Aside from my sister, there was only one girl that held court in my affections, who held the highest rank of friendship my heart could offer, and it sure as hell wasn’t the girl who I lost my virginity to back in third year – the one I had made the mistake of hooking up with on multiple occasions since.
Danielle was a girl I was friendly with, but she wasn’t my friend, and I had no intention of repeating the mistake I had made on New Year’s Eve.
The clingy texts I’d received from her most days since were more than enough of a wake-up call to let me know that particular ship had sailed.
I couldn’t remember a whole pile about the night – I had been too fucked up at the time to take stock of anything other than the fantastic fucking feeling of floating away.
The only part of the whole night that I did remember was the condom I’d clumsily rolled on my dick, and her hair.
It was blonde, and long, and smelled like coconuts.
The smell stuck in my nose for days afterwards.
Problem was, I couldn’t be sure if it was Danielle’s hair and scent that I remembered, or if it was Molloy’s.
She’d been there when I came to, had looked at me like I was responsible for breaking her heart clean open in her chest, and, after walking her home that night, hadn’t looked at me since.
The look in her eyes that night had complicated everything for me because I was now fully aware that I had the ability to hurt her, whether I was near her or not.
The was a sobering thought, but not as sobering as the scene I had arrived home to after walking her home from said house party.
Yeah, the absolute carnage I had been faced with had quickly killed any notions of girls, and a social life.
Mam had fallen down the stairs while I'd been out and had broken her arm.
How fucking convenient.
I had spent the following twenty-four hours at home alone with the kids to look after, not to mention reeling in my guilt, while my mother sat in the A&E with him.
“Did she hit her?” I asked, dragging my thoughts back to the present. “Was it bad? Come on, Dan, just tell me.”
“It was bad, Joe,” she whispered, reaching up to rub my arm. “There was a lot of shouting and screaming. Apparently, someone cut her hair, too.”
My blood ran cold. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Your Mam is up there now,” she added, cringing. “They called her in. She’s talking to the principal.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Chest heaving, I cleared the five-foot wall enclosing the pitch in one quick sweep, before storming off in the direction of the school building, football studs clattering against the concrete as I went.
“Don’t lose your head, Joey,” I heard Danielle call after me, but it was too late for that.
My head was long gone, lost in fucking space, the moment I heard someone had taken a pair of scissors to my sister’s hair.
Like a red rag to a bull, I stormed through the school yard towards the main building and slammed my hand against the glass door so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter.
"Where’s the fire?" Alec asked when I stormed past him and the rest of the team, who were heading outside for training.
“Lynchy, the pitch is the other way.”
“Get fucked!” I roared, losing what little self-control I had left inside of me, as I thundered towards the girls’ bathroom.
“You can’t go in there, Joseph,” Miss Lane, one of the female teachers, warned when I stormed past her.
“Oh yeah?” I sneered, shoving the door open. “Fucking stop me.”
“Excuse me?” she demanded; tone laced with shock. “You’ll be suspended for speaking to me like that.”
“Then suspend me,” I countered, turning my attention to the group of girls huddling at the communal sinks. “Get the fuck out now!”
“I’m getting the principal,” Miss Lane warned in a shaky voice, as she quickly ushered the girls out of the bathroom.
“You do that,” I sneered, slamming the door shut in her face.
Blowing out a breath that felt like flames, I walked along the row of a dozen or so toilet cubicles, pushing in each door as I passed, until I came to the last one.
It was locked.
“It’s me,” was all I said, and then waited, heart rate spiking as I prepared for what I would find on the other side of the door.
Several beats passed before the sound of a lock clicking filled the air, and then the door swung slowly inwards.
Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, with her knees tucked into her chest, and her eyes bloodshot from crying, my baby sister peeked up at me.
“Hey, Joe.”
My heart cracked clean open in my chest at the sight of her.
It didn’t matter to me that she was fourteen now.
In my eyes, she was still the tiny girl in pigtails who had followed me around for most of our childhood.
The world was dark and full of disappointments. This wasn't new information to me. I was far too familiar with the shitty side of life. I'd learned that lesson a long time ago, but Christ, nobody wore heartbreak quite like my sister.
Trembling, I forced myself to rein in my temper, something I was surprisingly good at doing around my sister and crouched down in front of her. “Hey, Shan.”
Her lip was split, her uniform caked in what, by going off the smell, I could only assume was sour milk, and she was clenching her long dark ponytail in her hand.
Her ponytail that wasn’t attached to her head anymore.
I was going to kill them.
I was going to kill them all.
“D-don’t ask me wh-what happened,” she whisper-sobbed, tone pleading. “I d-don’t w-want to t-talk about it.”
“Okay.” Going against every instinct inside of my body, I nodded slowly, careful not to make any sudden move that would scare what was left of her senses out of her. “I won’t.”
I understood what it felt like to be afraid, I’d spent most of my life drowning in terror until I just stopped caring.
Caring meant feeling.
If I didn’t care about what happened to me then I had nothing to fear.
I could survive feeling like that.
I could survive this life.
Shannon stared at me for a long moment, big blue eyes full of unshed tears, and then she bolted forward like a skittish foal, crying hysterically. “I don’t w-want to be h-here anymore, J-Joe.”
“I know, Shan.” Catching her small frame as she barreled into me, I wrapped her up in my arms as tight as I could, wanting to protect her from something that had already happened. “I know.”
“I w-want to d-die,” she continued to cry, choking hard on her tears. “I w-want to n-not be h-here anymore.”
“You can’t go dying on me,” I tried to coax, as terror filled my veins. “What would I do without you, huh?”
“But I m-make everything w-worse f-for you,” she continued to cry. “You k-keep getting in f-fights trying to pr-protect and s-stick up f-for me. It’s n-not fair on y-you… always h-having to s-save me.”
“That’s my job, Shan,” I said as I pried her ponytail from her small fist. “I’m your big brother. I will always stick up for you.”
“I l-love you, J-Joe.”