MY RELATIONSHIP WAS BACK on track, my hair was on point, it wasn’t raining, and I didn’t have work tonight.
All in all, I considered this to be a successful first day back at school.
All was right in the world of Aoife again, and I was basking in the cold January afternoon, taking in the sight of thirty or so boys, kitted out in the school colors of both BCS and neighboring town St. Colum’s, as they knocked the living shite out of each other with hurleys.
Sighing in contentment, I leaned against the school wall at my back, balancing my ass on my school bag, as I watched Joey own the pitch and everyone on it.
Gifted was the only word to describe the level of talent he displayed.
He literally oozed skill and flair by the bucket full, without even having to try.
He played center back on the team, and wore the number six jersey, but in all fairness, he could play in any position on the team and excel. The boy was beyond gifted.
At best, he was putting a mere sixty percent effort into this match, and still managed to outclass every other lad on the pitch, coming up trumps with three goals and six points for our school.
The speed in which he could break free of his opposition number, and whizz down the pitch on a solo run, weaving and twisting through St. Colum’s defense, was second to none.
The fact that several of Teddy Lynch’s school team pictures, ranging from 1976 to 1981, still hung proudly on the walls of our school was something that I hated for Joe, but not nearly as much as I hated the comparisons that he had to endure.
For six years in the late seventies and early eighties, his father had commanded BCS’s hurling team, earning him a lifelong tenure of adoration from both past and present members of the school faculty.
For years, I witnessed the bullshit. It never mattered what Joey achieved, or how many championships, titles, and medals he won for our school, because his father had achieved it all first, and boy was everyone and their mother just waiting in the wings to remind him of it.
Said comparisons were made to Joey, both often and loudly, and every time it occurred, his mental health took another irreparable blow, because the voice of paranoia that he lived with on a daily basis, the one that assured Joey that he was just like his father, pushed him back towards a place he had spent his youth residing in.
Addiction was a consequence of being raised by street thugs and dealers, where the only substitute available for a mother’s love came in the form of a line of cocaine, or worse, a needle in the arm.
Joey had somehow managed to survive his childhood and early teens by replacing the lack of his mother’s affection with the warm, enveloping embrace of ecstasy, and his father’s constant stream of mental gaslighting and physical abuse with the mind-numbing dexterity of opioids.
It wasn’t right, the complete opposite, but I could understand it.
I could understand him.
From the tender age of nine or ten, Joey Lynch had been knocking on Shane Holland’s door, treating him like his own personal doctor, seeking help and finding it in the worst form.
And, like a black-market pharmacist, Shane had been more than willing to take advantage of a vulnerable child from a broken home.
The fact that Joey was even attempting to break free from the hold drugs had on him, from the blanket of security that they provided him, only proved to me further that he was worth every sleepless night and tear I had shed over him.
“Would you look at the speed of him,” Casey said, joining me.
“I know,” I mused, eyes locked on Joe. “He’s a bullet, isn’t he?”
“He’s something alright.” Dropping her school bag on the ground beside me, Casey sank down on it and stretched her legs out. “I bet he fucks as fast as he runs,” she teased, nudging my shoulder with hers. “Better still, as hard as he plays.”
“Too far, Case,” I sighed, shaking my head. “And too much.”
“Really?” she laughed. “That’s too bad because I originally planned to go with ‘does he last a solid sixty minutes under the sheets like he does on the pitch’ question, but decided to tone it down.”
“You’re a lot of personality for one tiny person.”
“True,” she agreed with a chuckle. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how mad are you at me for my epic jump to the wrong conclusion on Friday night?”
“Me?” I offered. “A lukewarm one and a half, but I’m not the one you slapped across the face.”
“Yeah.” She smiled sheepishly. “How mad do you think he still is at me?”
“Oh, you mean after you assaulted him and accused him of sleeping with a girl the same age as his baby sister?”
She nodded.
“It’s been three days, so I reckon he’s come down to a stony seven.”
She scrunched her nose up. “I went a tad too far, huh?”
“Just a smidgen,” I replied with a smile. “You were over the top, and out of line, but I love you for having my back.”
“Good, because I’m not sorry.”
“Case.”
“What? I’m not. My delivery might have been wrong, and I shouldn’t have slapped him, but he deserved the wakeup call.”
“Well, wakeup call or not, don’t do it again.”
She laughed. “Okay, Mom.”
“I’m serious.” I gave her a meaningful look. “Don’t put your hands on him again, Case.”
“Okay, Aoif,” she replied, hearing the plea in my tone – and the warning – as she held her hands up. “It won’t happen again.”
“Not ever, okay?”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Blowing out a breath, I turned my attention back to the game.
“You guys seem like you’re back on track,” she offered. “He was all over you in school earlier.”
“We are,” I confirmed, relieved that the weight on my shoulders had lifted. “It’s all good.”
“He seems a lot more stable than he was before Christmas break,” she added cautiously. “He’s doing better?”
“Yeah.” Nodding, I released a heavy breath. “Thank god.”
“Is that seriously all you’re going to tell me about it?” she whined. “Come on, Aoif. I want details. You’ve always told me everything about your life, but when it comes to him, you’re a closed book. I mean, you didn’t even tell me that you guys had broken up. I had to hear it from your mam – two weeks after the event.”
“Well, we’re not broken up anymore,” I replied. “So, there’s not much to say.”
“Aoife.”
“Casey.”
“I know that you love him,” she said. “And I’m happy for you, Aoif. Hand on my heart, I am. But don’t make him the be all and end all of your world, because, like you’ve already experienced, if it goes pear-shaped, you’ll have nothing to fall back on.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you things,” I tried to explain. “It’s just…I’m just…and he’s so… Our relationship is just really…”
“Intense?” she offered gently.
“Oh, it’s a whole lot intense,” I agreed with a breathy sigh. “But it’s also a whole lot of complicated and private and—”
“Not up for discussion?” She winked. “Gotcha.”
“You know I love you,” I tried to placate, hooking arms with her. “You’re my best friend.”
“But so is he.”
I shrugged, helpless. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“It’s an amazing thing,” she encouraged in a sad tone. “When he’s not off his rocket.”
“Casey.”
“Just be careful, okay?” she hurried to say. “I know you love him, Aoife, and I know what you and Joey have is about as real as it gets, but so are his issues.”
“He’s doing better,” I heard myself defend.
“For now.”
“He’s doing better, Casey,” I reiterated thickly. “I don’t have a crystal ball to show me the future, so I’ll take a ‘for now’ as a win.”
“Fair enough.” She sighed heavily before adding, “Just don’t let yourself get swallowed up in him again.”
The referee blew his whistle before I could answer her, signaling the end of the match, and I turned my attention back to the pitch just in time to see Joey yank his helmet off.
Breathing hard and fast, he used the hem of his jersey to wipe his face and the move gave me a glorious glimpse of his toned stomach, while his teammates celebrated the win.
The moment he noticed me watching him, a slow smile spread across his face.
Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called out, “Nice abs.”
“Nice legs,” he called back with a wink, and just like that, I was ruined.
“What am I saying?” Casey declared with a resigned laugh. “Of course you’re going to get swallowed up in him again.”
