JOEY
“COME ON, JOEY,” the good doctor coaxed, as she sat opposite me in my own personal prison cell. Yeah, we had moved on from Joseph to Joey, and Dr. Bianca Rushton to Dr. B, or just plain doc. “We have another forty-five minutes of our daily session left. You’ve been doing so well at articulating your feelings. Don’t clam up now.”
Jesus, she was a demon of a woman.
Ruthless in her quest for whatever the hell she wanted.
I pitied her husband.
Poor bastard.
“I already told you,” I said, leaning back in my seat and folding my arms across my chest. “You can have more out of me when I get a phone call.”
Smiling, she leaned back in her chair, mirroring my actions. “To phone Aoife.”
“Obviously.”
“And say what?”
“How about I’m really fucking sorry for skipping out on you, for a start,” I snapped. “And maybe check on my baby, while I’m at it? You know, the usual.”
“Could we step back for a moment and consider the possibility that Aoife is extremely proud of you completing your treatment program?”
“It would be a lot easier to believe if you let me speak to her.”
“You know the rules, Joey. This program is for you. To focus on yourself for a change. Not on your siblings, or your girlfriend, or anyone else. I know it’s a foreign feeling for you, to put yourself before others, but this time-out from the outside world is necessary for your recovery.”
“Like you’d know a goddamn thing about it.”
“Put the gun down, Joey,” she replied with a sad smile. “The fight’s over.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been fighting for so long, I don’t know how to take my finger off the trigger,” I muttered, cracking my knuckles. “Fuck it, maybe I am crazy. Maybe it is better that I can’t talk to her. I’ve already dragged her through the ringer.”
“What makes you think you’re ‘crazy’?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” I drawled out sarcastically. “How about the fact that I’m hearing my dead father’s voice in my head, to go with my dead mother’s one.”
“Trauma reveals itself in many shapes and versions.”
“Yeah, well, in my head, I’m still fighting a war that I can’t win. Against people who can’t hurt me anymore, but still do. So, I reckon that goes a little deeper than trauma, doc.”
“Good, Joey,” she surprised me by saying. “That’s really good. Keep talking.”
Deciding I had nothing left to lose, I let her have it.
Every fucked up thought and notion in my head.
I didn’t know if any of it made sense, and I cared even less.
She wanted words.
Well, she could have them.
“I tried to get them out of there, so many fucking times, but I always caved,” I blurted out. “There was always a part of me that held out hope for her. The same way she held out hope for him. In the end, look where it got the both of us. He killed her, and I stayed for as long as I did to prevent that. The night I walked out, it happened, how can I get over that? How can I ever move on from it? The guilt is drowning me on the daily.” Blowing out a frustrated breath, I hissed, “It all feels so fucking needless. I could’ve stopped it all from happening. I could have saved her if I’d just stuck in there. But I lost it, my temper, my patience, whatever I had left inside of me, I lost it that night. And because I lost that, I ended up losing everything. Those kids don’t have a mother and it’s because I walked away.”
“Those kids don’t have a mother because their father – your father – killed her, not you. He was willing to kill all of you.”
“I have a hard time with living,” I admitted. “Being alive is a challenge for me because I don’t work right. I don’t seem to have the right tools for going through the motions. It’s like I’m stuck on fight mode. I’m constantly watching for danger. Doesn’t matter if it’s there or not, I’m programed to sniff it out. Wasn’t so bad when I self-medicated. The drugs took the edge off everything. Made being alive bearable. Until I couldn’t go an hour without them. Then I wanted to live even less.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“No shit.”
“Keep going.”
“I can’t trust anyone,” I added. “Not you. Not my thoughts. Not the people around me. No one.”
“Your siblings?”
“That’s different.” I narrowed my eyes in disgust. “They’re babies.”
“Your sister is going to be seventeen on her next birthday. That hardly makes her a baby, Joey.”
“She’s still a baby to me,” I argued. “Anyone whose nappies I’ve changed or knees I’ve put plasters on will always be a baby in my eyes. Besides, they’re not included in that statement.”
“And Darren?”
“You really want to push the boat out today, don’t ya?”
She laughed. “Let’s go there, shall we?”
“I’d rather not,” I replied flatly. “I wasn’t entirely hating today’s session. Bring him up and I’ve a feeling that’ll change.”
“Not entirely hating today’s session.” She grinned. “That’s a compliment if ever I heard one. It only took, what eleven weeks?”
“Don’t get too cocky.”
“Would you like to know what I think?”
“No.”
“Humor me.”
“Again, no.”
“I think your relationship with Darren is one of your biggest triggers.”
“I don’t do triggers, doc.”
“Because he broke your heart,” she pushed on. “Because he broke your trust.”
“On the contrary, he taught me a valuable lesson,” I replied coolly.
“Which was?”
“Everyone leaves, and nobody fucks you over like your own blood.”
“But Darren came back.”
“Too little, too late.”
“I think you desperately miss your big brother.”
I snorted. “Like fuck.”
“He wants to visit you.”
I stiffened. “And?”
“And I think it might help you heal.”
“No.” I was up and out of my seat within seconds. “You tell that prick to go back to Belfast and go back to forgetting about me. And if I’m suddenly being allowed visitors, then there’s only one face I want to see.”
“Do you think, at her late stage in pregnancy, it would be wise for Aoife to travel four hours to visit you? Do you think it would be good for her emotionally to have so little time with you, and then have to leave again?”
My heart gunned in my chest.
No, I didn’t think that.
“Then just let me phone her.”
“Joey —”
“Please,” I bit out. “I will do whatever the fuck you want. I’ll talk about all the shit. I’ll deal with Darren. Just let me have one phone call with my girl. Please, doc. I don’t do begging, but I’ll do it for her.”
