“Should do what?”
“Warn the other girls away.”
“Warn the other girls away?” My brows rose up. “Did you just mark me with your bag?”
“I sure did,” she replied, smiling sweetly up at me before turning on her heels and sauntering off in the direction of the school. “Now, let’s go, baby.”
I laughed, because, in all honesty, what else could I do?
I had a distinct feeling that I would be doing a lot of following after this girl.
Still, my feet moved after her.
FIRST YEAR
THE MONSTERS UNDER MY BED
NOVEMBER 30TH 1999
JOEY
With the sound of my own pulse thundering in my ears, I kept my eyes trained on my bedroom floor, and concentrated on my breathing, on the cracks in the skirting board, on the freshly burrowed hole in my sock, on anything but the asshole pounding and demanding to get in.
"Open this door, boy, and I'll put manners on ya!"
"Useless little cunt, just like your brother."
"Not such a big man now, are you, ya little prick!"
"Get your hole out here, ya little bollox, before I break the fucking door down!"
My heart was racing violently in my chest, every inch of my body was battered and bruised, and while I knew my mam was out there and defenseless, I honest to God didn’t have it in me to go another round with the man she called her husband.
Not when he'd gotten the better of me so easily tonight.
Swallowing the blood that was trickling down the back of my throat, I twisted my head to the side, and considered my options.
Fight.
Die.
Run.
Die.
Tell.
Die.
Hide.
Die.
Die.
Die.
After spending a selfish amount of time contemplating taking a knife to my wrists, I clenched my eyes shut and locked every muscle in my body tight until my entire frame shook from the tension.
Don’t do it, lad.
It's not your turn yet.
Don't give him the satisfaction of checking out.
Think of the others.
Desperate to distract myself from the temptation, I held my breath and concentrated on why I couldn’t leave this house.
On why I had to stay.
Shannon. Tadhg. Ollie…
Shannon. Tadhg. Ollie…
Shannon. Tadhg. Ollie …
Slowly, as my mind resigned to the fact that there was no way I could leave three innocent children with the monsters that created us, I felt my muscles unlock, causing me to sink deeper into depression.
Trapping me…
Resentment bubbled to life inside of me, with my mind honing in on one face.
On one name.
Fuck Darren for leaving me alone in this.
Mam was crying in her room, with her clothes strewn everywhere, and her dignity smeared all over his dick, and I couldn’t do shit for her.
And just like last time, I couldn’t save her.
And just like all the times before that, I couldn’t stop him.
The deep timbre of my father’s voice echoed through my bedroom walls, as the threats he had been doling out to me late into the night slowly morphed into frustrated snarls and then eventually drunken slurs.
“Fucking prick,” was the last thing I heard him call me before his heavy footsteps clumsily retreated from my door.
Minutes later, his voice could be heard again, but at the other end of the landing this time, with my mother, once again, the target of his whiskey tantrum.
Heart hammering violently in my chest, I reached for the alarm clock on my bedside locker and squinted, trying to make out the time with only the dull hue of the street light outside my window to guide me.
02:34
For fuck’s sake.
Setting the clock back down, I released a frustrated breath, drummed my fingers against my chest, and tried to calm the fuck down.
It wasn’t coming easy, though.
Not tonight.
Because Darren was still gone, and he was still here.
The one person I depended on in times like this – on nights like this – had walked away without as much as a backwards glance.
I should know.
I watched him go.
Dad never hit Darren like he hit me.
He was the firstborn, the golden boy.
I was the spare.
Darren got open-palmed slaps.
I got closed-fist punches.
Darren was diplomatic.
He could talk our father around better than anyone else in the house, and bring him back to his senses – well, most of the time.
Glowering at his empty bottom bunk, untouched since his departure, I felt the familiar swell of bitterness wash over me, taking with it another piece of my childhood.
I had just started first year for Christ's sake, wouldn’t turn thirteen for another month, what hope had I against a man twice my size?
I didn’t, Darren knew that, and he still left me here defenseless.
I was twelve-years-old and a frontline soldier in the war that raged within my family home. The enemy I found myself up against was bigger and stronger, and my ally had abandoned me when I needed him most.
I’d known something was wrong that morning he walked me to school. I could feel it in my bones as I watched him walk away from me – as I called after him like a fucking child.
For the first few days after my older brother’s abrupt departure, I had waited with bated breath, praying that everything would somehow blow over and Darren would walk back through the front door.
The move was completely out of character for me.
I didn’t pray.
But the evening I came home from my first day of secondary school, and discovered he was gone, I found myself whispering oaths and promises to the man in the sky, offering up anything and everything I could think of, in exchange for the safe return of my brother.
My ally.
My prayers went unanswered, and I had lost more ground than I could afford to in the weeks that had since passed.
Disgusted with myself for hiding behind a locked door, I tried to reason with my pride, knowing deep down that going back out there tonight would be the equivalent of signing my own death warrant.
You barely made it out alive…
Loud sniffles filled my room just then, and I bit back a growl, letting my head smack against the bedroom door I was perched against, hurley in hand.
“Don’t listen to it,” I instructed my sibling – which one, I had no clue because the three that still resided in this shithole were currently hiding under my duvet. “Block him out.”
“It’s so scary, Joe,” Tadhg sniffled, appearing from beneath my quilt on the top bunk. “What if he’s hurting Mammy again?”
“He’s not,” I snapped, lying through my teeth to my six-year-old brother. “She’s grand. Now go to sleep.”
“I can’t,” he croaked out.
“You have to,” my ten-year-old sister whisper-hissed. “You know what will happen if he realizes that we’re awake.”
“Shut up, Shannon,” Tadhg wailed. “I’m scared…”
“I know you are, Tadhg,” she continued softly, appearing from beneath the covers with our three-year-old brother, Ollie, curled up on her lap. “That’s why we have to stay quiet.”
“The lot of ye need to go the fuck to sleep,” I ordered, taking on the protector role that I had unceremoniously been thrust into. “You’re grand. Mam’s grand. We’re all grand. Everything’s fucking grand.”