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Except him.
He was back.
Just like I knew he would be.
The miscarriage had been the perfect opportunity for my father to weasel his way back into my mother’s fragile emotions.
When he came back that night, Joey left. He drove away and didn’t come home for three days.
Those three days, I had lived in terror, fearing he would never come home. He finally did. But I knew it wouldn’t be forever. One of these days, Joey was going to walk out that front door just like Darren had and never come back.
Mam returned to work on the following Saturday. Like a robot, she dressed in her cleaning scrubs, walked downstairs, made herself a cup of coffee, smoked seven cigarettes, and then left for work. I knew Mam shouldn’t be working in her condition—she clearly wasn’t in the right frame of mind—but when I tried to tell her, all she did was give me a watery smile, kiss my cheek, and walk right out the door.
I spent the entire day worrying myself sick about my mother and listening to my father tell me how it was all my fault she lost the baby.
I was the whore. I made him lose his temper. I was to blame for him putting his hands on me. And I was the reason he shoved Mam when she tried to drag him off me that night.
I was the reason he slapped her around. It was all on me.
Because I was such a slut.
That’s right, I was a sixteen-year-old girl who had never even kissed a boy, but to my father, I was a tramp.
When he broke his promise of sobriety to my mother last night, I wasn’t even surprised. When he used my neck as a squeeze toy, I didn’t even flinch.
I was just so tired. A part of me prayed he would just get it over with.
Even though Joey had come thundering down the staircase and dragged Dad off me, the damage had been done.
He added fresh bruises to old bruises, and I had spent a good portion of the night contemplating the worst possible thoughts.
There was no reprieve from this. I had no way out. Not in that house. Not in a care home.
I was trapped.
When I stepped off the bus and walked through the doors of Tommen this morning, the relief that had flooded my body was so potent that I could taste it. Returning after a week in hell felt like the greatest reward for surviving.
Seeing Claire and Lizzie again, and knowing they loved me, being told they loved me, helped piece something back together inside of my body. When they presented me with a belated birthday cupcake and gifts at lunch, I almost cried. When I gave them the PG version of what happened to Mam, they knew me well enough to drop it.
I didn’t want talk about it, think about it, or be reminded of it. Ever again. Claire and Lizzie knew that and respected my wishes.
Going through the motions, I went to all my classes and erased my family from my mind for the next seven hours.
It was wonderful.
42Catching Shoes and Feelings
SHANNON
My last class on Monday was double P.E., and because of the torrential downpour of rain outside, Mr. Mulcahy had taken pity on us and set up a game of soccer in the indoor basketball hall. Mr. Mulcahy was the school’s rugby coach and it was pretty evident in the way he lounged on a folding chair on the sideline, eyes focused on the clipboard in his hand, that he wasn’t concerned with our physical education. Also, I had managed to sneak a peek at said clipboard when I tried and failed to get out of playing, and it was covered in doodles and rugby-related plays.
I had ended up being drafted onto the team with Claire, thank god, and a couple of the other girls, while Lizzie had managed to talk her way out of participating and got to go to the library instead. I wished I was as persuasive as her. Instead, I was sporting a yellow bib and attempting to run around and not get squashed to death by the boys.
With Lizzie living it up in the library, that left only four girls on the court to play with the eighteen other boys from 3A. I was by far the worst. Shelly and Helen, the other two girls in my class, weren’t much better, but I had a feeling that had more to do with their general disinterest in the game rather than lack of ability. Claire was amazing at sports, the best girl on the court, and the lads treated her with the respect she deserved by passing the ball off to her whenever she managed to get free. So far, she had scored twice.
To be fair, my teammates had tried that with me earlier on in the game, but after tripping myself up and costing our side a goal, they avoided me. I thought that might be for the best.
“Are you having fun?” Claire asked, jogging toward me when one of the boys on our team scored again.
