“He could’ve killed me, Aoife,” Kev strangled out, as he stormed into his bedroom, still clutching his throat. “That psycho nearly killed me.”
“But he didn’t?” I offered lamely, only to receive a door slammed in my face for my troubles. “Dammit.”
Shaking out my trembling hands, I drew in a steadying breath and hurried back to my room.
“Yeah, so Kev’s beyond pissed.” I slammed the door shut and glared at my rogue protector. “What did you that for, Joe? He’s going to tell our parents and you’re going to end up getting in trouble with Dad.”
“Let him tell them,” was all Joey replied, as he crouched down and quietly loaded up all of his tools into his bag. ”It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does matter,” I argued, stalking towards the beautiful eejit. “You love working at the garage.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he repeated, keeping his head down, as he filled his bag and zipped it shut. “I’m sorry for causing trouble for you,” he added, as he stood up and threw the bag over his shoulder. “I’ll be seeing ya, Molloy.”
“No, no, you’re not walking out of here,” I warned, hurrying to barricade my bedroom door and keep him in here with me. “We can sort this out.”
“What’s to sort, Molloy?” he said flatly. “I hit my boss’s son. I think it’s pretty clear that I’m done here.”
“No, you’re not done here. You’re not even close to being done, here. So, just cool your jets and let me think about this,” I ordered, shoving his chest, and feeling a swell of excitement when he let me walk him backwards. Because let’s face it, after the display he’d just put on, there was no way anyone could make this boy do anything he didn’t want to do.
Walking Joey over to my bed, I pushed on his shoulders, and watched as he obligingly sank down on the mattress.
“Why’d you do that, Joe?” I croaked out, standing in front of him. I was physically shaking from head to toe as my earlier adrenalin deserted me.
"Because he hurt you," he replied, looking up at me with the most lonesome expression I’d ever seen. In this moment, Joey Lynch looked like the quintessential lost boy. “Because he put his hands on you."
"But he’s my brother, Joe,” I heard myself explain softly. We were only messing. It was play fighting.”
Joey looked up at me like I was speaking a foreign language, and the rare vulnerability caused me to do something incredibly reckless.
“I don’t…” He blew out a sharp breath. “I fucked up.”
Nudging his legs open, I stepped closer. “Yeah, you kind of did, Joe.” I reached out and ruffled his blond hair, and then, unable to stop myself, I cupped his face between both hands, and I looked down at him. “Picking fights with my brother, of all people,” I admonished softly, thumbs grazing over his cheekbones. “Spud packs a bigger punch with his tail.”
“I thought he was…” Shaking his head, Joey let his head fall forward to rest against my stomach. “I just saw you on the ground and he was… and I just…” The move was incredibly intimate, and I sucked in a sharp breath from the contact. “Fuck.”
“I’m okay,” I coaxed, unable or just plain unwilling to stand back and not comfort him. With trembling hands, I held his face to my stomach, and whispered, “You’re okay.”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t pull away either, so I remained right there in my bedroom, with his cheek pressed to my belly and my hands stroking his hair.
Finally, after what felt like an age, I felt the tension slowly leave his shoulders, and then his arms came around my waist. “He hurt you,” he croaked out. “You don’t hit girls.”
NEW SCHOOL YEAR, SAME OLD ME
SEPTEMBER 1ST 2003
JOEY
Face down on a mattress that smelled of piss and freshly spilled tears, I remained completely rigid as awareness claimed me from the sweet escape of sleep.
With my brain foggy and uncooperative, I forced myself to retrace last night's events, trying to link my current surroundings with reality, but came up empty.
"Dada," a familiar voice sniffled, and just like that, I knew where I was.
Like you could be anywhere else.
A small, sticky hand landed on my cheek. "Dada."
Repressing the urge to shudder and scream, I slowly uncoiled my muscles, twisted onto my back, and cracked one swollen eyelid open just as my baby brother climbed on top of me.
Big brown eyes stared down at me. "Dada."
"Jesus Christ," I groaned, grimacing in resignation when his soaking wet pajama bottoms landed on my bare stomach. "Piss through your nappy again, Seany-boo?"
Nodding solemnly, Sean leaned close and pressed his chubby little hand against my cheek. "Dada, ow-ow." Lonesome brown eyes studied my face. "Ow-ow."
"No, Sean," another voice barked. In a tone laced with venom and fury, Tadhg sat up from his makeshift bed on my bedroom floor, and hissed, "For the last fucking time, he’s Joey, not Dada. Joey! Your actual Dada beat the shit out of your fake one last night."
"Tadhg, leave him alone. He’s only small, and I’ve been called worse," I growled, narrowing my eyes in warning, as I gingerly pulled myself into a sitting position and took stock of the sleeping bodies littered around my room.
Aside from the piss-soaked toddler on my lap, and the mouthy preteen on my floor beside my bed, another brother lay curled up across my legs like a sleeping puppy, while my sister huddled in the corner, with a floral-patterned duvet draped around her small shoulders.
The dresser wedged in front of my bedroom door was a harsh reminder of last night's events, and I was suddenly cold to the bone.
There's no place like home.
What a crock of shit.
"Are you okay?" That was Shannon, who looked like she hadn't slept a wink last night. Deathly pale, she locked her blue eyes on mine and kept them there. "Joe?"
"I’m grand, Shan." Reeling off the sentence of a lifetime, when the truth was that I hadn't been okay since the day I was born, I lifted Sean off my lap, and climbed out of bed, pulling on a pair of sweats as I moved.
Today was Monday; the first day back to school after the summer holidays. No matter how bad any of us felt, staying in this house instead of going to school was not an option.
Fuck that.
Aching in parts of my body I never knew existed, I shoved the dresser aside before unlocking the door.
Inhaling a steadying breath, I quickly yanked open the door before the child inside of me persuaded me to hide under my blanket with the rest of them.
Grow a pair of balls, you prick, I mentally urged myself, as I stepped into the landing, ready to face both the unknown and the inevitable.
The empty landing didn’t ease my trepidation one damn bit, because I knew he was still there.
Still in the house.
Like a dark cloud hanging over all of us, but worse.
So much fucking worse.
Loud snoring drifted from behind their locked bedroom door, accompanied by muffled sobbing, and my blood ran cold.
Freezing on the mortal spot, I fought the urge to run to her. To burst through that door and throw my arms around her.
I wanted to protect her from him almost as much as I wanted to protect me from her.
"Well?" Glancing behind me, I found four wide-eyed faces watching me from the doorway of my bedroom. "Is he gone?"
Adrenalin spiking, and with heat that bordered on lava coursing through my veins, I pushed down the swell of emotion that threatened to break me, to make me weak like her. "No, he's still here."
"He is?"
"Yeah, he's in her bed."
Their faces fell, just like my heart, but again, I pushed it down, needing to get us the fuck out of this house more than I needed to wallow.
"Right, everyone, go back to your own rooms and get yourselves sorted. Wash up and get your uniforms on. I packed the lunches last night; they’re in the fridge so don’t forget to pack them in your bags,” I began to order, knowing that if I didn’t, nothing in the house would get done. “Nanny will be here to take Sean and drop you boys to school, and Shan, we’ll walk together."
“Okay, Joe.”
“Oh, and when I say wash up, I mean clean your ears as well as your teeth, boys," I instructed before stalking into the bathroom for a more likely than not, frigid cold shower.
With the bathroom door slammed shut behind me, I stood in front of the mirror and clutched the rim of the sink, allowing my eyes to assess the damage.
Grimacing at the sight of my swollen face, I forced myself to take a good fucking look.