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I hated that world.
Mam didn’t pass away.
She was taken.
Fucking stolen.
And I blamed her.
I spent my life hating on her, blaming her for things I couldn’t understand at the time.
I didn’t get it.
Still couldn’t.
But she was my mother, and she died thinking I hated her. That would never sit well with me, and nothing these doctors could say would repair that hole in me.
Nothing.
Thinking clearly for the first time in several years, I faced my demons with a loaded conscience and a crushed heart.
The stupid fucking journal I’d been encouraged to keep in hospital felt unbearably heavy in my hands, filled with more darkness than I knew what to do with.
Trusting wasn’t something that came easily to me, not even when it came to writing in a fucking journal.
Hating, on the other hand, did.
I excelled at hating the world.
Not just the world, but everyone in it.
Except for her.
Yeah, she was my only exception.
122
Long Hot Summer
AOIFE
I saw him again yesterday.
Coming out of the GAA Pavilion when I was driving home from work.
Of course, I was wrong. It wasn’t Joey, just some tall lad with his hood up and a hurley in hand. But I pretended it was him. For a split second, I imagined he was still here, and I wasn’t completely alone.
Depression had set in pretty quick after that, and I had eaten half my weight in cheese and onion crisps before passing out on my bed, with the scrapbook I’d spent all summer making. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a healthy hobby to have undertaken, but it gave me immeasurable comfort, so I was going with it.
When I woke this morning, that scrapbook was the first thing I reached for. It was like my own personal comfort blanket, filled with six years of memories of Joey Lynch.
Every photograph, every perfect summer night, every horrible roaring screaming match, everything I was from the age of twelve to this exact moment involved Joey. Revolved around our relationship and the way he made me feel.
My eyes landed on a picture taken the night of my eighteenth birthday. I stared down at the two fresh-faced teenagers smiling back at me. It felt like a million years ago, but I remembered the moment, the feelings I had in my heart at that exact time.
“This is Daddy,” I said, stroking my ever-expanding belly as I sat cross-legged on my bed and turned the page of my scrapbook.
When I first started talking to my bump, it was right after Joey left for rehab, and I felt like a tool. But now, it felt as natural as breathing. All day every day, I chattered away to my little intruder.
