Guilt-ridden didn’t even tip the scales of how dreadful I felt as I sat across the kitchen table from a distraught-looking Lizzie.
My head was in a spin from the crazy twists and turns this day had taken. It had been one wild roller coaster, which had left me sitting in the middle of the consequences of my actions, responsible for upsetting my friend to the point where she had collapsed in a heap on my bedroom floor.
The only reason Lizzie was sitting upright in my kitchen now was the boy placing two mugs of hot chocolate on the table in front of us.
Hugh had somehow managed to console her to the point where she had agreed to come downstairs and talk it out with me.
Thank God because if she had left without clearing the air, I thought I might join her on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Liz,” I offered for what had to be the fiftieth time. But it was the truth. I was sorry.
From what I could gather from Hugh, my disclosure this afternoon to Mrs. Young, no matter how well intended, had upset the woman so badly that she had ended up at the out-of-hours doctor with chest pains. Chest pains that were directly linked to the fear of losing her one remaining living child.
I didn’t mean to cause the woman any pain. I would never intentionally harm another human being. All I had been trying to do was be a proactive friend who acted in her friend’s best interests before disaster struck instead of afterwards.
Whether or not I was right or wrong to tell her mother might still be up for debate, but there was no denying the sheer level of upset my tactless admission had caused.
Gerard had stormed out ages ago, clearly reeling from taking the brunt of Lizzie’s anguish, which, to be fair, wasn’t anything new.
I desperately wanted to rush across the road to check on him, but I had a horrible feeling that my friendship with Lizzie was resting on tenterhooks right now.
I couldn’t bail.
I had to see this through.
Make it better somehow.
“Liz?” Clearing my throat, I reached for my mug of hot chocolate and curled my hands around the ceramic, glad to feel the heat caress my fingertips. “Why didn’t you say anything about your dad moving out back in March?”
“Mike moved out?” Confusion swept over my brother’s face as he pulled out the chair next to Lizzie’s and sank down. “Liz?”
“Because it didn’t seem important,” she bit out, attention glued to the untouched mug in front of her. “At least not in the grand scheme of things.”
“When your friend’s parents separate and her dad leaves the county, I’d say it’s pretty important in any scheme of things,” I replied. “Liz, you never said a word.”
“How could I say anything?” she snapped back, body rigid with tension. “Shannon was going through everything with her family back then.”
Aw crap.
Guilt swirled inside of me.
“You still could have come to me, chickie,” I strangled out, voice thick with emotion. “I would have tried to help you.”
“Kind of like how you tried to help me today?” came her angry response. “I told you what happened, Claire. I fell. Over a fucking gate and landed on barbed wire. If you didn’t believe me, you could’ve asked Patrick. It was on his farm that it happened. You didn’t have to run to my mam and traumatize her worse than she already is.” Tears filled her eyes as she spoke. “You have no idea how tough this year has been on us, and you just went and made it so much worse.”
“Oh God.” My shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m so sorry.”
“You could have come to me.”
Lizzie’s gaze immediately flicked to my brother, and she choked out a pained breath. “Yeah, because that would have gone down really well.”
“You could have come to me,” Hugh repeated, eyes locked on hers in what felt like a blazing staredown. “You can always come to me.” He swallowed deeply, Adam’s apple bobbing before whispering, “No matter what.”
“No matter what,” Lizzie repeated, whispering the words to herself, as she retrained her attention on her mug.
After a great deal of groveling and a whole heap of holding my tongue, I thankfully managed to worm my way back into my friend’s good graces.
Lizzie still wasn’t my number one fan, but when she climbed into the passenger seat of Hugh’s car a little after nine o’clock, she did offer me a halfhearted wave before he drove her home.
I was taking that as a huge win.
The moment my brother’s car was out of sight with Lizzie safely tucked inside, I wasted no time in scampering around the street to check on my other bestie.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I expected to find when I let myself inside Gerard’s house, but a huge stack of suitcases and travel luggage camped out in the front hallway was not it.
