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You’re my whole goddamn world wrapped up in one girl. So, yeah, maybe I’ve gone about it entirely the wrong way, but all I’ve ever tried to do is protect you.”
“I’m not your mother or your sister. I’m not another girl who needs something from you. I’m the girl who wholeheartedly wants you. I’m the girl who wholeheartedly loves you. The hurler. The mechanic. The boy. The protector. The asshole. The lover. The addict.”
Sniffling, I added, “All of your versions. All of your shapes and colors. I accept them all. So, I don’t care how fucked up in the head you get, or how bad of an idea you decide you are for me. If you can’t be with me, warts and all, then walk away now, because I won’t go through this again with you.”
he was also selfless and thoughtful, determined and dedicated. He was loyal to a fault, and even though he tried his very best to hide it from the world, my god, did he have a heart the size of the moon.
“Since we’ve been together? Since the day you put your lips on mine? It’s only been you, Aoife .”
The clearest of my memories involved nights with her. The only nights I ever wanted to remember were the ones I spent with her.
“From this moment on, you are dead to me. All of your shit? Handle it yourself. The next time he hits you, I won’t be there to shield you. The next time he drinks all the money, and you can’t feed the kids or get the electricity switched back on, find some other asshole to get cash from. The next time he throws you down the staircase or breaks your fucking arm in one of his whiskey tantrums, I’ll turn a blind eye just like you did right here in this kitchen.”
“I’m not a defenseless child, I’m not a scared teenage girl, and I’m not your battered wife. So, whatever you do to me, I can promise you that I’ll return tenfold.”
I knew Molloy would answer. I knew she would come for me. She would fight in my corner, regardless of what it cost her. That was the whole fucking problem.
“If you even think about putting your hands on my siblings, it won’t matter how much money you have, or what fancy law degrees line the walls of your office. I will come for you, and Jesus Christ himself won’t be able to save you.”
“All of the crazy shit I did? Fucking around with Shane and the lads? The drugs? The fighting? All of it. It was never about me replacing you. It was about me replacing me.”
Through the storm, through the Category 5 fucking hurricane that was my life, she stayed, never giving up on me even when I’d given up on myself.
I spent so long trying to push her away that when I stopped, it was so easy. Being with her was like breathing. I didn’t know I needed the air, but I knew that I would die without it.
My entire focus was on the girl still looking at me like I hung the moon. “And because everything I have, everything I am, I owe to you.”
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he replied, voice thick and gruff. “But I will earn it. Because whatever comes our way, from here on out, I’ll be right beside you.” He nuzzled my nose with his before pressing a kiss to my lips. “Because in this version of forever, we get the happy ending, Molloy.”
Joey Lynch and Aoife Molloy: both full of flaws and humanly imperfect and yet so undeniably perfect for each other.
