JOEY

HAVING HAD a grand total of seventy-three minutes to get my head around the fact that my girlfriend was housing an atomic fucking bomb inside her belly, with fifty percent of my genes, I held her in my arms, and tried to comfort her, while my brain freewheeled into overdrive.

The fuck were we going to do? We were still in school.

She had her whole future in front of her.

She was supposed to go out in the world and leave her neon-colored mark on it.

Instead, I had saddled her with a baby. A baby!

Jesus Christ.

It was like I was watching my worst nightmare unfold around me, and I was too paralyzed to stop it.

The knowledge that I was, singlehandedly, responsible for ruining her future was crippling.

Well, you finally did it, asshole, a voice in my head taunted, you finally came full circle and turned into your father.

Feeling too much in this moment, feeling too goddamn exposed and vulnerable, I tried and failed to steady myself.

It was pointless.

The panic and uncertainty thrashing around inside of me was unlike anything I had experienced before.

I could feel Molloy’s anxiety. It was palpable.

It mirrored mine.

“I’m scared, Joe,” she continued to whisper, over and over, as she buried her face in my chest and leaned against me. “I’m so scared.”

I couldn’t reassure her of shit.

Not when I had no clue of this would play out. All I could do in that moment was hold her.

Because I didn’t have the words to fix this, to make it right for her. All I had was my body.

My presence.

My ability to stay.

Sniffling, she looked up at me, eyes puffy and red. “Thank you.” “For what?”

“For proving me right.”

Confused, I frowned. “How have I proved you right, exactly?”

“Well, you’re here for a start,” she said, offering me a small smile. “And you haven’t hit the roof.”

“Molloy, you didn’t climb on top of yourself and get pregnant,” I bit out. “I’m the asshole who did that. I’m not going to hit any damn roof. This is on me a hell of a lot more than it’s on you, okay?” I shook my head, feeling lost and frustrated. “I didn’t realize your birth control mightn’t work. I didn’t even think about it when you were throwing up that weekend. I should’ve put a condom on. I should’ve taken better care of you.”

“I shouldn’t have kept it from you.” No, she shouldn’t have, but I got it.

“I have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow,” she blew my world by

saying. “It’s for an ultrasound – a dating scan, they called it.” Shivering, she added, “I really don’t want to go on my own.”

“You won’t be on your own. I’ll be there.” “You will?”

“Of course,” I ground out, feeling too much in this moment. “I would’ve been there for the doctor’s appointment, too, you know. If I had known. I’m a lot of things, Aoif, but I’m not a coward, and I don’t run.”

“I’ve been trying to ask you for days,” she whispered. “Trying to work up the courage to tell you.”

“It’s okay.” I pulled her close. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m going to be the talk of the town, Joe,” she admitted in a small voice, looking achingly vulnerable. “Everyone at school probably knows by now. Paul and Danielle will make sure of it. How am I supposed to walk back through the doors of BCS?”

“We are going to walk back into school with our heads held high, and if anyone has something to say, then they’ll have me to deal with,” I replied, hackles rising. “Because fuck them, Molloy.”

“Fuck them?”

“Fuck them,” I confirmed.

She sniffled. “Kev told Dad.”

My heart dropped into my ass. “Kev has a big fucking mouth.”

“I don’t want to go home yet.” She worried on her lip. “I’m not ready to face my father, and if I see my brother, I’ll kill him.”

That made two of us.

“Then don’t go home yet,” I replied. “Stay with me.” “What are we going to do, Joe?”

I have no fucking idea. “We’ll figure it out.”

 

 

SHARING a bag of chips at the GAA grounds probably wasn’t what Molloy had in mind when she told me that she didn’t want to go home, but in all fairness, what the hell else was I supposed to do?

I didn’t have a car to bundle her into.

I didn’t have a home to take her to, not one where she would be safe.

I had no big-time future ahead of me like her ex, or no family to prop me up like him, either.

I had a grand total of thirteen euro in my pocket, and the prospects of a gutter rat.

