I could feel her pain.
It was hemorrhaging out of her chest and pouring straight into mine.
She was the only person I’d ever loved that hadn’t been produced from between my mother’s legs. That was a horrible fucking image, but I meant it. I cared very little about anything or anyone besides the children who shared my bloodline, because those poor defenseless bastards shared my misfortune.
But I cared about the girl in my arms.
I cared an awful lot about this girl.
"You might be the addict in this relationship, but you’re also the habit that I need to kick,” she strangled out, chest heaving, as she turned in my arms to face me. “Because I feel like I’m dying when I’m with you, and I feel like I’m dead when I’m not.”
Her tears were on my shoulder.
I could feel them.
It shook me to my fucking core.
I wanted to make it up to her, show her the better side of me, but I was just so fucking tired.
I was bone weary, on the inside and out.
Her eyes were red and swollen.
There was no morality in this.
No one needed to love me if it meant that it hurt them this deeply.
“Aoife.” What was left of my heart cracked clean open in my chest. “It kills me that I’ve done this to you.“
“And I can’t walk away, because I know that there's still a little bit of you left in there,” she choked out. Placing her hand over the part of my chest that bore her name, she sniffled another sob and whispered, “Which means that I'm going to keep on loving you, Joey Lynch. So, you might want to start thinking about stopping breaking my heart.”
Curling up against me, she buried her face in my chest and continued to cry.
Her long blonde hair was all around us, her shoulders completely slumped, and I forced myself to take a good hard look at the destruction I'd caused.
This is why you don’t have nice things, my conscience hissed while my lungs constricted to the point that I couldn't fucking breathe. Because you break them!
Feeling my way through the haze of drugs and feelings, I watched her break down right there in my arms, while I wrestled the evil bastard demon inside of my head – the one that refused to let me do right by this girl.
The harder I fought to take control of this piece of shit person I'd morphed into, the stronger the demon became.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could whisper, as I held her. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The louder she cried, the tighter my lungs squeezed until she was full on screaming into my chest, and I was full-on dying on the inside.
And only then did I find the strength to do what needed to be done.
Only then did I find the strength to save her.
From me.
CHRISTMAS MORNING
DECEMBER 25TH 2004
AOIFE
It was Christmas morning.
It was also Joey’s eighteenth birthday.
But instead of celebrating either, I found myself welded to his chest, holding onto his body with all of my strength, because I had a horrible feeling that once he left my bed, he wouldn’t come back.
The physical abuse Joey had been subjected to, the emotional neglect, psychological scarring, and sheer pressure he endured from a lifetime of holding the fort and raising children that didn’t belong to him, had finally broken something pivotal inside of his mind.
He’d given up on himself, I could see it in his eyes last night. The same look was there when he woke up this morning, and it scared me to death.
He was sick, he was so damn unwell, and I was out of my depth trying to help him out of something I didn’t understand.
I wanted to rescue him, to shield him from the horrors he had been born into. I wanted to be his armor when he couldn’t fight back.
I wanted to wade into battle for him, protect his beautiful soul.
But I'd been so determined to save him that I hadn’t noticed I’d lost myself in the process.
Our love was toxic.
“This is toxic,” Joey strangled out, voicing my thoughts aloud, as he held me in his arms, squeezing my body just as tightly as I was squeezing his. “I’m toxic for you.”
“I don’t care,” I cried, delirious from a horrible concoction of love and heartache. “I still want you.”
“That’s the point,” he croaked out, voice cracking, as he gently dissembled our joined bodies and climbed out of my bed. “I’m fucking toxic to you.”
“What are you doing?” I asked shakily, watching as he quickly reached for his disheveled clothes that were thrown in a pile, along with mine, on my bedroom floor. “Joey? What are you doing?”
“Please don’t make it any harder. We both know that I need to go.” Blowing out a shaky breath, he refused to look at me while he dressed, his movements clumsy because of the severe tremor running through his body. “This needs to end and you need to let me do this for you, okay?”
“What? No!” Panic seared me. “No, this doesn’t have to end. I don’t believe that and neither do you!”
“Molloy.” Hollow green eyes, paired with circles so dark they could’ve been mistaken for bruises, locked on mine. Hell, knowing my boyfriend like I did, those probably were bruises under his eyes. “I have to leave,” he choked out. “All of the pain? All of the dumb, fucked-up shit I’ve put you through—"His voice cracked, and I watched as he dragged in a pained breath, clearly suffering as much in the moment as I was. “I should have ended this a long time ago.”
“No!” Springing off the mattress, I quickly closed the space between us, needing him to stay right here with me. “Don’t.” Wrapping my arms around him, I buried my face in his neck, holding onto his body for all I was worth. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m fine. We’re fine! Don’t talk like that. God!”
Instantaneously, Joey's arms came around my body, making me feel so fucking safe it hurt.
It didn’t make sense how he could do that to me; make me feel like nothing could hurt me when I was in his arms, when the truth was very different.
Silence settled between us then, with so many unspoken words dancing on the tips of our tongues, while we just held each other.
I could feel it all in this moment, every hurt word that had been echoed throughout the course of our fucked-up relationship. Every kiss, every touch, every fight, every scream, every midnight flash of madness that had led us to this moment in time.
"Listen, I want you to know something,” he said quietly, clenching my hip with his hand. “I want you to know that you’ve been the best part of my day every day since I was twelve years old."
“Don’t Joe.” Voice breaking, my heart hammered violently, as tears spilled down my cheeks. “I don’t want to hear this.”
Not when I knew where it would lead.
"It’s true." Tipping my chin up with his free hand, he forced me to look at him. "My life has been a shitstorm from day dot, Molloy, and the whole goddamn town knows it. I've never had calm. But you?” His tear-filled eyes implored me to hear him. “You were like an island. Somewhere for me to go and escape. Somewhere safe. Someone to anchor me, if that even makes sense. And I took advantage of that when I had no right to. I was selfish when I dragged you into my world. Now, I need to put you first.”