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Our bedroom windows faced each other’s, and it gave me a strange sort of comfort, knowing that she was close by. After all, she was the best part of a broken childhood, because the pictures hanging on the walls at home sure as shit represented anything but. Those pictures were a cold reminder of a childhood that ended too soon. I couldn’t smile when I looked at any of the family portraits adorning the walls of my house. I couldn’t muster up good memories because since that day, all I had in my head were bad.
My life changed in the blink of an eye, changing me irrevocably, and the only way I could move past it was to forget it.
So, I didn’t remember any of it. I blocked it out. The good, the bad, and the depressing. I froze it all out of my mind, choosing to allow myself to remember only one face in a lifetime of haze. Her. She was the safest memory my mind contained, the only face I could trust not to hurt me.
Beyond flustered, I snatched my phone off my nightstand and scrolled through my contacts, not stopping until I settled on a familiar name.
Pressing Call, I held the phone to my ear and paced the room. My body was bristling with energy, and the urge to escape was so intense that I momentarily thought about throwing myself out the window.
The fall wouldn’t kill me. Hell, I wouldn’t even break a bone, but it might distract me from the fucked-up thoughts rushing around in my head.
Because this room.
That ceiling.
Their ghosts.
My memories.
I couldn’t fucking take it.
Relief flooded my body at a rapid rate when his familiar Dublin accent came down the line. “About bleeding time.” For whatever reason, Johnny’s voice was like an immediate shot of relief to my senses. “Ever heard of answering your phone, Gibs? I’ve called you five times already, lad. I thought your ma was unleashing you from the doghouse today. What’s the story? I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
For a brief moment, I contemplated spilling my guts out to the lad on the other side of the line. I certainly trusted him enough to tell him. Johnny tolerated me in a way that most of the lads couldn’t. He seemed to get me, even without me telling him one word of my past.
Spending most of the summer without him had been torture, and that wasn’t an exaggeration. It fucking sucked balls, because his absence gave me far too much time to think.
I had trouble being alone with myself. It didn’t feel good to be on my own. In company was when I worked best. Being alone fucked with my head worse than anything else. Because being alone meant that I had to think. And I fucking hated thinking. I had a chaotic thought process that had been given a formal diagnosis from doctors but no reprieve.
Aside from Claire, Johnny was my closest friend in the world, and quite possibly the best person I knew. He would know what to do. He was good at fixing things.
Do it.
Tell him.
Let him help you.
Don’t you dare.
Remember what happened the last time you tried to tell.
“Sorry about missing your calls, Kav. I was over in Claire’s place last night—left my phone in my room,” I heard myself explain instead. “And I’m officially ungrounded. I just overslept.”
Johnny didn’t know about the ins and outs of my family drama, and that was exactly how I liked it. He had enough problems of his own to deal with, not to mention two epic parents that provided him with a home that made it hard for him to relate.
Johnny had the kind of structured will about him that appealed to me. He was safe. He was steady and stable and dependable, and I would die on my hill of loyalty to him. Because aside from Claire, I’d never had a friend I could find peace with like him.
He was the protector. Fuck knows how he came to be what he was, but Mammy K and John Sr. did a fantastic fucking job. Without realizing it, they had created a personal savior in their son.
We had our own little world and I refused to fuck that up with any bullshit memories. I would rather stew in silence than expose myself to that potential pain. So, I smacked on a smile whenever Johnny came over and said all the right things to the man that had broken up my family, all the while silently simmering on the inside.
“Yeah, I heard all about it,” he replied with a weary sigh. “I’ve had Hugh on the phone, ranting and raving about how he was going to borrow a Burdizzo off Feely’s da to castrate you.”
“Nice,” I snickered, reveling in Hugh’s discomfort. “Sorry about missing the gym, lad.”
“Story of your life, Gibs,” he replied, but the humor in his tone assured me that he wasn’t about to hold a grudge over it. “Are we still on for the beach later?”
“We better be,” I shot back. “I booked the day off work for it.”