Fucked didn’t even come close to defining how much trouble we were in.

The only thing that I had going for me, that most of the lads I knew who were in similar positions didn’t have, was the fact that the girl carrying my kid happened to be my best friend.

In a way, that made her being pregnant significantly worse, because the guilt was so staggering.

My conscience was weighing on me in a way that Dricko or any of the lads I knew with kids had never experienced.

Because, for me, it wasn’t my future I was mourning. It was hers.

Because I loved her.

I loved her so fucking much that I let myself get reckless and ruin her.

I didn’t meet her on a whim, stick my dick in her after two or three weeks of messing around, and become a makeshift family overnight.

I had six years of friendship racked up with Molloy. I knew the girl inside and out, and she knew me.

We’d grown up together.

Our lives were tangled up and entwined.

She had never been someone to pass away the time with until something better came along.

She was the time, the better, the goal, the whole nine yards.

Any future I had ever dared to imagine for myself never veered from having her slap bang in the center of it.

I never wanted to be a parent, babies were never part of my plan, but if it had been a dealbreaker for Molloy, far, far into our future, then I maybe could

have been persuaded.

Now, it was being thrust upon us both.

“Don’t even think about it, Houdini,” I heard myself warn an hour later, as I watched my girlfriend eye the towering wall surrounding the GAA pavilion. It was a wall I’d watched her effortlessly scale a thousand times before.

Not anymore.

“I mean it, Aoif,” I warned. “Keep those feet on the ground.” “You’re being a tad dramatic.”

“It’s called being sensible.”

She rolled her eyes. “Since when do the words Joey Lynch and sensible

go hand in hand?”

“Since the words Aoife Molloy and pregnant joined forces,” I shot back, holding my school jumper out for her. “Sit your ass on the footpath.”

Begrudgingly complying, she took my jumper, folded it in half, and then placed it on the concrete before lowering herself down.

“Thanks for the food, Joe.” With legs for days stretched out in front of her, she placed the warm brown bag of steamy chips on her lap and sighed. “I’m flat broke right now, and I missed all of my shifts at work last week, so I don’t have any money coming in for a few weeks.”

We were both flat broke, but if I couldn’t buy my pregnant girlfriend a measly bag of chips, then I needed to be taken out into a field and shot.

“Don’t worry about money,” I replied, doing more than enough worrying for the both of us, as I sank down beside her. “I’ll figure it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if your father can’t take me on full-time at the garage, I’ll find something else to tide us over.” I shrugged. “I told you that I would look after you, and I will, okay? Money is the last thing you need to worry about right now. Let me do that for us.”

“What about school?”

“What about it?” Sighing heavily, I hooked my arms around my knees. “Babies aren’t cheap, Molloy.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No way, Joe. You need to finish school.”

“No, you need to finish school,” I corrected. “I don’t need a piece of paper to bring in money. I can do that now.”

“You heard my dad,” she argued. “He’ll agree to your apprenticeship, but only after you finish school and sit your leaving cert exams.”

“Aoife, what am I going to do with a piece of paper? Wipe my ass with it?” I shook my head. “It’s an exam that doesn’t mean shit for me. For you, yes, absolutely, but me? Not so much, baby.”

“I’m not due until September,” she hurried to add. “We can both finish school before we even have to think about anything else. We only have two months left, Joe. Two months and we’re finished with BCS.”

“September?” Jesus Christ. “You’re due in September.” She nodded. “The twentieth.”

“Right after your birthday?” She nodded.

I blew out a breath. “How many weeks does that make you now?”

“Um, fourteen weeks and two days, I think?”

“Jesus, you’re already in the second trimester, Aoif.” “I know,” she squeezed out. “I’m terrified.”

“Don’t be,” I tried to soothe, while I mentally went into panic mode as I struggled to rack my brain around the constant stream of life-changing information that just seemed to keep coming at me.

“If you’re due late September, and it’s April next week, then we have five and a half months to get a handle on this.”

