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“Shannon, I didn’t mean to—” “Don’t fucking speak to her, creep!” I roared, taking a protective stance in front of the chair my sister was slumped on when that bastard tried to speak to her. “I will kill you. Do ya hear me? I will slit your fucking throat if you so much as look at my sister again!” How dare he look at her? How dare he fucking say he didn’t mean to hurt her?
He knew that the only way to keep me down was to kill me. Because I would never back down from him. As long as there was air in my lungs, I would continue to stand my ground. I would always fight back.
“Shannon, don’t listen to him,” I urged, feeling her wilt at my side. He was getting into her head, just like he intended, and it was crippling me. He might not be able to hurt me, but when he hurt her, it fucking shredded me.
“You think you have a life without me?” he continued to taunt her. “You are nothing without me, bitch. The only way you’re leaving me is in a box. I’ll kill ya before I let you leave me. Do ya hear me? I’ll burn this fucking house to the ground with you and your cunts in it before I let ya go!”
Pain ricocheted through me. I could feel the bone in my nose twisting sideways from the brunt of his blows. In a way, I was relieved because I thought this might finally be it. It’s finally over.
I love you, I mentally told her. I’m sorry. I gave it a fucking shot.
I wanted to close my eyes. To just stop. But something caught my eye in the haze. Shannon caught my eye. I could see her. At the other side of the kitchen. Slumped over and bleeding from her mouth. Panic clawed at my gut. She’s dying. She’s dying. Get up. Get the fuck up and help her.
I knew what I was about to witness would be bad, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my boyfriend, bloodied to a pulp, slumped on the kitchen floor, cradling the lifeless body of his sister in his arms.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Shh, I’ve got you.” Ignoring his mother, my boyfriend continued to whisper in his baby sister’s ear. “I love you. I love you, Shan. Just hold on for me, okay?” “Shannon!” “Jesus Christ, Shannon!” “I’m here. I’m right here, Shan,” Joey continued as he rocked her back and forth in his arms like a mother would a small child.
“Is she breathing?” I jumped into action, setting Sean down as I hurried over to them. “I don’t know, I don’t know.” Joey choked out a cry, and it was the worst sound I had ever heard come from his mouth. He sounded so young. So frightened. So utterly broken. “Can you hear me?” he sobbed, holding her bloodied face between his hands. “I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Shannon, can you hear me? Shan? Come on, talk to me.”
“I’m going to get you help, okay?” Joey was whispering in Shannon’s ear as he pressed a kiss to her bloody forehead, smearing and mixing the blood on his face with hers. “Don’t leave me.”
Yup im crying
“His MRI results show three separate linear fractures to the skull,” the voice was telling her. “He has a nasal fracture, an orbital fracture, and a hairline fracture to his left zygomatic bone.”
“Aside from three hairline fractures on Joseph’s skull, he also has a broken cheekbone, a broken nose, a broken eye socket, and a grade three concussion,” I heard the man say. “His MRI also showed up several old contusions, extensive damage to his humerus, not to mention signs of multiple metaphyseal-epiphyseal fractures that seem to have healed remarkably well without causing any major deformation or debilitation to his skeletal frame.”
“Joseph, may I be frank?” “Be whoever the fuck you want, Doc. I’m not your keeper,” I mumbled, enjoying the feel of Molloy’s fingers in my hair so much, I leaned in closer and rested my chin on her shoulder. “You be Frank and I’ll be Joey.” “No, Joe, he meant… Never mind. Go ahead, Doctor.” “In cases like Joseph’s—” “Joey,” I grumbled. “It’s Joey, Frank.”
“The results of his scans clearly show evidence of malunion fractures that went untreated and healed improperly. There’s very clear evidence of a poorly healed midshaft fracture to his right humerus. Unfortunately, this is something commonly seen in infants under the age of eighteen months who have been exposed to physical abuse. In your partner’s case, while his bones may have healed over time, many of the injuries his body sustained left residual shadows. Or blemishes, if you will.”
