I THOUGHT the worst image I could see today was that of my mother cradling her premature, underdeveloped baby, followed closely by the screaming and keening and begging that had incurred when it was time to leave him behind at the hospital. It had taken me hours to get her to leave him. I thought that was the worst of it. The worst that could possibly happen.
I was wrong.
Walking into the kitchen tonight, and seeing my father with his hands on my girlfriend – with her bent over the table like a fucking dog, with her underwear around her ankles, and his jeans undone, was worse.
So much fucking worse.
Trembling violently in the passenger seat of the car, Molloy refused point blank to look at me, as she wrapped her arms around herself, knees bopping restlessly.
“Get me the fuck away from these people, Joey.”
It didn’t take a genius to decipher that she included me in that sentiment.
She couldn’t bear to look at me and I didn’t fucking blame her one bit.
Jesus Christ.
It had finally happened.
The bullshit that was my life had finally broken her.
The look in her eyes?
Fuck, she had looked at me like I was the enemy, too.
“I was supposed to be at work…”
“I wasn’t supposed to be there…”
“Where were you..?”
She blamed me.
She didn’t say it in so many words, but I knew she did.
This was my fault.
I was on my own until Molloy.
She came into my life and all of a sudden, I had a partner, a friend, a true equal who was willing to go down in flames with me.
Someone to pull me to safety.
Someone on my side regardless of whether I was right or wrong.
And my father took that away from me.
He took her away from me.
I could still smell her on my hoodie, in the car, all around me, and the scent was too fucking much for me to take in this moment.
The fuck was I doing thinking that I could have a normal, healthy relationship when my life was the polar opposite?
Feeling utterly dead inside, I phoned up Kavanagh, much to his disgust, and told him that I was on the way to collect my sister.
When he threw open the front door a few minutes later, he looked like he was ready to throw slaps. Shannon appearing in the doorway quickly put to rest any notions of that.
“Joe?”
“It’s time to go, Shan.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. Mam needs a hand with the kids.”
I watched as resigned sadness settled in her eyes. “Okay.”
“She can stay,” Kavanagh argued and then turned to my sister. “You can stay.”
“No, we need to go,” I bit out, too fucking worn out to handle another argument, as I led my sister to the car. “Thanks for your help, Kavanagh.”
“Thanks, Johnny,” Shannon croaked out, looking over her shoulder as we walked away. “For everything.”
“Shannon, you don’t have to —”
“Come on, Shan,” I cut him off and snapped. “We need to get home.”
I didn’t want to do this.
I didn’t want to bring her back to hell with me, but I didn’t exactly have a choice, and, whether he realized it or not, I was doing him a huge fucking favor by taking my sister away.
I was protecting them both.
Because if our parents got wind of her being here, it would bring the world of trouble to his door.
Leaving her here would open a can of worms that I didn’t plan on sticking around to clean up.
I couldn’t do it.
Not tonight.
Not anymore.
My entire fucking world was caving in around me, and fighting another person’s battles was something I was incapable of doing in my current frame of mind.
Too much had gone down in the past forty-eight hours for me to comprehend or even think rationally.
My mother had given birth prematurely and the baby was dead.
My father had tried to rape my girlfriend.
And now, my girlfriend couldn’t stand the sight of me.
She wanted space, and I couldn’t blame her for it.
It was understandable; it fucking hurt like hell, but I got it.
I was the direct source to her pain, the link that had put her in danger to begin with.
It was entirely on me.
Uneasy and reckless, with notions whizzing around in my mind, I could feel the shift, the slip happening before it had, and I hated myself for it.
Still, I knew exactly where I was going the second that I had dropped my sister home.
Even though I accepted it, made peace with it, I still found myself despising myself for it.
“Is that what happened?” Shannon asked, dragging me from my thoughts, as I tried to keep my eyes on the road and focus on the conversation I was attempting to hold with my sister. “Was she in the hospital all weekend and we didn’t know?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Joey.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “She was all alone.”
“She had him,” I bit out, hands tightening on the wheel. “He was with her, and he’s home now.”
“What are we going to do, Joe?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Shannon.”
“It’s okay,” she was quick to soothe, reaching across to rub my shoulder. “You don’t have to know. You’re only eighteen.”
