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“Being there for you isn’t the problem.” It’s being good enough for you that I’m struggling with. “I just… I wish I wasn’t who I am.” Letting my head fall back, I took another drag and stared up at the darkening sky. “I wish I was someone else for you.” I exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Someone better.”
“I don’t.” Footsteps closed in on me, and I felt her arms wrap around my waist. “I wouldn’t want you to be anyone other than who you are right now,” she said, pressing her cheek to my back. “I just want you healthy.”
“I am trying, Aoife,” I told her, dropping a hand to cover hers. “I’ve been trying.”
“I know, Joe,” she soothed, nuzzling my back with her cheek. “And I love you for it.”
“I love you, too.” Heart gunning in my chest, I took one final drag of my smoke before tossing the butt away and turning to face her. “I do, Aoife.” I blew out a shaky breath, hands moving to settle on her hips. “I fucking love the bones of ya.”
Sighing heavily, she draped her arms around my neck and smiled sadly. “But?”
“Sometimes I can’t control it,” I admitted brokenly. “It’s like something goes off in my head, and I check out. I stop thinking. I stop feeling. I stop fucking remembering all of the reasons I have to keep going and start thinking about all of the reasons why I should give up.”
“Joe.”
“I’m scared to be in my own head, Molloy,” I croaked out, feeling a shiver rack through my body. “I’m fucking terrified of my inability to control my own actions, and what’s worse is knowing that, at any point, I could end up going too far and driving you away. I could push away the one person, the only fucking person who has ever given a shit about me.” I exhaled a ragged breath, feeling torn and exposed to this girl. “I don’t want to go back to how it was—to how I was. I know what’s at stake. I see you. I fucking see you standing right here in front of me, and my heart is screaming at me to cop the hell on and get my shit together. And I want to. I want to so fucking bad, but it’s like this…”
Frustrated, I reached up and pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to get the words out, to make it all make sense to her, which was impossible considering I didn’t understand it myself. Still, I tried, knowing that she deserved nothing less. “It’s like I have this whole other person in my head, a whole other voice, even though I know it’s me. It’s my voice, but it’s a destructive fucking voice that rears its head every time I’m stressed.”
“Which is constantly,” she filled in knowingly.
I heaved out a breath and nodded. “The worse shit gets in my life, the louder the voice gets, louder and louder and louder, until it’s literally screaming in my head, and I can’t focus on anything other than doing the one thing that I know that will quieten it down.”
“Self-medicating.” She swallowed. “Losing yourself.”
“You asked me why I fucked up and caved after three months? It’s because I couldn’t take it anymore.” I shrugged helplessly. “And now there’s a baby coming, and I have so much to lose that I’m fucking terrified of blowing it again. I know that I need to get my shit together, and I will. But that’s the problem right there, because I can tell you that I’m going to be good, and I’ll mean it when I say it, but I don’t trust myself, Aoife .” My shoulders slumped and I exhaled a pained breath. “I just don’t.”
She didn’t shout or berate me. She didn’t slap my face and run away, either. Instead, she stood there, eyes locked on mine, as she absorbed my painful truth.
“Right now,” she finally said. “What are your thoughts right now?”
“My thoughts?”
“Your thoughts.”
“You,” I admitted. “You and the baby.”
Shivering, she nodded and tightened her arms around my neck. “And your head? Where’s your head at, Joe?”
“Same place as it’s always been,” I replied. “With you.”
“I believe in you.”
The words hurt to hear and I flinched. “Molloy.”
“I. Believe. In. You,” she repeated slowly. “I’m not expecting perfection from you, Joe. Hell, I don’t want it, because I’m definitely not perfect. So, all I need you to do is be honest, be faithful, and keep trying.”
“And if I’m not worth it?” I dared to ask. “If I’m not worth believing in? If this all goes to shit and I end up letting you down again? What happens then?”
“You see, you’re not taking into account my feelings for you,” she said, stroking my cheeks with her thumbs. “And I know being loved is a foreign concept to you, but it doesn’t come with strings or conditions. It’s unconditional, Joe.”
I looked at her, feeling at a total loss. “I don’t get it.”
“I know you don’t.” Nodding, she leaned up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “That’s okay.”
“Everyone has their limit, Molloy,” I said. “One of these days, you’re going to reach yours with me.”
“Do you love me, Joe?”
