The following afternoon, I sat on the footpath on my side of the road, and watched as Sadhbh Allen ushered another Garda inside the house.
The Gards I had spoken to last night were in uniform, but this one wasn’t in uniform, which led me to believe that he might be the detective on the case. I couldn’t be sure because I wasn’t allowed to cross the street, much less ask.
“That one is the detective inspector.” Handing me over a mug of hot chocolate, Shannon joined me on the footpath with a mug of her own. “I met him once when he was working on my family’s case.” She blew into her mug before taking a sip. “He’s one of the few I actually liked.”
Numb, I kept my attention trained on the bedroom window that looked directly into mine. The curtains, which had been drawn closed since last night, finally started to move.
When the curtains were drawn back and his bedroom window opened outwards, hope filled my heart at a rapid pace.
Was he up?
Was he talking?
Johnny appeared at the window then, clearly the culprit for opening it, and I felt my hope shrivel up and die in my chest. His attention locked on us and he offered me a private wink before disappearing from sight.
“I should be with him,” I declared hoarsely.
“I know it feels that way, but the kind of questions the detectives have to ask him wouldn’t be good for you to hear.” Fussing with the blanket draped over my shoulders, Shannon pulled my hair out of my face and tied it in a loose bun. “And it wouldn’t be good for him to know you heard them.”
“But Johnny gets to stay,” I said brokenly. “I’m his best friend, too.”
I remembered all too well what Gerard had said to me last night, and how he had ended both our relationship and friendship, but it wasn’t over for me. It would never be over for me. Because we were a part of each other.
“Yes, and I know that’s not easy for you when you want to be there so badly for him.” Shannon wrapped her arm around my shoulders and sighed sadly. “But Johnny is the only one Gibsie wants to see right now, and we need to respect his wishes.”
“I love him, Shan.” Not bothering to blink the tears from my eyes, I turned to look at her. “I need him to be okay.” I needed him, period.
She nodded in understanding.
“I’m sorry for how it came out but I’m not sorry that it came out,” I confessed, chewing on my lip. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, it makes you a strong person, Claire.”
“I just want him to open up to me.”
“Patience,” Shannon said softly. “You need to give him time. It takes a long time to get to that point, Claire. It’s not so easy for everyone. There’s trauma in his past, and right now he’s living in it. But he’ll find his way to you.”
“Like you found your way to Johnny?”
“Yes,” she replied with a nod. “But it didn’t happen overnight, and I am so grateful that he had the ability to be patient with me. To show me that love can be kind and patient and everything I had never experienced before.” Shivering, she added, “Because I was so desperate to keep him out back then.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want him to see the ugly in me and turn and run.”
“You’ve never been ugly a day in your life,” I told her. “Not on the inside or on the out.”
“I appreciate you saying that, Claire, but that’s how it felt. I truly couldn’t get past my … well, my past. It took a lot of time and coaxing and gentle persuasion. Broken people don’t display the same traits. Look at me and Joey. We couldn’t be more different in our approach to life if we tried. Look at Ollie and Sean. Hell, look at Tadhg. We all lived in the same home and approach life with completely different perspectives.”
“I don’t want to be patient,” I admitted. “All I want to do is charge in that door and fix it for him. To make everything better.”
“You can’t,” she replied, tone laced with empathy and understanding. “You can’t fix him or make it better. He has to do that for himself.”
“But it hurts so bad to see him hurting.”
“I know,” she agreed, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “It’s the helplessness that hurts the most, right?”
“Right.”
“You can help him by staying,” Aoife said, joining us on the footpath with her small son in her arms.
I shook my head in confusion. “Staying?”
“And by hanging in there,” she confirmed wisely. “And by trusting that the boy beneath the broken can find his way out of the darkness. It’s not easy. It hurts like hell, and you’ll want to run for the hills at times. And he’ll push you away to the point where you doubt your own sanity. But it’s your ability to love him through it is what will make the difference. Because, at the end of the day, that’s all we can do, babe.” She sighed heavily. “Love these boys with our whole hearts and hope and pray that they’ll pick themselves back up and show us that they’re worth the pain. That they’re worth fighting for.”
