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She looked me over once more before nodding in approval. “You’re beautiful.” Well, shit. “Likewise.”
“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.”
After spending a selfish amount of time contemplating taking a knife to my wrists, I clenched my eyes shut and locked every muscle in my body tight until my entire frame shook from the tension.
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.
“You know what? I think you do care,” she called after me. “In fact, I think you do like me. You like me and that’s why you act how you do. That’s why you riled my father up about Paul tonight. I’m right, aren’t I? You like me.” Of course I fucking liked her. She was the first thing my eyes had landed on when I walked through the entrance of Ballylaggin Community School last September, and the only face I consistently sought out since.
“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…” My voice cracked, and I choked back a sob, unwilling to shed tears. “Don’t you love yourself? Don’t you love me?”
She might think that she loved all of her children, but she certainly didn’t, or couldn’t, love me. Darren was her firstborn and favorite, Ollie was her sweet and affectionate baby, Tadhg was her mischievous rogue, and Shannon was her only daughter. That left me. The spare.
“In what way?” I demanded, chest heaving. “In looks? Because if it’s in looks, then that’s not my fault. I can’t help who I look like, but I am nothing like that man in any other way.” “You are,” she said before leaving the room. “In every way.” And with those words, my mother cut me deeper and more viciously than my father ever had. Ever could.
And just like that, his head turned in our direction, green eyes meeting mine. And just like every time I felt his eyes on me, my heart, the traitorous bitch, thundered violently in my chest.
“No, you’re just a doll” was his hurtful response. “Ricey’s personal fucking mannequin to drape in jewelry and stand by his side, looking pretty and saying nothing.” I stopped walking. I stopped breathing. His words cut me to the bone.
“We’re not friends, Molloy. And stop snuggling me.” “Friends snuggle.” “Friends do not fucking snuggle.” “I snuggle with Casey all the time.” “Well, I can assure you that I have never snuggled with Podge.”
“Listen here, Joey Lynch.” Sitting upright, she grabbed my chin and turned my face to look straight at her. “I saw you first. You’re my friend, not his. So stop worrying about my dad and start focusing on me.”
“Technically, your dad saw me first—” “You’re mine, okay?” “I’m not yours, but whatever.”
She laughed. “I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘Aoife, you’re my dearest, sexiest, most lovable, bestest friend in the whole wide world’.” “Don’t push your luck.” “But I’m your favorite, right?” With a teasing lilt to her voice, she said, “Your favorite friend?” “Yes, fine! Whatever. Christ,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes. “You’re my favorite friend, with my favorite legs.”
With my hands hanging and nothing to occupy my racing mind, I went looking for trouble and found it in the form of sharing a few lines of coke with Shane and the lads. The temporary high was fantastic. I felt on top of the world.
Shannon had a hard time fitting in with people, a very fucking hard time, and I often wondered what would happen to her when she eventually started secondary school. To be honest, it was a thought that terrified me to my core, so I tried not to think about it.
Addiction ruled his life. That was the pattern his life had taken, and I hated him for it. But not as much as I hated myself for following in his footsteps.
A smoke to sleep, a line to function, and whatever else I could get my hands on to escape. That had been my mantra for a long time now.
Pretending that it didn’t hurt me to see her with him was something that I had no choice but to master.
“I’m not afraid of loving a boy,” I told her honestly. “I’m afraid of losing myself in one.”
Her easygoing, playful nature meant that she didn’t take a lot of his jibes to heart, but I did. I fucking took them to heart for her.
“Make sure you do.” She laughed. “Because I’ve put an awful lot of effort into saving you, six.”
I know you care about him, Aoife. I get that, okay? But boys like that can’t be fixed. Not with friendship, or love, or anything else, because they are just not fixable.”
My attempt at ignoring her had lasted three days because, in all honesty, staying away from Aoife Molloy was almost as difficult for me as staying mad at her was.
A part of me was terrified that she would keep digging and somehow manage to break through my walls, through every one of my rotten layers until she got to the ugly center of me and then run for the hills.
“Hey.” Joey held his hands up and smiled darkly. “All I’m doing is being a good friend to my favorite friend.”
Clearing his throat, he looked behind him to where the car was waiting and then back to me. “I like you.” “Wow,” I breathed. “Another admission.” “The hardest one yet.”
