Joey watched me for the longest time before releasing his hold on the door handle.
“Fuck!” he finally roared, slamming his hand against the steering wheel, and then sagged forward, wrapping his arms around the wheel and burying his face in them. “Fuck!”
“Where were you?” I heard myself croak out, delirious with pain and upset. “I had work! I wasn’t supposed to be there, but you…“ I stopped short of blaming him, knowing that it was my hurt talking and not the reality of the situation, and released a pained cry. “I was supposed to be at work.” Tears blurred my vision, and I quickly pushed my hair back, not wanting to feel it touching my neck. “I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“I know,” he strangled out, looking like he was physically dying inside, as he banged his forehead repeatedly against the wheel. “Fuck, I know! It’s just…something came up, okay? And I forgot to call —”
“Something came up?” My voice rose with my incredulity. “Oh, that’s fine then, isn’t it? If something came up!”
“I’m sorry, okay.” A distressed sob followed by an anguished roar tore from his chest and he pulled back to look at me. “Let me go in there.” Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks, as he implored me with his eyes to give in. “Let me do this for you.”
“No.” I shook my head, refuting his plea, and roughly batted my tears – and then his hand away. “Just take me home, Joe. Please.”
“I don’t know what to do here, Aoif,” he strangled out, chest heaving. “I hear you, I do, but it’s not the right thing here.”
“If you give one iota of a shit about me, then you will take me home,” I warned, holding a shaky finger up. “I mean it. If you don’t move this car, I’m getting out and walking.”
When he made no move to respect my wishes, I pushed open my door and reached for my seatbelt.
“Okay, okay!” Joey quickly turned the key in the ignition and the old engine roared to life. “I’ll take you home.”
Sniffling, I closed the door, keeping my tear-filled eyes locked on the road ahead of us.
Releasing a heavy sigh, he pulled away from the Garda Station, taking me straight home without any more detours.
“Shannon,” he finally said, when we were pulled up outside my house. He pinched the bridge of his nose before saying, “I left her at Johnny Kavanagh’s house. I need to go back for her. I, ah, I can’t leave her there. If they find out she’s with him—”
“It’s fine.” Unfastening my seat belt, I threw the door open and scrambled out of the car. “You can take the car.”
Closing the car door behind me, I hurried across the road and swung my garden gate inwards, desperate to get inside the safety of my home.
“You could come with me?” he called after me, as he climbed out of the car and hurried across the road to reach me. “It won’t take—”
“No, I’m going home,” I repeated, slipping inside and closing the gate, effectively keeping him out.
“I’ll bring the car straight back afterwards.”
“It’s fine, I don’t need it.”
“Fine. I’ll come straight back afterwards,” he offered, opening the gate and following me inside.
“No.” I shook my head. “You don’t have to.”
“Aoife.” His hand shot out and grabbed mine, and the pain in his voice was too much. “Please don’t do this.”
“I need to be alone right now, Joe,” I just about managed to choke out, trying and failing to break free of his hold. “I can’t be with—”
“I know what you want to say, but don’t just…please keep it inside you,” he begged, imploring me with his eyes to hear him. “Don’t say it out loud. Not tonight, okay? Just…not tonight. Because if you say it out loud, then it becomes real, and I can’t let it be real, Molloy, okay? I can’t lose you.”
I looked away and then I looked back at him.
He was rigid, watching me with fearful eyes.
I tried to say the words that would make him feel better, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t comfort him right now.
I felt too damn broken.
“I need time,” I finally whispered. “Some space to clear my head.”
“I’m so fucking sorry.“
“I know you are, Joe,” I croaked out, feeling devastated. “I know, okay. I just…” Sniffling, I shrugged helplessly. “I need to not be near you right now, okay?”
“Aoife.”
“Because every time I look at you, all I can see is—”
“Him,” he deadpanned, immediately releasing his hold on me. “Got it.” Nodding stiffly, he backed up to the gate, looking more crushed and broken than I’d ever seen him. “I hear ya, Molloy.”
And then he turned around and walked away.
Unable to watch him leave, I hurried into my house.
Slamming the door shut behind me, I heaved out a huge, gut-wrenching sob, and collapsed in a heap on the floor.
“Aoife?” Mam’s head popped around the living room door, and then she was there, on her knees with her arms around my body. “Did you tell him?”
Breath catching in my throat, I heaved out another pained sob and shook my head. “I c-couldn’t.”
“It’s okay, pet,” Mam soothed, wrapping me up in her arms just like she did when I was small. “Everything is going to be just fine. We’ll figure it all out.”
BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
JOEY
I thought the worst image I could see today was that of my mother cradling her premature, underdeveloped baby, followed closely by the screaming and keening and begging that had incurred when it was time to leave him behind at the hospital. It had taken me hours to get her to leave him. I thought that was the worst of it. The worst that could possibly happen.
I was wrong.
Walking into the kitchen tonight, and seeing my father with his hands on my girlfriend – with her bent over the table like a fucking dog, with her underwear around her ankles, and his jeans undone, was worse.
So much fucking worse.
Trembling violently in the passenger seat of the car, Molloy refused point blank to look at me, as she wrapped her arms around herself, knees bopping restlessly.
“Get me the fuck away from these people, Joey.”
It didn’t take a genius to decipher that she included me in that sentiment.
She couldn’t bear to look at me and I didn’t fucking blame her one bit.
Jesus Christ.
It had finally happened.
The bullshit that was my life had finally broken her.
The look in her eyes?
Fuck, she had looked at me like I was the enemy, too.
“I was supposed to be at work…”
“I wasn’t supposed to be there…”
“Where were you?”
She blamed me.
She didn’t say it in so many words, but I knew she did.
This was my fault.
I was on my own until Molloy.
She came into my life and all of a sudden, I had a partner, a friend, a true equal who was willing to go down in flames with me.
Someone to pull me to safety.