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“The quintessential lost boy.” Her lips grazed mine as she spoke. “Don’t worry, Peter Pan, I’ll be your Wendy.” I kissed her.
When she kissed me like that, I couldn’t take the vulnerable way it exposed me. Like a sheep baring its neck to a wolf, I went willingly, giving it all up to her, knowing that she could hurt me beyond repair.
“I’ve never done that before, you know? Skipped work or been late for a girl. You’re becoming a real bad habit, Molloy, and a bad influence with it.”
“I was only being friendly,” the blond lad argued as his friend led him away. “It’s nice to be nice, Johnny.” “Yeah, I know you were, Gibs, but those people are strangers, and what did we say about you talking to strangers?” “Don’t do it?” “Exactly.”
LMAOOOOO
“But don’t ever think that I don’t have feelings,” he said, and then pressed a kiss to my mouth. “Because the only time that I allow myself to feel anything is when I’m with you.”
Danielle was wrong about Joey. Yeah, she was so wrong.
“You’re here for the same reason that I am, asshole.” She came right back and sucker punched me in the chest with that. “Because you’re in love with the person staring back at you, the same way I am.”
“You do that,” I replied. “Bye.” “Love you.” “See you at five.” “Say it.”
“What have I gotten myself into?” “The best relationship of your life.” She wasn’t wrong there. “See you at five.”
“It’s been seven months. You’re my boyfriend, I’m your girlfriend, and we love each other a lot.” “We absolutely do not!”
“Not your boyfriend,” he muttered, and then released a pained groan. “Oh my Jesus, I just realized something.” “What?” “My boss’s daughter is my girlfriend.”
“Do you love my daughter?” Heart thumping violently in my chest, I felt myself nod. “Entirely.” And then I heard myself say, “For about five years now.” Well, shit…
“Because I fell in love with your daughter when you told me not to.”
Joey: I don’t love you. x Molloy: I don’t love you back. <3
The truth was that nothing about being with Joey was easy, and yet being with him felt so incredibly right.
“Don’t hate me, Molloy,” Joey mumbled, falling into the passenger seat the moment I let him go to open the car door. “You’re all I have to wake up for in the morning.”
“You and me. We could just load up the car and leave this shithole town behind us. I would go with you, Joe. I would. I love you.” She continued to sob, peppering kisses down my neck. “I love you. I love you. I love you so fucking much, it makes me want to die.”
She was too good for me, too fucking good for the world. I knew deep down inside that I needed to let her go in order to give her some chance of a future. But I just couldn’t.
He was a good person who made terrible decisions. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. He was trying to survive in the only way he’d ever known how, by self-medicating.
I couldn’t walk away if I wanted to. “You’re all I have to wake up for in the morning.” That small slip of the tongue had cut me to the bone.
I made a mental vow that I wouldn’t allow him to lose himself to the world he teetered on the edge of. No matter what, I would be right beside him, ready to pull him back to safety. Even if it meant that I lost myself in the process.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed a kiss to the middle of his back. “I don’t love you.” Sighing heavily, he covered my hands with his and whispered, “I don’t love you back.”
“It’s nothing as flashy as you’re used to from Ricey,” he warned when he climbed back into bed and tossed a small black jewelry box on the mattress between us, along with a half-melted packet of Rolos. My heart fluttered. “A whole pack just for me?”
“That date…” I blew out a shaky breath. “It’s—” “The first day of first year,” he explained quietly. “The first time I laid eyes on you, and the first time I understood what it meant to have my heart beating for someone outside of my family.”
“When I say I don’t love you,” he continued, nuzzling his face in my neck, “it’s the furthest thing from the truth.” Love. He was talking about loving me.
“But I will stand beside you,” I told him, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck. “I will do that, Joey, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Stay with me,” he told me as he kept a death grip on my hand. “I’ll keep you safe.” Fear washed over me.
Joey roughly cleared his throat before adding, “Aoife is my girlfriend.”
I would only ever leave this boy if I was dragged from him kicking and screaming. “You were.”
“You mean you love me,” I teased, grinning up at him. “Yeah, Molloy.” His eyes burned with sincerity when he said, “That’s exactly what I mean.” Finally!
“I love you, Joey Lynch,” I whispered, cradling his face to my neck
My heart cracked clean open when I felt the first tear land on my collarbone, followed by another and another. He was still moving inside me, still taking what he needed from me, but he was broken. And I was terrified that I couldn’t fix him.
With his bloodied hands hanging limply at his sides, he let his head fall to my shoulder. “They hurt her,” he slurred. “They hurt my sister.”
“I guess we’re both too stubborn for running, huh, Molloy?” “Or too in love.” “Yeah,” he agreed, tone gruff, as he pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. “Or that.”
“No.” Shaking my head, I stalked right over to him and grabbed his face in my hands, roughly, raw, sincerely refuting his deepest fear. “You are nothing like him.”
“I…love…” I felt my body tense when he clumsily reached across the car and tried to pat my thigh. “You…Molloy.…” “Tell me when you’re sober,”
I kept thinking that if I had handled my emotions differently that morning, maybe I could have prevented this.
His green eyes blazed with heat when he came right out and said, “It cost me you.”
“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!”
“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.
“Exactly. I’m not replacing you, Molloy.” I couldn’t. “I’m trying to fix me.” For you.
