“I didn’t even know he’d come back. I was upstairs in my room when I heard her screaming my name, so I came running. I was half-way down the staircase when I saw him slap my sister across the face for trying to pull him off our mother. You’ve seen how small she is. Shan went down like a sack of spuds. So, I lost my head, went for him…” Shrugging, I added, “and here we are.”
“Here we are,” she repeated sadly. “Your poor face…”
“I didn’t come out the worst,” I was quick to assure her. It was the one part of the whole damn mess that had kept me warm last night. I’d gotten the better of him, finally, after almost eighteen years of taking his shit, he had to be protected from me.
He was a lucky man that the neighbors called the Gards over the commotion, because if they hadn’t arrived and dragged me off him, I would have been facing murder charges.
Molloy sucked in a sharp breath. “So, what did the Gards say?”
“It was just the usual slap on the wrist and a warning. They called in an emergency social worker and the youth liaison officer. You know, the usual bullshit.”
“What does that mean?” Concern filled her eyes. “Are they…are you being taken away?”
“No, no, it’s grand,” I assured her. “I’m used to social workers coming around. I’ll handle it.”
“Well, I hope you told them everything, Joe,” she growled. “Because this can’t happen again.”
When I didn’t answer her, because I couldn’t give her the answer she wanted, she lost it.
“Oh, my fucking god!” she screamed, pushing my chest before jerking away from me. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?”
Because I can’t!
“It’s not your business, Molloy.”
“You’re my business!”
“It’s okay,” I attempted to calm her by saying. “It’s going to be fine. They’ll write up the usual reports, send the usual people around for a home check and Mam will feed them the usual drivel. Then in a few weeks, it will be all brushed under the table.”
“How?”
Confused, I looked at her and asked, “How what?”
“How can this be brushed under the table?” Her green eyes blazed with fury. “He beat you, Joey. You’re his son and he broke your damn nose! He hit your mam. He slapped your sister. And Tadhg!” She choked out a sob. “He hurt him not too long ago. That’s not normal, okay? Contrary to whatever bull-crap your parents have fed you, this doesn’t happen in other homes. So, how is this going to be fine?”
“It just is, okay!” I snapped, feeling my defensive walls shoot up around me. “Fuck.”
“Bull,” she shouted, turning back towards the Garda station. “You’re being used as a scapegoat for your father’s crimes. Your mother just threw you to the wolves to save her abusive husband’s skin. She should have been down here with you last night, straightening all of this out and telling them that they arrested the wrong person. Instead, she was with him, plotting and scheming up a story to tell the world about how her son has anger management issues, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re not the instigator in this, he is, and I’m not about to sit back and watch you take the blame.”
“Aoife.” I held up a hand in warning, feeling like she had just stabbed me through both the chest and the back. “If you say a word about this to the Gards, then I swear to god I will never talk to you again.”
Her mouth fell open. “I’m trying to protect you!”
“You swore you wouldn’t,” I reminded her. It was why I opened up to her. “You fucking promised me!”
“Well, I have to do something, Joey,” she strangled out. “I can’t watch this happen to you. I love you!“
“Well, don’t!” I roared back at her. “If loving me means betraying my trust, then don’t fucking bother! Don’t love me and don’t get involved. I can take care of my own shit.”
“Joey.”
“I shouldn’t have told you a damn thing,” I choked out, shaking now. “Fuck!”
“Joey, wait!”
“No. No. No!” Shaking my head, I turned on my heels and walked away from her, needing to put some space between us before I lost the head and said something I couldn’t take back. “I mean it, Molloy,” I called over my shoulder. “Talk to the Gards and we’re done.”
SUSPENSIONS AND COLD SHOULDERS
DECEMBER 17TH 2004
AOIFE
Joey and I were on the outs.
Ever since our fight outside the Garda station last weekend, I had been on the receiving end of his cold shoulder.
All week at school, he had walked right by me in the halls like I wasn’t there, and even in the classes where we were assigned to sit together, he never once relented.
Of course, neither did I, and I had all but goaded him until I was blue in the face for a reaction.
I didn’t get one.
Not when I sat on his lap at lunch.
Not when I stabbed him with a pencil in English.
Not even when I flashed him a boob in PE.
Nada.
It was fairly evident that my threat to talk to the Gards had backfired on me in epic fashion.
Joey was beyond furious with me, and on the rare occasion that I had caught him staring at me, the look of betrayal in his eyes directed towards me had made me wish I hadn’t.
How was I supposed to explain to him that I was trying to help him and not betray him, if he wouldn’t speak to me?
It was beyond frustrating.
Like a glutton for punishment, my masochistic mind drifted back to the last time we had been together before shit had hit the fan at home for him.
Drunk as a skunk, Joey held me and mumbled along to The Beatles’ Don’t Let Me Down, as we swayed against each other on the dancefloor in the back lounge of Biddies. “My Granda Murphy was a big fan.”
“Of The Beatles?”
“Yeah, and of this song.” Pulling me close he pressed a kiss to the curve of my jaw and said, “When I was small, I used to ask him what the words of the song meant. He would always say that one day, when I found myself in love with a girl, I wouldn’t have to ask him what the words meant, because I would already know.” His arms tightened around me. “Turns out he was right.”
“You look like someone stole your last Rolo,” Casey announced when she sank down on the chair beside me during big break on Friday. “Is he still ignoring you?”
“Yep.” I nodded glumly and tossed my spoon back in my yoghurt, appetite null and void. “He sure is.”
“Jesus, what did you do to piss him off this much?” She blew out a breath. “I’ve never seen him ignore you like this, not in the six years we’ve been in school together. Anytime you guys have been on the outs in the past, it’s because you’ve evoked the silent law, not him.”
I sighed wearily. “He thinks I’ve broken his trust and betrayed him.”
“Did you?”
“No,” I was quickly to defend. “I didn’t. I thought about doing something that he considers a betrayal, but he freaked out, so I didn’t.”
“Then there’s no harm done, right?” Casey frowned. “What’s he still mad for?”
“Because in his mind, the very fact that I thought about it, is an act of betrayal.”
“Jesus, that boy is complicated.”
“You have no idea, Case.”
“Uh-oh, speaking of complicated…” Nudging my arm with her elbow, she inclined her head towards the window to where Joey and a few of his friends were getting fairly aggressive with Mike, Paul, and a few others from our year, outside in the yard.
“Oh, for god’s sake,” I groaned, watching as he balled his hands into fists as his sides. “He better not start a—“
“Too late, it’s already started,” Casey interjected, watching right along with me as Joey and Mike Maloney started brawling on the ground. “You better go and calm that stud of yours down,” she added. “Before he gets himself expelled and I lose my eye candy for the rest of the year.”
SPECIAL_IMAGE-images/svgimg0003.svg-REPLACE_ME
“Joey!” I screamed, pushing through the hordes of bystanders who had made a large circle around the fight. “Stop! Wait. Would you just stop, Joey, stop!”
Joey didn’t stop.
Instead, he attacked our classmate with such bloodlust and viciousness that it resembled a dog fight, where Mike was the unknowing Labrador, and Joey was the teeth-baring Pitbull.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Podge faithfully throwing punches at Paul in his bid to protect his best friend from being double-teamed.