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It was a night that consisted of my parents screaming at each other so loudly that the Gardaí came to the door, having received an anonymous call about a disturbance of the peace.
My peace.
Because I made the call. Because I was afraid he would hurt her.
Furious with my mother or not, I couldn’t bear the thought of him knocking her around downstairs while I hid in my bedroom like the coward I was.
Joey was once again staying with Aoife, and I wasn’t nearly big enough or brave enough to save Mam myself.
Thankfully, my father hadn’t laid a finger on her, and once he had convinced the Gards that his wife was having a pregnancy-related tantrum, he left for the night. Of course, he returned yesterday morning with a bunch of flowers and a promise to never do whatever the hell he had done this time again.
It worked.
She hugged him and kissed him, and I was fairly sure that if she wasn’t already pregnant, she would have been after spending the morning locked in their bedroom with him.
I hated her. Sometimes more than I hated him.
Yesterday was one of those times.
When I returned to school Friday morning, it was with a sore neck and a serious lack of hope.
Oh yeah, because even though Dad and Mam were all loved up again, I was still his favorite target. Apparently, he still wasn’t over that picture of me with Johnny. Something I was reminded of late last night when I foolishly made a food run to the kitchen and got tangled up in his whiskey tantrum. He added fresh bruises to old bruises, and I had spent a good portion of the night contemplating the worst possible thoughts.
By the time the last class of the day finished, my body was so tightly coiled with tension that I could hardly make my feet walk a straight line from the science building to the main building, which I needed to get to. I knew I had to go back home and the thought was crippling me.
I didn’t want the weekend to come and now it was here, staring me in the face.
It was a terrifying prospect.
The horrible, niggling pain in my stomach all day was now bordering on unbearable. My mind was in such overload, running through list after list of potential problems I might face when I walked through the front door, that I wasn’t paying attention to the rain belting down on me or the students whizzing past.
I wasn’t paying attention to anything.
Because I knew. I just knew deep down in my heart and soul that danger was coming. I didn’t know where, or when, or how it might unfold.
But I knew it was coming.
However, the danger I was predicting arrived prematurely when I rounded the corner of the main building and collided with a solid male chest.
I was so unprepared for the contact, so deeply caught up in my own thoughts, that I didn’t have time to steady myself or break my fall. I folded like a deck of cards, no match for the person I had smashed into, and collapsed on my arse on the cold, wet ground.
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry,” a deep, familiar voice said from above me.
I didn’t need to look up to know who I had bumped into, though.
I would recognize his voice anywhere.
“Shannon, are you okay?” Johnny asked as he dropped his schoolbag on the ground and reached down to help me up.
“I’m okay,” I mumbled, batting his hand away.
I didn’t need him touching me.
I was already too affected by him.
Keeping my eyes trained on the concrete, I twisted onto my hands and knees and pulled myself up.
“I’m so sorry,” he continued to say.
