He had the good grace to clamp his mouth shut and nod.
“I never trusted Paul, not once in four years, and I never allowed myself to love him, either, because I knew what would happen if I did,” I strangled out, breath coming in short audible puffs. “I knew that in the end, he would let me down and break my heart – if I gave him the power to. So, I didn’t. I kept that power and my heart to myself.” Sniffling, I shook my head and forced myself to look at him, when I said, “But I never stood a chance against you, did I?”
He stared at me for the longest time before blowing out a pained breath. “Aoife. I was trying to protect you.”
“Well, it didn’t work,” I heard myself cry, body growing limp as the adrenalin that had been coursing through me quickly deflated. “Because I’m not okay.”
He flinched. “I know.”
“I’m not okay,” I repeated, needing him to hear me, to see me, to fucking help me. “You asked me earlier if I was okay, and I’m telling you that I’m not okay.”
“I never meant to…“ His voice broke off and he scrubbed his face with his hand before strangling out, “I know, okay? I know. It’s the same for me.”
“You made me fall,” I forced myself to tell him, as every inch of me trembled. “You made me fall, and trust, and believe, and then you took it all away.”
Pain encompassed his features. “I know.”
“I’m in love with you.” I didn’t care how weak or pathetic I sounded in that moment, as I continued to let my truth spill from my lips, as I bled open in front of him. “And I’m afraid for you, and I’m completely fucked up in the head because of you.“ My throat hitched, and I exhaled a broken sob before forcing out, “And I have felt all of these things for you since I was twelve year’s old.”
“Aoife.”
“I have turned a blind eye to all of the shady things you do more times than I care to admit. I have thrown friendships away to be with you. I have walked into drug dens for you. I have covered for you, protected you, lied for you, and given my body to you.”
“Aoife,” he groaned like I was causing him physical pain. “I—"
“I couldn’t love you more if I tried, Joey Lynch,” I cried, giving up the fight against the tears that were flowing freely down my cheeks now. “I couldn’t.”
I felt like a poisoned snake that was dying, weakened but exceptionally dangerous and venomous.
I couldn’t understand how my heart was so willing to be hurt. To lay down for this boy to walk and trample all over it with no thought or care for the consequences. Without thought for my future, which didn’t exist without him.
“But it’s never going to be enough for you!” Losing the battle with my emotions, I clutched my head in my hands and released an agonized scream. “I’m never going to be enough for you because my love doesn’t come in the form of a powder that you can snort up your nose or inject in your veins—"
“That’s not how it is,” Joey interrupted, voice cracking. “That’s not how I feel.” Exhaling a ragged breath, he closed the space between us and roughly pulled me into his arms. “I’m the problem here, Molloy. I’m the one who’s never going to be enough, not you.”
“You are enough!“
“I’m not,” he replied. “I’m really not, baby.”
“It’s too much, Joe.” Tears spilled over, falling so fast it was hard to see clearly, as my arms shot out of their own accord, clinging to the person who had inflicted all of this pain on me. "All of it,” I strangled out, burying my face in his chest. “I feel too much for you.”
“I know,” he ground out. “That’s exactly why I did what I did.” He pressed a kiss to my damp hair and wrapped me tighter in his arms. “You need to understand that this is a hill that I’ve been climbing since before we met. This is my demon to slay.” He released a torn growl and clung to me. “None of this is on you.”
I’M TRYING TO FIX ME
DECEMBER 31ST 2004
JOEY
I used to think that my words were bullets, but I was wrong. Nothing I could ever conjure up in my mind could inflict as much pain as had been inflicted on me by her words. Each word after soul destroying word, splintering me and cutting me to the bone.
“Why can’t you love me more?” she continued to cry, holding onto me with a vice-like grip. “Why am I not enough for you?”
“I do love you more,” I choked out, feeling my soul crack in half, as I reeled in the unimaginable fucking horror of what I’d done to her. “You are enough for me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” Blowing out a pained breath, I added, “I don’t want to be the way I am. I don’t fucking love what I do. I despise it.”
“Then why do it?” she begged, trembling in my arms. “Why?”
She was asking me to give her the answer to something I couldn’t explain.
How did you justify addiction to someone who had never lived through it?
How was I supposed to make her understand that, for most of my life, I had been desperate to escape. That the only solace I’d ever been able to find had been in the soothing drag of a joint, or a mind-altering line of coke, in the numbing effect of benzos, or the thrilling buzz of uppers? How could I forget the euphoric fucking feeling of heroin?
Because Molloy didn’t know what it felt like to wake up every morning with a strong inclination to attempt suicide.
She didn’t know how it felt to be a helpless child, half-starved from hunger, and even more starved for a way out of a home she wasn’t wanted in.
She didn’t know what it felt like to be that hopeless kid who finally found something that helped him through the pain and sheer fucking misery that was his life.
And she had no idea how quickly the shift in balance had happened for that kid, how it had snuck up on him so unexpectantly.
She could never understand the excruciating self-loathing that came with the realization that the one vice that had once helped that kid make it through the day had silently morphed into something he couldn’t make it through a day without.
She would never understand how it felt to transition from controlling your life with something you once enjoyed to becoming controlled by the very thing you now despised.
I didn’t tell her any of that, though.
Because I couldn’t.
Because it wasn’t fucking good enough.
“I don’t know,” was all I could say instead. “I don’t know why I do it, Molloy.”
Sniffling, she looked up at me and whispered, “That’s not good enough.”
I know. “It’s all I have.” Cupping her face between my hands, I leaned in close and pressed my brow to hers. “I’m sorry.”
Shivering, she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch. “I don’t want to be with anyone else.”
“Neither do I,” I replied hoarsely, and then it almost killed me to add, “But I don’t want to hurt you either, which means that I need to stay away from you, and you need to let me.”