“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said, smiling fondly at the memory. “It was Claire’s first day in junior infants, and she had come home in floods of tears. I was out front kicking a ball around with Hughie when she stumbled off the school bus at the end of our road, and all I could see was a mountain of blonde curls, as she raced up the driveway towards us.”
“Why was she crying?”
“Apparently, some little shit in senior infants told her that she had to be his girlfriend.” Gibsie threw his head back and laughed. “And when she told him that she didn’t want to be his girlfriend, he pulled her hair and told the class that she ate bogies.”
“What a little prick,” I chuckled.
“She was so upset, lad.” Gibsie laughed. “Honest to God, you’ve never seen devastation like it.”
“What did her brother do?”
“Hughie told her to tell him to fuck off.”
“I’m guessing that’s not what you did?”
Eyes twinkling with mischief, Gibsie opened his mouth to answer me when Kav came bulldozing into the kitchen, with a face like thunder.
“I’ve a question, Joey the hurler.”
The sheer fucking condescension dripping from his tone had my back up in an instant. “Go for it, mister rugby.”
“I need a minute, Gibs,” Kav snapped, and without a word, his dopey pal strolled out of the kitchen, closing the door behind himself. “Now.” Kav folded his arms across his chest and glowered at me. “Who the fuck is putting their hands on your sister?”
Well, shit.
No one ever had the balls to ask such a forthright question.
Nobody ever asked because they didn’t want to get involved, and, even if they did ask, they didn’t want the truth. That’s how it had been for as far back as I could remember. With teachers, trainers, neighbors, hell, even the Gards didn’t want to know.
The only person in our lives that had ever taken the time to dig deeper, to push further, was Molloy.
Until now.
“Yeah, you heard me,” Kav pushed, unwilling to back the fuck down like I was used to. “I found her on her hands and knees at school on Friday, throwing her guts up,” he continued to say. “Something’s happening to her, and I want to know what it is.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to fix it.”
“Why?”
“Because no one should be putting their goddamn anything on her!” he snarled, losing that perfectly polished exterior. “Fuck!”
“What did she tell you?”
“That she fell over Legos.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “Fucking Legos.”
“If Shannon says that’s what happened, then that’s what happened.”
“No – no!” he as good as roared, losing his cool completely, as he held up a hand and battled to control his temper. Something I was all too familiar with. “Don’t give me that shit. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her with marks. What’s happening to her?”
Leaning back on my stool, I studied the lad who had injected himself into my sister’s life – and potentially all of our lives.
He was standing in front of me, asking for the answers I couldn’t give.
The helpless tone in his voice struck a chord with me.
Because I knew that tone.
I knew that desperation.
I felt it daily.
“Who is hurting your sister?” he repeated, as desperation and frustration fused together inside of him.
This fucker cared.
He cared an awful lot.
“Is it those pricks from school?” he pushed. “Was it them? Those girls?” His voice cracked and he took a deep breath before asking, “Is she hurting herself?” His eyes hardened like blue steel when he hissed, “Are you hurting her?”
All I could do in this moment was arch a brow.
He had some pair on him to say that to my face, and the only reason I wasn’t gunning for blood for the hideous fucking accusation was because his feelings for my sister were written all over his face.
“Lad, you better start talking because brother or no brother, I will kick your ass.”
He could try.
Johnny Kavanagh might have the upper hand in the physical stakes, but I had a feeling that a fella as stable and sound of mind as him, having grown up in a home like this, never had to fight for survival quite like I had.
He’d been raised like a fucking prince, with countless portraits and pictures of him adorning the walls of his family home, while I’d been born into hell and dragged up on the streets.
There was a killer instinct required to survive as far as I had, and that meant it didn’t matter how much of an underdog I ranked in a fight. The only way that I would ever back down or quit was if my heart stopped beating. So, if he planned on throwing down with me, then he needed to be prepared to kill me because I would never stop getting back up.
Not for my father.
Not for him.
Not for any other fucker on this planet.
The fact that it was genuine concern for my sister that evoked his threatening behavior, had me keeping my head in a way that was unheard of for me. Still, something deep inside of me instructed me to do it.
He wasn’t the enemy.
Not today, at least.
“You’ll need to talk to Shannon,” I finally said. “I can’t give you the answers you want.”
“Yes, you can,” Kav shot back, imploring me with his eyes to speak up. “Just open your mouth and speak!”
“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t and I won’t. If she trusts you enough, she’ll tell you. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t. Either way, it’s not my call.”
“Not your call?” He looked incensed at that. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” I bit out. “It means that it’s not my call. But I can assure you that I have never put my hands on my sister. Or any woman, for that matter.”
“I want to know what’s going on here, Lynch. If she’s being bullied or some shit like that, then I can help. I can fix this if you just tell me.”
“You can fix this?”
“For her?” He nodded vehemently. “Absolutely.”
“You like her.” I tilted my head to one side, studying him. “Maybe even more than like her.”
He didn’t deny it.
Good.
Another tick for him.
“I want to know what’s happened,” he tried to reason. “I need to.”
Maybe his buddy was right about this lad sticking around. His words certainly displayed a level of permanence.
“Listen, I’d love to tell you,” I replied. “I’d have no goddamn problem laying it all out there for you. I have nothing to hide.”
As I spoke the words, I realized that they were my truth.
Because something had happened inside of me, something fucking strange, and I was growing weary of lying.
Of covering up.
Of constantly watching my back and the backs of my siblings.
It was no life to live, and I didn’t want it anymore.
I never had.
“But she won’t want me to do that,” I tried to explain to him. “Shannon would die if she thought anyone knew her business. After all the shit that went down for her at BCS, she wants that clean slate at Tommen – and I want that for her, too.”