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“I don’t want fifty more girls,” I replied, twisting back to find her still watching me. “I just want that girl.”
“Does it matter?” I countered, needing to regain some ground I had lost to this powerhouse of a girl. “We both know that you’ll be calling me ‘baby’ by the end of the day.”
Hearing Paul Rice tell half of the lads in our P.E. class about how Tony’s daughter was so tight he could barely get a finger inside her had caused me to flip the fuck out on him in the changing rooms. I did it for Tony because he wasn’t there to do it himself. At least, that’s what I continued to tell myself.
Okay, so inviting a boy who wasn’t my recently acquired boyfriend into my house on Valentine’s night might not have been my brightest idea, but in my defense, sharing a box of Coco Pops with Joey Lynch wasn’t exactly the crime of the century.
“Joey…” “He’s going to kill you, Mam,” I lashed out. “Don’t you get that? Can’t you hear me? You’re going to die in this house. If you don’t get away from him, you’re going to die here. I can feel it in my bones…”
And with those words, my mother cut me deeper and more viciously than my father ever had. Ever could.
“Stay out of trouble out there, okay?” I nodded slowly. “I’ll try my best.” “Make sure you do.” She laughed. “Because I’ve put an awful lot of effort into saving you, six.”
With Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s “’03 Bonnie & Clyde” blasting from the car stereo, a fitting song given the circumstances, I held on for dear life to the dashboard as the wild and reckless boy in the driver’s seat blew my mind. Sitting in the passenger seat beside him, I felt like I was on a power trip.
“This one’s my favorite,” Molloy said, turning up the volume on her stereo when the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” drifted from the speakers.
“You shouldn’t settle for comfortable, Molloy. You shouldn’t settle for anything less than being in love to the point of madness. The only person that you should be settling for is the person who unsettles you the most. The person who drives you to the brink of suicide because he or she makes you feel so fucking much that you can’t catch your breath or remotely function without them.
She blew out a shaky breath and nodded. “Oh, I’ve been sold on you for a long time now, Joey Lynch.”
“The quintessential lost boy.” Her lips grazed mine as she spoke. “Don’t worry, Peter Pan, I’ll be your Wendy.”
“Excuse my flanker,” he told us as he led the blond lad back toward the lounge. “He’s like a bleeding Labrador. Completely harmless, with zero awareness of social cues and etiquette.” “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.”
“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.”
“Exactly. I’m not replacing you, Molloy.” I couldn’t. “I’m trying to fix me.” For you.
