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This was my fault.
I was on my own until Molloy. She came into my life and all of a sudden, I had a partner, a friend, a true equal who was willing to go down in flames with me.
And my father took that away from me.
He took her away from me.
I could still smell her on my hoodie, in the car, all around me, and the scent was too fucking much for me to take in this moment. The fuck was I doing thinking that I could have a normal, healthy relationship when my life was the polar opposite?
Feeling utterly dead inside, I phoned up Kavanagh, much to his disgust, and told him that I was on the way to collect my sister. When he threw open the front door a few minutes later, he looked like he was ready to throw slaps. Shannon appearing in the doorway quickly put to rest any notions of that.
“Joe?”
“It’s time to go, Shan.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. Mam needs a hand with the kids.”
I watched as resigned sadness settled in her eyes. “Okay.”
“She can stay,” Kavanagh argued and then turned to my sister. “You can stay.”
“No, we need to go,” I bit out, too fucking worn out to handle another argument as I led my sister to the car. “Thanks for your help, Kavanagh.”
“Thanks, Johnny,” Shannon croaked out, looking over her shoulder as we walked away. “For everything.”
“Shannon, you don’t have to—”
“Come on, Shan,” I snapped, cutting him off. “We need to get home.”
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to bring her back to hell with me, but I didn’t exactly have a choice and, whether he realized it or not, I was doing Kav a huge fucking favor by taking my sister away.
I was protecting them both. Because if our parents got wind of her being here, it would bring the world of trouble to his door. Leaving her here would open a can of worms that I didn’t plan on sticking around to clean up.
I couldn’t do it.
Not tonight.
Not anymore.
My entire fucking world was caving in around me, and fighting another person’s battles was something I was incapable of doing in my current frame of mind. Too much had gone down in the past forty-eight hours for me to comprehend it or even think rationally.
My mother had given birth prematurely and the baby was dead. My father had tried to rape my girlfriend. And now, my girlfriend couldn’t stand the sight of me.
She wanted space, and I couldn’t blame her for it. It was understandable; it fucking hurt like hell, but I got it. I was the direct source to her pain, the link that had put her in danger to begin with. It was entirely on me.
Uneasy and reckless, with notions whizzing around in my mind, I could feel the shift, the slip happening before it had, and I hated myself for it. Still, I knew exactly where I was going the second that I had dropped my sister home. Even though I accepted it, made peace with it, I still despised myself for it.
“Is that what happened?” Shannon asked, dragging me from my thoughts as I tried to keep my eyes on the road and focus on the conversation I was attempting to hold with my sister. “Was she in the hospital all weekend and we didn’t know?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Joey.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “She was all alone.”
“She had him,” I bit out, hands tightening on the wheel. “He was with her, and he’s home now.”
“What are we going to do, Joe?”