“A handle?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Save up some cash, Molloy.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not quitting school.”

“Listen, there’s no point in wasting two months in a classroom, working for something both of us know I will never need. Not when I could be actually working for the money that we are definitely going to need,” I tried to reason. “Come on, Molloy, think about this. You know I’m right.”

“I have thought about it,” she argued back. “I’ve done little else these past few weeks, and it’s not happening, Joe. We started BCS together and we’re going to see it out together.”

“You still can,” I shot back. “I want that for you. All I’m trying to do is get a head-start on this, Molloy. We’re going to need a lot of stuff, and it all costs money. Money neither of us has. The baby’s going to need a cot, and clothes, and nappies, and formula. There’s a long list of shit we’re going to need, and I can’t provide that on a part-time wage from the garage.”

“You already work yourself to the bone.” “It’s not enough.”

“Mam said I can stay at home,” she offered, like it was something I wanted to hear. “We don’t have to worry about where to go when the baby’s born.”

I balked. “I’m not living apart from you and my baby.” Her eyes widened. “You’re not?”

“Fuck no.” I shook my head. “I’ll get us a flat, Aoif.”

“Joe, if it’s at the expense of your education, then I don’t want it.”

“You just need to let me worry about the money side of things,” I argued. “I’ll take care of everything.”

“Are we together, Joe?”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously.”

“Are we going to do this together?”

I gave her a hard look. “Where are you going with this?” “Are we a team or not?” she demanded.

“Yeah, fuck, we’re a team,” I conceded.

“Then we’re both finishing school,” she ground out. “Together.” “Listen, I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“Then don’t,” she cut me off. “Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s a

done deal. You’re finishing school and that’s that. Apartments and houses can come afterwards.”

“You’re not thinking clearly here.” “You’re not thinking at all.” “Molloy.”

“Lynch.”

Frustrated, I reached into the brown paper bag on her lip, grabbed a soggy chip, and grimaced the moment it touched my tongue.

It tasted like shit.

With a mouthful of chips, Molloy offered me a sheepish smile. “Too much vinegar?”

I gave her a look that said always, before asking, “How are you feeling?” “About the vinegar?”

“No, genius, about being pregnant.”

Anxiety flashed in her eyes and I watched as a small shiver rolled through her. “Oh, I think it’s safe to say that I’m sufficiently terrified to my core, you?”

Oh, I’m right there with you. “I’m fine.”

“Fine.” She arched a disbelieving brow. “Bullshit.”

Of course I was bullshitting, but I had the wherewithal to not reveal just how panicked I was to the girl who’d clearly gotten the shorter end of the straw in this deal.

“Are you mad?” she asked again, but this time, she chewed on her lip nervously before adding, “That I’m having it?”

“Having it?” I frowned. “That’s generally how this kind of thing goes.” “Not always.”

“Don’t go there.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yeah, I did, and I didn’t like where this was heading one bit. “I would never ask you to do that.”

“But if you could choose?” she swallowed deeply. “Would you?” “No, Molloy.” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want you to do that.”

There was a hopeful note in her voice when she said, “You wouldn’t?”

“Never.”

Relief flickered in her eyes. “Really?”

“Really,” I confirmed. “If you didn’t want to have my baby, I’d understand – hell, I’d hold your hand the whole way over and back, but I know that’s not what you really want.”

“Maybe it should be, Joe.”

I leveled her with a hard stare. “Is it?”

She stared back at me for the longest time, before blowing out a breath and shaking her head. “I want to keep it.”

“Exactly,” I replied, nudging her shoulder with mine. “Looks like we’re doing this.”

“Yeah.” Sighing heavily, she slipped her arm through mine, and leaned her cheek on my shoulder. “Looks like we are.”

“We’ve got this, Molloy,” I tried to reassure her. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Just… just stay with me, Joe,” she squeezed out in a small voice. “Like you are right now. This version of you? I need this guy to stay.”