“What the … ” Brows creased in confusion, I wandered through the downstairs, checking each room in my search to find the culprit of said luggage. “Gerard? Sadhbh? Keith?”
Aside from Brian snoozing in the living room armchair, the house was empty. Which was super weird because the front door was unlocked.
“Gerard?” I called out again, backpedaling into the hallway before clambering up the staircase. “You here?”
More silence.
Feeling foolish for not checking for his car in the driveway first, I hurried over to the front landing window and peered outside.
Dammit, the Allens’ driveway was minus one silver Ford Focus.
Feeling oddly bereft, I padded into his bedroom and flicked on the light.
“What the … ” My words trailed off when my eyes took in the carnage.
Gerard’s room was trashed.
I mean, seriously trashed.
Every poster and picture frame that had once adorned his bedroom walls was now littered around his floor.
His nightstand had been turned over, his mattress had been toppled onto its side, and everything that was once housed in his wardrobe was currently sprawled, well, everywhere.
“Time only matured him on the outside, huh?” a male voice said from behind me. “He’s still every inch the tantrum-throwing child he was six years ago.”
“Jesus!” I yelped, springing around. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“My sincerest apologies,” a dark-haired man chuckled, looking suave in a crisp white shirt, and expensive-looking, tailored suit pants. “Blonde curls. Doe eyes. Skulking in Gibsie’s room. It can’t be little Claire Biggs my eyes are seeing?”
Nodding warily, I eyed the man standing in Gerard’s bedroom doorway. “How do you know my name?”
“I suppose you were only little when I moved out.” His smile deepened and it caused a wave of eerie familiarity to wash over me. “I can’t be too insulted that you don’t remember me.”
“Wait … ” My breath caught in my throat and my eyes widened to saucers. “Mark?”
“The one and only.”
The one and only? He said that like it was a good thing. It wasn’t. Not for Lizzie, at least. Or Gerard. When he left town six years ago, everyone I knew had breathed a huge sigh of relief. Because he was trouble. Big trouble. “What are you doing back in Ballylaggin?”
“Am I not allowed to visit my family?”
Technically yes. But morally absolutely not. Instead of verbally answering, I offered him a shrug.
“I’m considering relocating my family,” he explained, flashing the gold band on his left hand at me. “Meera has never been to Ireland and our son is almost two. I’ve been given a job opportunity, so I flew back to scope out the property market before making any decisions.”
Ew. “Oh,” I managed to say instead, though it was a challenge because this boy – now man – had always made my skin crawl.
The strange thing was my reservations about Mark Allen had little to do with the rumors that had gone around town about his relationship with Caoimhe Young and everything to do with what a huge jerk he had been to Gerard when we were little.
From the moment he was injected into our lives, Mark had made it his mission to make Gerard miserable.
He was more than just an asshole stepbrother.
He was a bully and a mean one at that.
The fact that someone as sweet and amazing as Caoimhe had gone out with Mark in the first place was beyond my comprehension. Past tense and present. I didn’t understand the attraction when I was little, and I understood it even less now.
“Where’s Gerard?” My tone was less than polite, but showing any sort of kindness to this man was abhorrent to me. Especially since I’d spent the last several hours watching one of my oldest friends in the world break down because of his actions.
While I was fully prepared to die on my hill of fealty to Gerard Gibson when it came to his and Lizzie’s feud and was willing to defend Gerard’s good name to the bitter end, I was under no such obligation to the man standing in front of me.
Because, sure, the authorities might not have been able to pinpoint him to the crime the Young family was so insistent he committed against their daughter six years ago, but there was no smoke without fire, and Mark Allen was definitely guilty of something.
“Dad took Sadhbh out for dinner in town,” he replied in a breezy tone, not bothering to answer my question. “I figured I’d hang back for tonight.” He smiled again. “It was a long flight.”
Yeah right.
All this proved was that Mark didn’t want to bump into the wrong people in town and be told what a scumbag he was.
“And Gerard?” I pushed, eyeing his mobile phone on the bedroom floor. “Where is he?” I gestured to the carnage around me. “What happened to his room?”
