And taking her down with me was out of the question.
Feeling worse than I had in a very long time, I ignored multiple groups of children and young families playing out on the streets with their new bikes and scooters, as I crossed through her estate, and headed across the bridge towards mine.
Don’t do this.
Don’t walk away from her.
She’s the only good thing you’ve got going for you.
She’s the only one who gives a shit about you.
With my hood pulled up, I ignored all of my selfish thoughts, urges, and instincts, knowing that I needed to put her first this time.
And putting her first meant that I needed to put space between us.
Do it for her.
Give her a chance at normal.
Don’t drag her down with you.
She’s too good for you.
“Alright, Lynchy?” Jason O’ Driscoll, aka Dricko, one of the lads from my terrace, called out, as I walked past him. I smelled the familiar scent of weed wafting from the rollie he was balancing between his fingers. “Happy Christmas.”
“Alright, Dricko,” I replied, stopping to acknowledge the lad who used to be in my year at BCS until he dropped out after our junior cert in third year. We had hurled together all the way up through underage club level as well, until life caught up with him. “How’s the small fella of yours keeping? Did Santa come?”
“Luke? Ah, he’s grand,” he replied, as he lounged against the side of his baby mama’s dilapidated house, in a pink, frilly dressing gown. “He’s only a year and a half, so he doesn’t have a notion of what’s happening.” Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he held out the rollie, offering me a drag. “Smoke?”
“Nah, I’m good.” I shook my head, and kept my hands firmly clamped in the front pocket of my hoodie. “How’s Sam keeping nowadays?” I offered instead, as my thoughts cast to another one of my former classmates. “Are you living here with her now?” I asked, gesturing to the council house I knew she’d been given not long after she had his baby.
“Am I fuck,” he choked out a laugh. “I’ve my own life to be living. Sam handles the kid.”
I cocked a brow. “Pretty sure she had one of those too, lad, before you saddled her with your son at sixteen.”
“Ah, you know what I mean.” Dricko hurried to add, having the good grace to look sheepish. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great mam. Luke’s lucky to have her, because I sure as hell don’t know what to do with him, but the girl thinks she owns me because she had a kid off me.”
Again, I just stared blankly.
“Seriously, it’s a fucking nightmare. I can’t move without her, Joe. She’s constantly breathing down my goddamn neck,” he muttered bitterly, casting a narrowing glance to the front door. “I’m surprised she let me come outside for a smoke without chasing after me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe if you did a little more staying, she wouldn’t have to do so much chasing.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” he shot back with a chuckle. “When you’ve got that little ride from Rosewood Estate to stay put for. You were lucky that she was there the night of your eighteenth to hide you after you went nuclear on that car,” he continued to give me a dose of my own medicine by adding. “The Gards were scouring the terrace for the culprit.”
I didn’t answer him.
I couldn’t.
Because Molloy’s face was instantly at the fore point of my mind, and my guilt was fucking choking me.
“What have I got to stick around for?” he continued to rant. “Shitty nappies, overdue bills, constant nagging, and a screaming baby?” He shook his head. “Nah, lad, step into my shoes for a week, and you wouldn’t be long coming off that high horse.” The front door swung inwards then, and Dricko released a pained growl. “See what I mean?”
“He wants his father,” Sam snapped, red-faced and teary-eyed, as she stood in the doorway, with a small, dark-haired infant balancing on her hip.
“Yeah, well, his father’s busy,” Dricko tossed over his shoulder. “Tell him that his mother will have to do.”
“He’s your son, too, Jason. It’s Christmas morning. You could at least pretend like you’re interested in him for more than thirty seconds,” Sam bit out, before her gaze landed on me. “Oh, hey, Joey.”
“Sam.” Inclining my head in acknowledgment, forcing myself to take in the sight before me.
Take one look at her, asshole. This right here is how you know you did the right thing, my brain hissed. I felt validated as I locked eyes on the girl that I grew up alongside that had become a mother before her time.
I was no different to Dricko. We shared the similar misfortune of being born to young mothers and asshole fathers. We were cut from the same cloth, but I would make damn sure that Molloy had a different future to the one stretching out in front of Samantha McGuinness. “Happy Christmas.”
“Thanks, and the same to you, Joe,” she replied, giving me a long lonesome look, before turning her attention back to her fella. “Well? Are you coming inside or not?”
“When I’m ready.”
“Jason.”
“Keep nagging and you’ll be eating dinner on your own with the kid,” he warned, exhaling another cloud of smoke. “I’m doing you a favor by being here, Sam. I told you that I’d come round last night to see the kid open his presents, but I’m not your fucking bell boy.“
“You did more than come around,” she spat, voice trembling. “You spent the night.”
“Right, I’m off,” I muttered, striding off down the footpath, before I got dragged into their domestic.
I didn’t have the heart or the energy to deal with anyone else’s drama this morning.
My head was full, and my shoulders were buckling under the pressure of my own shit.
I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket, but I didn’t reach for it.
I couldn’t.
Because if I glanced at that screen and saw her name flashing, I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to reject her call.
“Joey!” Ollie was standing in the doorway when I stepped foot in the garden a few minutes later. “Santa came, Joe! He’s been to our house this year! He came!”
“Did he?” I replied, somehow managing to muscle up the enthusiasm he needed from me in that moment. “That’s because you’ve been washing your ears properly.”
“Uh-huh!” Nodding brightly, my little brother grabbed my hand and dragged me inside. “You were right, Joe. You said he would come if I scrubbed them good and he came!”
“Good morning,” Mam greeted me in the front hall, clad in the same old dressing gown she always wore. The one Darren bought her the Christmas before he left. It didn’t matter that she’d been given a new one since. She continued to cling to the past, and her first born, by wearing the thread worn robe. “Happy birthday.”
“Oh shoots, I forgot!” Ollie yelped, slapping his forehead. “Happy birthday, Joey.”
“Cheers, kid,” I replied, before asking my mother, “Where is he?”
“Bed.”
“Good.” Repressing a shudder of revulsion when my eyes landed on my mother’s stomach, I focused on the outstretched arms of the toddler on her hip. “How’s my Seany-boo?” I asked, lifting him into my arms. “Did Santa come to my Seany?”
“O-ee,” Sean babbled, pressing his spit-slobbered hand to my cheek. “O-ee.”
Sidestepping my mother, I moved for the sitting room, where Tadhg was sitting under the tree, looking exceptionally dejected in comparison to our younger brothers.
“You didn’t come home,” he accused, not bothering to look up from the toy train he was holding in his hands.