain, had been snuffed out.
His brother came bolting out of the house, shouting something about going to find Joe, but I couldn’t take a word of it in.
The sound of my heart shattering in my chest was so loud and violent, it drowned everything else out.
We were having a baby.
And Joey was leaving.
Worse than leaving, he had left.
How could he leave me?
He promised.
I trusted him.
I still trusted him.
No, no, no, this was all wrong.
Something’s wrong.
Don’t give up on him.
He’s not well.
Find him before it’s too late.
With a horrible sense of dread settling in the pit of my stomach, and an even bigger urge to find my boyfriend before it was too late. I climbed to my feet and moved for my car, unable to form the words I needed to hold a coherent conversation with poor Shannon who looked almost as devastated as I felt.
Almost.
Mumbling something about needing to go home, I climbed into the driver’s seat of and cranked the engine before quickly tearing away.
It wasn’t a lie.
I was going home.
I just needed to find him first.
Because that boy was my home.
IT’S NOT THE WAY OUT
JOEY
For most of my life, I felt like I was running out of time.
Now, as I sat on the metal railing of the footbridge that separated Molloy’s estate from mine, with the end in sight, it suddenly felt like I had all the time in the world.
The night air whipped and lashed at my face, but I felt nothing. Eyes locked on the raging current of water flowing through the river, crashing against the foot of the bridge, I felt a level of calmness that was staggering.
Several weeks of rainfall meant that the town’s river was close to bursting its banks.
Good.
The current would take me quickly.
All I had to do was let go.
Just close my eyes and let myself fall.