“You know Gibs,” he replied breezily. “Spat the dummy and stormed off hours ago.”
“Where did he go?” I bit out, enunciating my words clearly. What did you do?
“You tell me, Baby Biggs,” he replied with a chuckle. “You were always the one who could find his hiding places.”
“Hugh?” I called out from the landing when I heard the front door open and close later that night. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s only me,” I heard my brother call back. Moments later, he appeared on the staircase. “What’s up?”
“What the hell took you so long?” I demanded, leaning over the banister. “I have been freaking out on my own for two hours, Hugh!”
“Why?”
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” Bouncing from foot to foot, I felt another wave of heebie-jeebies wash over me. “It’s so bad, Hugh.”
“What is?” he asked, joining me in the landing. “What happened?”
“Mark Allen!” I strangled out, eyes bulging. “He’s back in Ballylaggin.”
“That’s not funny,” my brother was quick to shoot down, eyes narrowed in disgust. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.” Stamping my foot in frustration, I pointed in the direction of the street and eyeballed my brother, willing him to believe me. “He’s back, Hugh. I saw him with my own eyes.”
Hugh’s face turned a deathly shade of gray. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I could.”
“He’s back?”
I nodded vigorously.
“In Ballylaggin?”
Again, I nodded eagerly.
“Across the street?”
“Yes,” I strangled out, gesturing wildly. “He’s back.”
“Motherfucker!”
“Whoa, where are you going?” I called out, watching as my brother barreled down the staircase like he was chasing a rare Pokémon. “Hugh, wait – don’t go over there!”
Too late.
Our front door was wide open, and my brother was stalking across the street like a man on a mission.
“Hugh!” I shouted, racing after him in my unicorn onesie. “You know what Mam said. We’re not supposed to take sides, remember? Sadhbh’s her best friend! We’re supposed to stay out of it!”
Ignoring my protests, my brother walked right into Gerard’s house without a hint of hesitation. Now, knocking or ringing doorbells wasn’t something Gerard, Hugh, and I ever did before entering each other’s homes, but this was different. Because usually we didn’t intend on spilling blood, something I had an awful feeling my brother was hell-bent on doing tonight.
“Hugh!” I called out when I reached their front door and caught a glance of my brother’s back as he bolted up the staircase. “Wait, will you?”
Moments later, the sound of a door slamming filled the air, followed by shouting.
Aw crackers.
Clambering up the staircase, I didn’t stop until I was standing in the doorway of Bethany’s old room, eyes widening in horror. “Hugh, stop!”
“You have a lot of fucking nerve to show your face back here!” my brother roared while he pinned Gerard’s stepbrother to the bedroom wall. “You fucking monster!”
“I’m … innocent,” Mark strangled out, pulling and tearing at the hand Hugh had wrapped around his throat. “Ask … the … Gards … ”
“I don’t give a shit what the Gards say,” my brother snarled, looking more furious than I’d ever seen him. “We all know what a piece of shit you are!” He slammed Mark against the wall. “How fucking dare you come back to this street!”
“Hugh, no!” Rushing to intercept my brother before he went too far, I squeezed between their bodies and pushed at his chest. “Let’s just go home, okay?”
“Yeah, Hugh,” Mark wheezed, using my intervention to break free from my brother’s hold. “Listen to your sister.”
“You fucking … ”
“Let’s go, Hugh!” I shouted, pushing at his chest in my bid to get him out of this room. “Walk away now or I’m telling Mam!”
“You stay the hell away from her!” Hugh warned, body trembling, as he jabbed a finger in Mark’s direction, while he reluctantly allowed me to push him into the landing. “Do you hear me? You keep your goddamn eyes off her!”
“Or what?” the older man goaded.
My brother narrowed his eyes in challenge. “Fuck around and find out, asshole.”
“Relax, kid, I’m married now,” Mark spat. “I have no intention of looking at your sister.”
“I’m not talking about my sister,” Hugh roared, chest heaving. “This is your one and only warning, asshole.”