“I’m going nowhere.” “That’s not what I mean.” Yeah, I knew what she meant.

“There’s too much at stake now, and I can’t do this without you,” she admitted, nuzzling my shoulder affectionately. “Don’t lose yourself again, Joe.”

Shoulders weighing heavily with shame, I dropped my head to rest against hers. “I won’t.”

“I need you to be done with it,” she pushed. “Like the way you were after Christmas. That determination and willpower? I need you to find it again, Joe. I need that guy.”

“I know,” I ground out, feeling like a piece of shit for putting her in a position where she needed to have this kind of conversation with me. “I’ll sort that, too, Molloy.”

“By stopping,” she added. “Sort it by stopping right now, Joe. Not tomorrow or next week. Right now.”

“You know I love you, right?” I heard myself say, knowing that it would never be enough, but knowing that it was all I had. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you in this life, Molloy. Nothing.”

“Then be done with the drugs and the bullshit,” she pleaded. “Do that for me.”

“I will.”

“You’re not supposed to say you will,” she whispered sadly. “You’re supposed to say that you already are.”

“I’ll fix it,” I heard myself offer up weakly, trying to give this girl everything that she needed from me, but it felt like I was a pouring from an empty cup. I could taste the lie on my tongue, and, apparently, so could she. “I’ll sort it.”

“I want to believe you,” Molloy replied, shifting closer. “I want to believe you so bad.”

Me too.

Feeling too fucking exposed, I untangled myself from her and stood up.

“Listen.” Reaching into the pocket of my school trousers, I withdrew a packet of cigarettes and quickly sparked one up. “I don’t know how this is going to go.” Backing up a few feet to keep the smoke away from her, I inhaled a deep drag before letting it out. “I don’t have a crystal ball to look into the future with. I wish that I could tell you that everything will be perfect from here on out, but we both know that’d be me spurting bullshit.”

“Feel free to spurt all the bullshit you can think up,” she grumbled, dropping a chip back in the bag, and wiping her hand on her thigh. “I could use a little fabrication right now.”

Couldn’t we both?

“The truth is that I’m half scared to death here, Molloy.” “Not helping.”

“I’m not scared of stepping up, Molloy. I’m scared of it not being

enough,” I forced myself to continue – to admit. “I’m scared of letting you down.”

Emotion flickered in her eyes. “Joe.”

I shook my head and turned away, staring out at the empty pitch, needing a minute to gather my thoughts before I could continue.

“Being there for you isn’t the problem.” It’s being good enough for you that I’m struggling with. “I just…I wish I wasn’t who I am.” Letting my head

fall back, I took another drag and stared up at the darkening sky. “I wish I was someone else for you.” I exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Someone better.”

“I don’t.” Footsteps closed in on me, and I felt her arms wrap around my waist. “I wouldn’t want you to be anyone other than who you are right now,” she said, pressing her cheek to my back. “I just want you healthy.”

“I am trying, Aoif,” I told her, dropping a hand to cover hers. “I’ve been

trying.”

“I know, Joe,” she soothed, nuzzling my back with her cheek. “And I love you for it.”

“I love you, too.” Heart gunning in my chest, I took one final drag of my smoke before tossing the butt away and turning to face her. “I do, Aoif.” I blew out a shaky breath, hands moving to settle on her hips. “I fucking love the bones of ya.”

Sighing heavily, she draped her arms around my neck and smiled sadly. “But?”

“Sometimes I can’t control it,” I admitted brokenly. “It’s like something goes off in my head, and I check out. I stop thinking. I stop feeling. I stop fucking remembering all of the reasons I have to keep going and start thinking about all of the reasons why I should give up.”

“Joe.”

