“It’s the truth, Dar,” I retorted hoarsely. “I wouldn’t have made it to eighteen without her. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have made it to fifteen without her. You weren’t there. You didn’t see. I was a piece of shit. Sincerely. I was fucking terrible. To myself. To her. My behavior towards her was horrendous. I was the worst possible version of myself. And still, she stuck it out with me. She saw something worth saving in me, and she decided to love me anyway, and I am so fucking thankful that she did.” I shook my head. “You will never understand how much I owe that girl. How much I fucking worship the ground she walks on!”
“I know you love her,” he groaned, sounding pained. “I can see it, but it scares the hell out of me.”
“Why?”
“Because…” he stopped short and shook his head.
“Say it,” I pushed, already knowing what was on the tip of his tongue. “Tell them all how much I remind you of him. Just like I reminded Mam of him. You know, if you had said that to me three months ago, I would have crumbled,” I shot back. “But not anymore because I might not know who I am, Darren, but I sure as hell know who I’m not!”
“No, it’s not that,” he tried to coax. “It’s not you individually. It’s the two of you as a couple. When you get out of here, you don’t have a job, or school, or hurling anything to focus on except her. To me, that reeks of toxicity. It scares the damn hell out of me, Joey, because we’ve both seen what happens when teenagers who are obsessed with each other shack up and play house. We’ve lived through it, Joey, and I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you and Aoife becoming a second-generation version of them.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Look, maybe I’m projecting my own trauma on your relationship here, Joe, but I’m so fucking scared for you. I’m so afraid of sitting back and watching you follow in Mam and Dad’s footsteps. It’s the only reason Mam and I tried to put a stop to it.”
“Put a stop to our relationship?”
When he didn’t respond, my blood ran cold.
“The pregnancy.”
“It was at the start.” His face reddened. “Early on.”
Of course they did.
“You tried to put a stop to my baby?” I bit out through clenched teeth. “Is that what you’re saying? You and Mam tried to convince Aoife to get rid of my baby?”
“Okay, I think we should take a short break.”
“I think he should answer the fucking question,” I snapped, ignoring my social worker’s attempts to diffuse the situation. “What did you and Mam do to my girlfriend, Darren?”
“We didn’t do anything to your girlfriend,” he explained with a weary sigh. “I offered her an alternative.”
“Meaning you offered to foot the bill for an abortion?” When he didn’t reply, I choked out a humorless laugh. “I don’t fucking believe this.”
“Joey, please calm down.“
“And people wonder why I sank into addiction.” I shook my head and looked around the room. “Take a good fucking look, people. This right here is what I’ve been dealing with. My own mother and brother tried to do that to me!“
“I was trying to help you,” Darren tried to explain. “You’re too young to be a father.”
“I’ve always been a father!” I roared back, chest heaving. “And I’ve done a pretty fucking good job with the four I’ve raised. And yeah, I’m a mess, and yeah, I’m an addict, but I’m a good father! I’m a good fucking parent, Darren. I kept them alive. I kept them fed, and loved, and nurtured and goddamn educated. I did that. Not you. Not him. Not Mam. Me. So, call me a junkie and whatever the hell else you want to call me, but don’t say that I’m too young to be a father!”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he argued. “I meant that I didn’t want you saddled down with —”
“I want my baby, Darren!”
You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Everything went eerily quiet.
Finally, Darren broke the silence when he said, “You do?”
“Damn straight I do,” I confirmed, furious. “How fucking dare you and Mam try to take that away from me.”
“I realize now that it wasn’t my place to get involved.”
“No, it wasn’t your place,” I sneered, beyond furious. “And you’re goddamn lucky Aoife didn’t fold under the pressure I have no doubt you put her under.” I shook my head in disgust. “Jesus Christ, Dar. I would never do that to you. Never. Every choice you’ve ever made, I’ve had your back. I’ve always supported you. Defended you.”
“I know you have.”
“Then why couldn’t you do the same for me?”
“I thought that’s what I was doing.”
“By hating on my girlfriend?” I spat. “Jesus, Darren. After all the shit we’ve been through, why would you do that to me? Why would you try to scare off the one good thing in my life?”
“I don’t hate Aoif, Joe. Christ, I don’t even know the girl. Not really. I’m just… I wanted a different life for you.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter what you want, Dar, because this right here is my life,” I shot back, shaking. “It’s mine to live, and I plan on living it side by side with her. Because newsflash, asshole, that girl is my life. Her and our baby. And if she wants a ring, she’ll get it. And a house, she’ll get that, too. And if the time comes where she wants more kids, then I’ll give them to her. Whatever she wants. Because we’re mirrors. Her and I. We’re aligned. That’s my future, Darren, and if you keep meddling in it, then you won’t be a part of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I have never been more serious in my life.”
“This is a disaster,” Darren mumbled, dropping his head in his hands.
“On the contrary,” Dr. B said. “I think this conversation was long overdue.”
“Damn straight,” I agreed as six years of resentment and pain burst to the surface. “You left me, Darren. You fucking left me with them. I loved you most. I looked up to you. I worshipped the goddamn ground you walked on, and you just disappeared from my life.”
“I know,” he choked out. “Jesus, I know.”
“I was twelve.” My voice was strangled and my chest heaving, as I spilled my pain. “Twelve, Darren. When you were twelve, you had me. When I was twelve, I had nobody.”
“I’m so sorry, Joe.”
“Saying you’re sorry doesn’t fix it,” I choked out. “It’s a word. I know you mean it; I know you’re sorry, but it’s a fucking word, Darren. It doesn’t fix the hole you left in me.”
He flinched. “Joe.”
“What hurts the most isn’t the fact that you left,” I admitted, wiping a tear from my cheek. “I know you had to go. You were dying in that house. I get it. I understand that. What hurts the most is the fact that I stayed, and she still loved you more! And I’m jealous of that. I’m jealous and I’m resentful and I’m so fucking hurt that nothing I ever did was enough for her! And then you came back,” I quickly continued. “And it was as if everything I did for her, every sacrifice I made, every slap I took, was irrelevant. I was irrelevant because you were all she could see. I mean, let’s face it, Dar; you were all she ever saw, even when we were kids, but it never bothered me until you left. She put you on this pedestal, her precious, perfect first born, and nothing I did in the flesh could match her memory of you!”