“I’m saying there’s evidence that leads me to believe that your partner has sustained a tremendous level of physical abuse over an extended period of time.” “That leads back to when he was a baby?” “It’s possible.” “Oh my god.” Molloy heaved out a sob and pulled me closer. “Oh my god!” “Quite frankly, it’s a miracle he’s sitting here.”
Sniffling, I forced a smile and whispered, “Hey, stud.” “Hey, queen.” His voice was raspy and torn. “Nice legs.” I choked out a sob. “Nice everything.”
“How’s my baby?” “Still cooking.” “How’s my other baby?” “I’m okay, Joe,” I said. “We’re both fine.” “Good.” His eyelid fluttered shut. “I need you to be okay.”
“You got the girl pregnant while you’re still in school, Joe? Really?” His tone was dripping with condescension when he said, “Talk about following in the old man’s footsteps and repeating the goddamn cycle!” “Don’t even think about lecturing me, asshole,” I snapped, refusing to show him how deeply he cut me with his words. “I am not our old man, and she is none of your fucking business!”
I said it once and ill say it again, FUCK DARREN
“Yeah, well, explain yourself to your conscience,” I shot back, trembling. “Because if anything happens to him, then it’s on you!” “Let’s cut the bullshit here. If Joey signed himself out of hospital, it’s for one reason and one reason only,” Darren was quick to counter. “He’s out chasing his next fix.” “Shut up,” I warned, holding a hand up. “Shut your goddamn mouth.” “He’s an addict, Aoife, and that’s not on me.”
I HATE DARREN CLUB
“Yeah, I know what you’ve done to him,” I sneered unapologetically. “And you can bury your head in the sand all you want, but you’re the mental abuser in this instance. You broke him, Marie. You have damaged Joey deeper with your words than his father ever has with his fists. You’re a gaslighting bitch!” “Like you can talk.” “All I have ever done is love your son.”
“Tell me something,” Darren decided to interject. “If you knew my brother was in such a bad way, why didn’t you do something to protect him?” “Fuck you, Darren,” I spat out. “You don’t know a damn thing about either one of us.” “I know my brother isn’t well,” he countered evenly. “And so do you. So, why the hell would you trap him into fatherhood?” “I didn’t trap him.” I stiffened, feeling my hackles rise and my heart crack in one breath.
“And there’s absolutely nothing either of you can say to change that. You can’t pay me off or bribe me because I’m not going away.” “Then you’re going to ruin his life.” “Then at least he’ll be ruined with love and not pain.”
My body was floating. Slipping in and out of consciousness. I couldn’t feel a thing. And it was fucking glorious.
With my eyes rolling back in my head, and my legs twitching sporadically, I lay on my side, trying to focus on the needle in my arm.
My eyes are watering
Euphoria flooded my veins, taking with it every one of my problems, until there was nothing but darkness. Emptiness. No pain. Void.
Body racked with tremors, I tried to control my breathing as flashbacks of the past two weeks slowly came back to me. Dad. Shannon. Molloy. Mam. Darren! Shane. Pain. Pain. Fucking pain.
“I don’t know what I am,” I heard him say. “I don’t feel human anymore.”
“You’ve got a beautiful mind, Joey Lynch, and a wonderful heart. You can beat this. You just have to want to. It’s half the battle. You can still fix this. You have time. You can get better. Just try, Joe. That’s all you have to do. Just try, baby. I love you so much. Watching you self-destruct like this is killing me.”
Get the fuck up. No, just lie down. Don’t you dare stay down. Go into the bathroom, find a razor, slit your goddamn wrists, and be done with this nightmare. Don’t worry, Peter Pan. I’ll be your Wendy. Think of the baby.
Trembling I reached a hand through the bars to touch her, to just feel her and assure myself that she was in fact real. “I think I’m broken.”
“You’ve been with Shane Holland, haven’t you?” “I don’t remember.” “You could die, Joe!” “I don’t know if I want to live, Aoife.”