Yeah, I was eighteen, but that was all my sister was right about.
Because none of this was okay.
It had never been okay, and it never would be.
Of course I needed to know what to do.
Deep down inside, I’d always known what to do.
It was a matter of overcoming the brainwashing fear that had paralyzed me into silence.
And seeing what he did to Molloy tonight?
Yeah, that was my breaking pointing.
Never again would I cover for them.
Fucking never.
“I can’t be there, Shan,” I admitted, unwilling to go into the details of tonight’s events, thinking of Molloy’s wishes. “I can’t live like this anymore.”
“I know,” she replied, but it was a generic response that didn’t mean shit.
Stiffening with tension, I opened my mouth and uttered the words that I knew would cause a shitstorm, but needing to say it regardless. “I think we should consider what Aoife said.”
“What about what Aoife said?” she was quick to ask, turning to watch me.
She knew exactly what I meant.
“Calling this in,” I admitted anyway and then braced myself for the bomb I was sure would erupt.
“You must be joking.”
I couldn’t answer her.
I could hardly look her in the eye.
The betrayal blazing from her blue eyes, directed at me, was too fucking much.
“I am not going into care,” Shannon screamed. “You’re fine. You’re over eighteen. You’ll get to live your own life and walk away. I will be put in a home!”
“Shannon,” I tried to placate, needing her to hear me out on this.
I knew she was scared, so was I, but this had to stop.
We couldn’t live like this anymore.
If something didn’t give, someone was going to die in that house.
It would either be him or me.
“Aoife was talking to me last night about my future, and it made a lot of sense—”
“Your future,” she spat, like it was the most disgusting thing I could possibly say to her.
“No, not just my future – that didn’t come out right.“ My shoulders slumped in shame. “Not just me, Shannon. All of us.”
“I can’t believe you would even think about doing this to us after what happened to Darren,” she cried, shaking her head. “How could you think about doing that to us, Joey?”
Tears stung my eyes and I had never felt so fucking lost and hopeless.
Mam feared me.
Shannon felt betrayed by me.
Molloy couldn’t stand the sight of me.
The only three women I had ever loved in my whole life, and I was letting them down left, right, and center.
I couldn’t seem to do the right thing by anyone.
You are such a fuck up, lad.
“If you want to go then go!” Shannon screamed accusingly. “Go off and leave us! Go be with Aoife and have a wonderful life together! I’ll protect the boys—”
“You can’t even protect yourself!” I roared, losing my cool, as my pain hemorrhaged out of my body in words. “I’m doing that, Shannon. Me! I’m the one trying to soften the blows and they just keep coming!”
“Then maybe you and Dad will both get lucky and he’ll finish me off the next time,” she sobbed, dropping her head in her hands. “It’ll save you the worry, and him the energy.”
“Don’t fucking say that, Shannon,” I strangled out, flinching from both the impact of her words and the thought of it happening.
She couldn’t have hurt me more if she stabbed me through the heart.
“Why not?” Gasping for air, she clutched her throat, panic overtaking her. “It’s the truth.”
“Shannon, breathe.” I reached over and rubbed her back. “Take a breath.”
Sagging forward in her seat, she clutched her skinny knees and wrestled to get her breathing back on track.
“Good girl.” Pulling up to the footpath outside our house, I parked the car, but left the engine running. “Nice and slow.”
She remained in the car long after her breathing had steadied, and the longer she lingered, the heavier my conscience became.
“Shannon?”
Silence.
“Are you listening to me?”
She nodded once, but kept her eyes trained straight ahead.
“If he touches you again, Shannon, I want you to grab the sharpest knife you can find, and I want you to plunge it into his heart.”
Finally, she turned to look at me; eyes full of despondence. “You’re not coming back, are you?”
“I can’t,” I strangled out, willing her to understand that my sanity was at stake. “If I go back inside that house, I’ll kill them both.”
The look on her face assured me that she didn’t understand.
The look on her face assured me that I had broken her heart.
Bitterly disappointed in me, my sister unfastened her seatbelt, and climbed out of the car.
“Goodbye, Joey,” was all she said, before slamming the door shut, and walking away.