“No, listen to me,” he urged, giving my hand a small squeeze. “I can be your friend, okay? I can do that. But you need to know that I’ve got some bad genes running through my system. Some seriously fucked-up DNA.” “Nobody’s perfect, Joe.”
“I’m not a good friend for you,” he added quietly, still crouching with his hand on my foot. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” “You’re better at it than you think.”
Releasing a pained breath, he leaned in close and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I could go a fair bit crazy over you, Molloy.” His lips brushed against my brow as he said, “Stay out of my head now, ya hear?”
“Don’t hate me for trying to move on,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around my waist and burying her face in my chest. “I’m doing what I have to do to move past this.” A shaky breath escaped her. “Same as you.” “Yeah, Molloy.” Feeling my anger dissolve, I sighed heavily and dropped my chin to rest on her blond hair. “I know.”
“So, this home economics partner,” Joey said, following me over to the table. “Is he your friend?” My heart flipped in my chest. “He was.” “Was?” Nodding, I sank down on my chair and took a bite of toast. “He used to be my best friend.”
“My grandfather’s dying, and you want me to give you money to take me to see him?” I shook my head in disgust. “I’d rather slit my wrists than feed your drinking habit, old man.” “Nah, because you’re too busy feeding your own habit, aren’t ya, boy?” Dad sneered. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Don’t give in to them,” he rasped, holding onto my hand with strength I was surprised he was capable of. “Promise me that you’ll…never…give in to them.” “Give in to who, Granda?” Gasping and wheezing for air, he looked me right in the eyes, green eyes on green and whispered, “The demons your father put in your head.”
She looked up at me with her big blue eyes. “You really promise?” She had our mother’s eyes and it made it hard to look at her sometimes. “I promise, Shan.” She smiled and visibly sagged in relief. The word seemed to comfort something inside of my sister, even if we both knew that I didn’t mean it.
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. Like we could take on the whole world in this moment.
“Hey.” My stomach bottomed out at the sight. “You shouldn’t give yourself away to the likes of her,” I whispered, giving him back the words he’d spoken to me a long time ago. A flash of recognition filled his eyes, causing his nostrils to flare. “Molloy.” “It hurts,” I admitted softly, reaching down to rub the lipstick off him. “This hurts me.” “I would never hurt you, Molloy,” he slurred, his words a lot like his life, a broken mess. “I’d rather die than hurt you.”
“Stay out of my face and stay out of my fucking life!” “Listen to me.” Closing the space he’d put between us, I reached for his hand, willing him to open up to me. “I know, okay? I get what’s happening here. Your dad’s a drunk, right?” With my thumb, I gestured behind me. “Gets a little handsy after a few too many glasses of Jameson?” I reached out to touch his shoulder. “Your back? Those scars—”
Suddenly all of the aggression and mood swings began to make sense. The drugs. The fighting. The vicious way he attacked both Paul and Kevin when he thought I was under threat. It was like a rain cloud had lifted in front of my eyes. He wasn’t violent by nature. He was violent because he wasn’t nurtured at home. “I understand what’s happening here, and I’m on your side.”
“Don’t touch me.” “Why not?” I closed the space between us once more, pinning him to the garden wall. I reached up and let my fingers graze over the cut on his brow. “Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you?” “No,” he strangled out, shaking from head to toe as he physically strained his body away from me. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.” His words threw us both.
Not to turn away at the sight of his bruised face or the dark circles under his eyes as I whispered, “Because you’re not him.” Joey stiffened. “You don’t know that, Molloy. You don’t know me. I break everything I care about. That’s what I do. I fuck it all up.”
“But will you mean it?” I pushed, refusing to back off. “That’s the important part.” “No.” His green eyes narrowed on me, studying me with a sharpness that was entirely unnerving and exhilarating in one breath. “I won’t mean it. Of course I won’t fucking mean it, but that won’t stop it from happening—” His words broke off when I kissed him.
and even though I knew I was a shitty person for not breaking up with Paul before kissing someone else, all I could think about was how epically right it felt to be with Joey. This kiss was going to have consequences, I realized. Huge, heart-stopping, feeling-igniting consequences.
Aoife Molloy consumed me to the point that I didn’t feel like everything was completely fucked in the world anymore.
