JOEY

THE SOUND of my pulse thundering in my ears was the first telltale sign that I wasn’t dead.

My sister’s voice was the second. “Shan?”

I could hear her.

I could feel her hands on my face. Her breath on my cheek.

But I just…I couldn’t fucking focus.

“What did you take?” Her voice was in my ear again. “I know you’re drunk, and I can smell the weed off you, but there’s more, isn’t there? What was it? What did they give you?”

I couldn’t answer her.

Because I couldn’t remember what I’d taken. I didn’t even know where I was.

Hell, my lips didn’t feel like they were working.

I was coming down from a high, crashing hard and fast. Shivering violently, I tried to curl up and die.

Maybe if I held my breath, the pain would stop. My heart would just give up.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, wincing when her disappointment rained down on

me like verbal bullets. “Please don’t hate me.”

Hemorrhaging vomit and bile, I battled with the nausea attacking my senses, while desperately trying to survive the agonizing burning sensation flushing through my system.

Don’t hate me.

I hate me.

 

 

I hate me. I hate me.

AS THE FOG in my mind lifted, and I slowly registered my surroundings, I realized that I was bollocks naked in Johnny Kavanagh’s bathroom, with his creepy bastard of a flanker lifting me out of the shower.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I snarled, staggering away from him, only to collapse on my ass in a heap.

They were talking to me, fucking shouting at me, but I couldn’t make out a word of it. I knew that I was responding because my lips were moving, but I had no fucking clue of what was coming out of my mouth. It was a vulnerable position to be in, to be so unhinged that I was unable to control the words coming out of my mouth.

Everything was so intense. Everything hurt.

Body racked with tremors, I tried to control my breathing, as flashbacks of the past two weeks slowly came back to me.

Dad.

Shannon.

Molloy.

Mam.

Darren!

Shane.

Pain.

Pain.

Fucking pain.

Repressing the urge to scream, I clutched my head in my hands and tried to stop the room from spinning.

The pain between my eyes was so severe it made me feel faint.

I could hear the Dub giving me shit, talking down to me like I was a piece of shit, and he was right.

I absolutely was.

He loves your sister my brain told me through the fog and the withdrawals. She’s not on her own anymore.

Mind reeling, I tried to piece together everything he was saying with the events that had happened, but my fucked-up mind wasn’t complying.

My tongue was spewing poison, giving away too many family secrets to this lad, but I wasn’t in control anymore. I’d lost myself somewhere along the way.

All I could remember was Shannon slumped on that kitchen floor and the blood coming out of her mouth.

I’d been helpless.

Fucking useless.

I hadn’t done shit to protect her.

I’d let her down.

Again.

And then Molloy’s face flashed like a neon sign in the forefront of my mind.

The guilt and pain I felt when I thought about her swamped everything else. The darkness I always felt on the inside was nothing compared to the eternal pit of night I found myself in.

I wanted out.

I needed out.

I couldn’t take this anymore.

“Can I help?” Kavanagh’s voice broke through my panicked thoughts. “Can I do something for you?”

“Yeah, you can loan me some clothes.” I needed to get the fuck out of this place. Holding onto the nearby sink, I forced myself to get back on my feet.

Without another word, Kavanagh walked out of the bathroom, returning a few moments later to toss a bundle of clothes through the door. Feeling lightheaded, I scrambled for them, and quickly dragged on a pair of grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt over my head.

His clothes swamped me, but I didn’t give a damn.

I was so fucking cold. It was in my bones.

Shivering, I stepped out of the bathroom and into a bedroom that could

have housed the entire first floor of my house.

“Thanks for the clothes,” I managed to get the words out coherently before asking, “Do you have a phone I could use?”

I could hear the hesitance in his voice when he asked, “Why?” “Because I need to call my girlfriend.”

Disbelief flickered in his eyes. “Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, my girlfriend,” I bit out, resisting the urge to lose my shit on him when he had done me a solid. “Can I use your phone or not?”

“You don’t have to leave,” Kavanagh said, placing a sleek phone in my hands. “You can stay, lad. For as long as you need.”

No, I couldn’t.

I had to get out of here.

My father was still out there. And Molloy?

Jesus Christ, I’d checked out on her.

“Come the fuck on,” I hissed when my hands wouldn’t cooperate. My fingers wouldn’t push the damn buttons.

“What’s her number?” he asked, snatching the phone back. “Call it out and I’ll dial it for you.”

Blowing out a pained breath, I forced myself to take a good hard look at the towering lad standing in front of me. I didn’t trust him, but Shannon

clearly did, which made me curious. It made me second guess my instincts.

Johnny Kavanagh was standing here, in the middle of all of my family’s bullshit, and he wasn’t running.

Something about him reminded me of Molloy and I frowned.

“I warned her off you, ya know,” I heard myself say, brows furrowed as my vision blurred in and out. “Told her you’d be leaving.” Wincing from the pain attacking my skull, I shook my head and refocused my attention on him. “Told her not to get her hopes up on you.”

He didn’t react.

Didn’t seem surprised by my statement, either. Instead, he asked, “What’s her number?”

Pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead, I reeled off the phone number I had memorized since first year, the only number I had stored away in my mind, before saying, “Don’t let her down.” Steadying my body from swaying, I looked him in the eyes and said, “Whatever you’re doing here, Kavanagh, don’t fuck my sister over.”

He tapped on the keypad of his phone before handing it back to me. With eyes full of unrestrained emotion, and his tone thick with gritty sincerity, he looked me dead in the eyes and vowed, “I won’t.”