Saving 6 (Boys of Tommen, #3)

by Chloe Walsh

“Listen, I want you to know something,” he said quietly, clenching my hip with his hand. “I want you to know that you’ve been the best part of my day every day since I was twelve years old.” “Don’t, Joe.” Voice breaking, I felt my heart hammering violently as tears spilled down my cheeks. “I don’t want to hear this.” Not when I knew where it would lead. “It’s true.” Tipping my chin up with his free hand, he forced me to look at him. “My life has been a shitstorm from day dot, Molloy, and the whole goddamn town knows it. I’ve never had calm. But you?” His tear-filled eyes implored me to hear him. “You were like an island. Somewhere for me to go and escape. Somewhere safe. Someone to anchor me, if that even makes sense. And I took advantage of that when I had no right to. I was selfish when I dragged you into my world. Now, I need to put you first.” A tear slid down my cheek as his words only enforced what I already knew to be true: that I would never get over this boy. “Then put me first by not doing this, because I don’t want this, Joey. I don’t want your goodbyes.” “You might not want me to say goodbye, but you need me to.” And then he cut me deeper than a guillotine ever could when he added, “I was always going to fuck this up, Molloy.” With a resigned look, he slowly released me and backed away. “I’m only sorry that I didn’t put you first sooner.” “Oh my fucking god!” I cried, throwing my hands up in frustration and panic as I watched him walk away from me. “You just lo...

Don’t do this. Don’t walk away from her. She’s the only good thing you’ve got going for you. She’s the only one who gives a shit about you.

Do it for her. Give her a chance at normal. Don’t drag her down with you. She’s too good for you.

No, I want to die.

Because it was over. It was over and I wasn’t ready for it to be. I wasn’t ready for him to leave me. But he had.

Maybe I could become someone deserving of being with her, because the current version of me sure as hell wasn’t. And if I couldn’t beat this thing that had crept up on me and sunk its claws in me, then at least I wasn’t going to drag her down with me. Because I loved Aoife Molloy enough to force her hand with a get-out-of-jail card, even if it almost killed me to do it. I would not turn her into another Sam. Or worse, my mam. I would rather cut my bollocks off and join the priesthood before I let that happen.

3. Take a bottle of vodka in the bath with me mode.

He needed help and I needed to be heard. And even if he refused to let me help him, then he damn sure would hear me.

“Because I was trying to do the right thing,” he snarled, losing his cool right back with me. “Fuck!” “For who?” I screamed, throwing my hands up. “For you!” he roared back, chest heaving as he mirrored my actions, throwing his hands up wildly. “For you, Molloy. For fucking you. Always you!” Frustrated, his hands clenched at his sides as he spat out, “I was willing to walk away because I knew that it was the best thing that I could do for you, not because I don’t love you!” “Love me?” I choked out a pained, humorless laugh. “So now you give me the word? When it’s over?” I shook my head, incredulous, as devastation ricocheted through me. “That’s just fucking priceless.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m giving you the truth.” “You know about my parents’ relationship,” I accused, delirious with grief and desperate for him to hear my pain. For him to know just how deeply the knife he put in my back had cut me. It was wedged in the bone, and I was slowly dying inside. “You know why I have issues with trusting men.” He had the good grace to clamp his mouth shut and nod. “I never trusted Paul, not once in four years, and I never allowed myself to love him, either, because I knew what would happen if I did,” I strangled out, breath coming in short audible puffs. “I knew that in the end he would let me down and break my heart—if I gave him the power to. So I didn’t. I kept that power and my heart to myself.” Sniffling, I shook my head and forced myself to look at him when I said, “But I ...

“You made me fall,” I forced myself to tell him, as every inch of me trembled. “You made me fall, and trust, and believe, and then you took it all away.” Pain encompassed his features. “I know.” “I’m in love with you.” I didn’t care how weak or pathetic that I sounded in that moment as I continued to let my truth spill from my lips, as I bled open in front of him. “And I’m afraid for you, and I’m completely fucked up in the head because of you.” My throat hitched, and I exhaled a broken sob before forcing out, “And I have felt all of these things for you since I was twelve years old.” “Aoife.” “I have turned a blind eye to all of the shady things you do more times than I care to admit. I have thrown friendships away to be with you. I have walked into drug dens for you. I have covered for you, protected you, lied for you, and given my body to you.” “Aoife.” He groaned like I was causing him physical pain. “I—” “I couldn’t love you more if I tried, Joey Lynch,” I cried, giving up the fight against the tears that were flowing freely down my cheeks now. “I couldn’t.” I felt like a poisoned snake that was dying, weakened but exceptionally dangerous and venomous. I couldn’t understand how my heart was so willing to be hurt, to lie down for this boy to walk and trample all over it with no thought or care for the consequences. Without thought for my future, which didn’t exist without him. “But it’s never going to be enough for you!” Losing the battle with my emotions, I clutched m...

“I do love you more,” I choked out, feeling my soul crack in half as I reeled in the unimaginable fucking horror of what I’d done to her. “You are enough for me.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.” Blowing out a pained breath, I added, “I don’t want to be the way I am. I don’t fucking love what I do. I despise it.” “Then why do it?” she begged, trembling in my arms. “Why?” She was asking me to give her the answer to something I couldn’t explain.

Because Molloy didn’t know what it felt like to wake up every morning with a strong inclination to attempt suicide. She didn’t know how it felt to be a helpless child, half-starved from hunger, and even more starved for a way out of a home he wasn’t wanted in. She didn’t know what it felt like to be that hopeless kid who finally found something that helped him through the pain and sheer fucking misery that was his life. And she had no idea how quickly the shift in balance had happened for that kid, how it had snuck up on him so unexpectedly. She could never understand the excruciating self-loathing that came with realization that the one vice that had once helped that kid make it through the day had silently morphed into something he couldn’t make it through a day without. She would never understand how it felt to transition from controlling your life with something you once enjoyed to becoming controlled by the very thing you now despised. I didn’t tell her any of that, though. Because I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t fucking good enough.

Shivering, she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch. “I don’t want to be with anyone else.” “Neither do I,” I replied hoarsely, and then it almost killed me to add, “But I don’t want to hurt you either, which means that I need to stay away from you, and you need to let me.” “No.” With tears dripping down her cheeks, she shook her head and tightened her hold on my waist. “I can’t.” “You have to,” I croaked out, feeling every ounce of her pain because I shared it right along with her. “Because I need to get my head clear before I can trust myself to be near you.” “But you’re fine now,” she sobbed, clutching onto me. “You didn’t go out tonight. You’re here. You’re here, Joe! You’re not strung out, or stoned, or drunk.” “We both know that I’m not fine, baby.” “But—” “Listen to me.” “No, because you’re not saying what I need you to say.” “You want the words?” Roughly clearing my throat, I sucked in a sharp breath before saying, “Fine. I love you, Aoife Molloy.” “Don’t.” “I love you,” I reiterated, eyes locked on hers as I brushed away a tear from her cheek. “I love you more than I have ever loved another person in my life, and that’s not an exaggeration. That’s the god-honest truth.” “Joe.” “Which is why I can never put you in a position like the one I put you in on Christmas Eve.” Sniffing back my emotion, I shook my head and expelled a harsh breath before adding, “It’s because I love you that I will never allow that to happen to you ever again.” “You’re not supposed to te...