“I’m scared to be in my own head, Molloy,” I croaked out, feeling a shiver rack through my body. “I’m fucking terrified of my inability to control my own actions, and what’s worse is knowing that, at any point, I could end up going too far and driving you away. I could push away the one person, the only fucking person, who has even given a shit about me.” I exhaled a ragged

breath, feeling torn and exposed to this girl. “I don’t want to go back to how it was – to how I was. I know what’s at stake. I see you; I fucking see you standing right here in front of me, and my heart is screaming at me to cop the hell on and get my shit together. And I want to. I want to so fucking bad, but it’s like this…” Frustrated, I reached up and pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to get the words out, to make it all make sense to her, which was impossible considering I didn’t understand it myself. Still, I tried, knowing that she deserved nothing less. “It’s like I have this whole other person in my head, a whole other voice, even though I know it’s me. It’s my voice, but it’s a destructive fucking voice that rears its head every time I’m stressed.”

“Which is constantly,” she filled in knowingly.

I heaved out a breath and nodded. “The worse shit gets in my life, the louder the voice gets, louder and louder and louder, until it’s literally screaming in my head, and I can’t focus on anything other than doing the one thing that I know that will quieten it down.”

“Self-medicating.” She swallowed deeply. “Losing yourself.”

“You asked me why I fucked up and caved after three months? It’s because I couldn’t take it anymore.” I shrugged helplessly. “And now there’s a baby coming, and I have so much to lose that I’m fucking terrified of blowing it again. I know that I need to get my shit together, and I will. But that’s the problem right there, because I can tell you that I’m going to be good, and I’ll mean it when I say it, but I don’t trust myself, Aoif.” My shoulders slumped and I exhaled a pained breath. “I just don’t.”

She didn’t shout or berate me.

She didn’t slap my face and run away, either.

Instead, she stood there, eyes locked on mine, as she absorbed my painful truth.

“Right now,” she finally said. “What are your thoughts right now?” “My thoughts?”

“Your thoughts.”

“You,” I admitted. “You and the baby.”

Shivering, she nodded and tightened her arms around my neck. “And your head? Where’s your head at, Joe?”

“Same place as it’s always been,” I replied. “With you.” “I believe in you.”

The words hurt to hear and I flinched. “Molloy.”

“I. Believe. In. You,” she repeated slowly. “I’m not expecting perfection from you, Joe. Hell, I don’t want it, because I’m definitely not perfect. So, all I need you to do is be honest, be faithful, and keep trying.”

“And if I’m not worth it?” I dared to ask. “If I’m not worth believing in? If this all goes to shit and I end up letting you down again? What happens then?”

“You see, you’re not taking into account my feelings for you,” she said, stroking my cheeks with her thumbs. “And I know being loved is a foreign concept to you, but it doesn’t come with strings or conditions. It’s unconditional, Joe.”

I looked at her, feeling at a total loss. “I don’t get it.”

“I know you don’t.” Nodding, she leaned up on her tip-toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “That’s okay.”

“Everyone has their limit, Molloy,” I said. “One of these days, you’re going to reach yours with me.”

“Do you love me, Joe?”

I pulled back to frown at her. “You know I do.” “Do you plan on lying to me?”

I shrugged. “No more than the usual amount.”

She cocked a brow before asking, “Do you plan on fucking around behind my back with other girls?”

I rolled my eyes. “Be serious.” “Do you?”

“No, Molloy,” I grumbled. “I value my dick.”

“Nuh-uh.” She slapped my chest. “Wrong answer.”

“How about I don’t plan on fucking around on you because it takes up all of my time and energy just trying to navigate your many sparkling personalities.”

“Try again, asshole.”

“Fine. I don’t plan on fucking around on you because I don’t want anyone else. Because I don’t see anyone else.”

“And?”

I stared at her. “And?”

“And,” she pushed, giving me an expectant look.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I relented and said, “And because there’s no other girl on the planet as sexy – or as vain – as you.”

“Perfect.” Nodding her approval, she asked, “And finally, do you plan on dropping off the face of the earth when the time comes? Do you plan on checking out on me?”

I gave her a look that told her everything she needed to know.

“Then you just answered your own question,” she replied. “You’re worth believing in, Joe. You are so incredibly worth it all.”