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I could have lied, but I didn’t have the energy. “No?”
“Aoife.” He sighed heavily. “This is your leaving cert. You can’t go into the exams tomorrow and doodle all over your English paper.”
“But my doodles are cute,” I replied, adding a little smiley face to my latest creation. “Look at this cute little spider in its web.”
“I’m sure the cute little spider drawing will be a fantastic addition to the baby’s nursery,” he shot back dryly. “But it won’t help you pass your exams, and we need you to pass your exams, remember?”
“What’s the use, Kev?” I showed my vulnerable underbelly by admitting that aloud. While we had called a fragile truce, and my brother was attempting to make amends by taking on the role of my personal tutor, our relationship was far from back on track. “We both know I don’t have a hope of passing the leaving cert. There’s too much to do and too little time to do it in.”
Honestly, I had read more in the past three days than I had in eighteen years.
Cramming for exams was a disaster, and while my brother was an exceptional teacher, nothing was going in because I couldn’t concentrate on anything but my boyfriend.
Three weeks had passed since the funeral, since Joe had been admitted to a rehabilitation facility up the country, but I swear, I was still stuck in that day. Time was passing by, but my head was stuck in that moment.
I couldn’t reach him, and it was killing me.
According to Edel Kavanagh, who had reached out to me every week since the funeral, Joe didn’t have phone privileges in rehab. It was against their policy for patients to have access to mobile phones or have any contact with the outside world until they were further along in their recovery.
“All you need to do is scrape a pass,” Kev told me, setting his pencil down and reaching for another textbook. “I know you’ve got a pass in you, Aoife. You can do this.”
“What if I don’t?”
“You think this year is hard, trying to get through sixth year while pregnant,” he tried to play tough cop by saying. “Imagine how hard it’s going to be, having to go back to BCS and repeat next year with a baby on your hip.” He narrowed his eyes. “Everyone in our year will have moved on to college and work. Hell, even your boyfriend’s dopey sidekicks have snagged themselves a J-1 visa to the States for the summer. They won’t be there to have your back if you flunk out and have to repeat sixth year.”
That was true.
As soon as the exams were over, Podge and Alec, along with a whole heap of other people from our year, were heading to America for the summer, and I didn’t blame them one bit. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Aside from me, the only other person in my friendship circle with no plans to leave Ballylaggin for travel or college was Casey—well, aside from a two-week piss-up in Benidorm in late July.
“I’m not going back either way,” I told my brother. “Even if I fail, I’m not going back to BCS to repeat sixth year. I’ll apply for hairdressing at the PLC college in the city and hope for the best.”
“And if you don’t get into your course? What then? You’re going to raise a kid off a barmaid’s wage? You’re not flaking out without an education, Aoife,” he growled. “I won’t let you.”
“It’s not up to you, Kev.”
“Well, I know Mam and Dad won’t let you either,” he argued. “So, you need to pass these exams, and if you don’t want to do it for yourself, then do it for the baby.”
That stung.
Everything I was doing was for the baby.
119
I’m Here, Aren’t I?
JOEY
“Joseph, you lost your mother in the most tragic of circumstances, and it’s okay to grieve for her.”
No shit, Sherlock.
“It’s okay to miss your mother.”
Keeping my back poker-straight, I stared back at the doctor, or therapist, or counselor, or whatever the fuck she was, and waited for her to be done.
All I needed from this woman was to test my piss and stick a needle in my arm. To take all the samples she needed from my body but leave my head the hell alone.