“We barely know each other, and you’re probably thinking that I’m some sort of crazy person for showing up on your doorstep earlier, and for phoning you, but I’m so damn desperate and he’s—” “You said six hundred?” Gibsie cut me off by asking as he retrieved a wad of cash from his coat pocket and placed it on my lap. “It’s all there.”
I LOVE GIBSIE SO MUCH
“Like I said, I can keep a secret,” he offered with a wink. “I’ve got your back, Mrs. Joey the hurler.”
PROTECT GIBSIE AT ALL COSTS
When she was finished giving her son a piece of her mind and turned her attention back to me, I braced myself for battle, but it wasn’t anger I saw in her eyes. It wasn’t fear, either. It was sadness. And fuck, somehow that made it worse.
“Your son could do a lot worse,” I heard myself say, immediately shifting into defense mode as I watched her plate a heap of scones onto a serving dish. Scones. She was making scones and tea in an actual fucking teapot. “But he couldn’t do better than my sister.”
“Shannon’s the best person I know.” “Oh, Joey love.” Sympathetic brown eyes locked on mine. “Why do I get the feeling that Shannon would say the exact same thing about you?”
Turning to face me, she gave me her full attention. It was a worrying fucking concept considering I didn’t know her. “Say what you were going to say, love. I’m listening.” She was. That was the unsettling part. She was listening to me. Fuck.
“Kavanagh,” I acknowledged then, turning my attention to the lad she was welded to. “Thanks again.” For holding on to her. For looking after her when I couldn’t.
“By the way, I know about the baby,” Tadhg blew my mind by saying. “My brother got you pregnant.”
“Do I look like I give a shit about what she thinks? Besides, I already told ya she took to the bed again,” he responded harshly as he sat on the empty beer barrel opposite me and polished off his fourth bag of crisps. “I’m here for my brother.”
“I’m here for Joe because I know he’s fucked in the head right now,” Tadhg continued, taking another swig from his bottle of Coke. “I saw it in his eyes that day in the kitchen. I saw him check out. I know he’s not here anymore. Dad broke Shannon’s lungs, but he broke Joey’s mind and Mam helped him do it.”
“He’s gone and you know it, too.” He gave me a hard stare when he said, “But my brother can get better. I know he can, and you need to not give up on him.” “Tadhg…” My breath caught in my throat, and I sucked in a shaky breath, wondering just how much he knew. He was turning twelve in a couple of days, and knowing that he had this level of intuition and awareness about his family was heartbreaking.
now im crying about a child... Chloe what did you put in this book?
“Joe’s the only parent I remember having, so trust me when I tell you that your kid…” He paused to gesture to my stomach before adding, “Is going to have one hell of a father.”
“Do you want to hang out here until I’m finished work?” I asked, watching as he moved for the wall of the smoking area. “I’ll drive you home.” “That’s what I’ve got legs for.” “But your dad’s still out there.” “My dad can go fuck himself,” Little Alpha called over his shoulder as he climbed onto a wheely bin and vaulted effortlessly onto the stone wall enclosing the smoking area. “If anything, he needs to hope he doesn’t run into me.”
“I’ll be seeing ya,” he called out, offering me a half-assed sailor salute before disappearing over the wall.
Mini Joey
Wishing I was anywhere but back in this house, I looked on as Shannon and Mam battled it out for the title of Ballylaggin’s loudest screamer. While Darren the dildo tried to wave a white flag between them.
The shit Mam had spurted to the Kavanaghs was horrendous, and Darren was feeding into her bullshit by pandering to her mental breakdown. I might need locking up, but Mam sure as shit needed to reserve the padded cell next to mine.
“I’m your mother,” she sobbed, voice slurring. “Why do you hate me so much?” “I’m your son,” I replied, giving her back her words. “Why do you hate me so much?” “Because you’re him,” she slurred, twisting away from me.
He stiffened when my hand made contact with his skin, and I watched as a full-body shudder rolled through him. A god-awful pained cry escaped his parted, swollen lips, and he moaned drowsily into the mattress as his body stiffened and flinched with every gentle stroke of my thumb on his cheek. Fucking monsters. The both of them.
