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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, and 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 deal-breaker 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, Aoife,” 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.”
