“I want you to love yourself enough to stop destroying yourself.”
“How do you ever expect that to happen when the very person who gave birth to me can’t love me?”
Mam reared back like I had struck her – and maybe I had, but it was with the truth.
“That is not true,” she cried, pushing her hair back. “You can’t possibly believe that."
“Whatever.” Shaking my head, I dragged myself off the bed, and moved for my clothes. “I’m not doing this with you right now. I have somewhere to be.”
“Somewhere like Shane Holland’s house?”
Remaining silent, I kept my back to her, and slipped on my sweats before pulling a hoodie on.
“Don’t do it,” she begged, following after me, as I pocketed my phone and wallet, and moved for the door. “Think about your future.”
“I don’t have one of those anymore.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.” I shook my head and yanked the door open. “He took her away from me.”
With a cigarette balancing between my lips, I spent an ornate amount of time slumped on the steps outside of the Garda Station, willing myself to just stand up and walk inside.
Just walk my legs in there and give the Gards my statement.
Give them my truth.
My father should be behind bars for putting his hands on Molloy, and the resentment I felt at having my hands, once again, tied behind my back by a woman I loved and was desperate to protect, was fucking with my head like nothing else.
I’d hit my limit that night and screwed up, but I didn’t feel half the regret for using as I felt for keeping quiet.
For letting him get away with what he did.
He abused and raped my mother.
I was coerced into keeping my mouth shut.
He battered my sister.
Again, I was emotionally blackmailed into keeping quiet.
But Molloy?
Molloy, I had quickly realized, was my Achilles heel.
When he put his hands on her that night, he aimed an arrow right at my weak spot, and when she rejected me, when she compared me to him, that arrow had flown, striking me straight through the heel.
Bleeding out and wounded, I’d given up on any more bullshit pretenses about turning pages, and fresh starts, and gone straight back to the only thing I knew would help me drown out the noise.
Drown out the fucking agony of it all.
Because the truth was, I didn’t want to lie anymore.
I didn’t want to cover up.
I was completely done with the bullshit, and if that made me a shitty son and a horrible brother then so be it.
Because the old man exposed something inside of me that night.
A truth I hadn’t realized myself until he forced me to face it.
It shook the foundations of my very being to acknowledge it, but the truth was that something had shifted inside of me this past year, my priorities had switched. I had come to the realization that Aoife Molloy had become the single most important person in my world.
Unnerving as it was to admit, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do protect her. Even if that meant going against my entire family to do right by her. Because, regardless of the consequences incurred by the rest of my family, I was willing to go against everything I had been programed to protect in order to protect her. Even if that meant going against every fiber of my being and remaining quiet about my father because that’s what she needed from me.
Conflicted and furious, I remained right there on the steps of the Garda Station until the sky darkened, and my anger waned, making way for my depression.
And fuck if the depression wasn’t worse.
Dying on the inside and burning on the outside, I stared down at the scars on my knuckles, and forced myself to pretend that I was fine.
That none of this hurt.
That I didn’t care.
Finally, when I had the pain under control, I stood up, dusted myself off, and walked away, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders with every step that I took away from doing the right thing.
WHAT DID YOU TAKE?
AOIFE
When I finally returned to school the following Monday morning, and took my seat in tutorial, it was to an empty chair beside mine at a desk I had been assigned to share with Joey since the start of the school year.
“Arrrggghhh!” Casey screamed, as she stood in the doorway of our classroom and stared at me in horror. “Where the hell have you been, and what the fuck have you done to your hair?” she demanded, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Oh my god.” Her eyes widened in horror as she let her bag fall off her shoulder and ran behind my chair to get a better look. “It’s gone.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Case,” I chuckled, smoothing a hand over my shoulder length hair. “To answer your first question; I was home. I needed a few days to sort my head out. As for the latter; I needed a change.”
No, what I had needed was to remove the memory of that man’s hands from my hair, and it had cost me eighty euro for the pleasure, but she didn’t need to know the finer details.
I still had enough length to tie it back in a small ponytail, but not long enough to put me in the vulnerable position of having a man restrain me with it.
“Do you like it?”
“No!” she spluttered, horrified, as she retrieved her bag.
“Wow.” I rolled my eyes. “Thanks a bunch.”
“Oh, shut up, you’re still a complete ride,” she shot back, eyeing my hair and pulling at a loose tendril. “I’ve just never seen you with hair shorter than the middle of your back, Aoif. You’ve had Rapunzel hair since we were in playschool.” Giving me the side-eye, she added, “I tried calling you a hundred times, by the way.”
“My phone is at Joey’s,” I told her. “And people change.”
“Yeah, I suppose impending motherhood can change a girl.”
“Say it louder, why don’t you?” I hissed, twisting around to glare at her when she slid into the desk behind mine. “Jesus.”
“Sorry.” She winced and held her hands up. “Any updates on that front, by the way?”
“I told my mam.”
Her blue eyes widened. “How’d she take it?”
“Better than I did, I think,” I admitted with a pained sigh. “She went with me to the doctor last week.”
Her eyes widened. “And?”
I nodded. “September twentieth.”
“Your due date?” Her eyes widened. “That’s two days after your nineteenth birthday.”
“Shh,” I warned, and then reluctantly nodded. “But yeah, that’s my due date. I got my hospital appointment in the post – for my first scan.”
“For when?”
“This Friday.”
“What time? Because we finish school at twelve for the Easter holidays, and I can come with you if—"
“I appreciate the offer, but no,” I replied, shaking my head. “Mam already offered, but I don’t want her there, either.”
“Why?”
Because I only want Joey.
“Because.” I expelled a frustrated breath. “Because I just don’t.”
“So, how did he take it?” she asked then, eyes laced with sympathy. “Not well, I’m guessing, considering he hasn’t been at school for the past week, either.”