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Or nonexistent.
“What’s Dad saying?”
Her shoulders slumped, but she didn’t reply.
“What’s he saying about it, Mam?” I pushed.
“That it serves her right for thinking she was better than the rest of you.”
“Prick,” I muttered, rubbing my jaw. “He doesn’t have a goddamn—”
“Please don’t start.” She cut me off with a sob. “I’ve already heard all that I can handle tonight from your father.”
“Mam,” I began to say, but she shook her head, silencing me with her dismissal.
With a sniffle, she rose from the table, pressed a hand to her growing stomach, and walked straight past me, with scorn and disappointment wafting from her in waves.
The kitchen door closed behind her, and I felt that familiar swell of frustrated desperation rise up inside of me. It was the same feeling that was never sated until I forced it away with whatever I could get my hands on.
Helpless, I stood in the kitchen, with my hands hanging limply at my sides as I absorbed the horrible fucking sensations and feelings rushing through me. Unwilling to unlock my muscles out of fear of what I was capable of doing, and even more unwilling to detonate the self-destruct button on the life I had barely managed to get back on track, I bowed my head and breathed in deeply and slowly.
It doesn’t matter, I tried to soothe myself by mentally chanting. None of this matters because you don’t care, remember?
You don’t care.
You don’t care.
You don’t fucking care!
17
The Night Visit
AOIFE
It was a little after midnight when I was roused by the sound of my bedroom window creaking open and then closing shut. My heart accelerated in my chest when muffled footsteps followed, and then I felt the mattress dip beside me. Remaining silent, I rolled onto my back and turned my head to look at my boyfriend.
Because I just knew that it was Joey.
Fully clothed and body rigid, he lay on top of my covers with his hood up and his hands resting on his stomach as he glared up at my bedroom ceiling. He was breathing in excessively deeply and slowly, letting me know that he was dealing with something in his mind, and instead of running to Shane, he had come here.
To me.
In the darkness, with only the hue of the moon shining through my window to illuminate us, we lay side by side. My body cloaked in warmth, and his in coldness.
Mirroring our lives.
Without speaking a word, I reached out and took one of his big hands in mine and lifted it to my mouth. He needed to process. He needed to make the next move for himself. I couldn’t do that for him.
Pressing four soft kisses to each of his scarred knuckles, I cradled his hand to my chest and waited. After what felt like an eternity, he exhaled a pained breath and entwined my fingers with his.
He turned his head to look at me, so I did the same.
“I needed Tommen to be better for her.”
“Shannon?”
He nodded stiffly.
