“What about your dad?” I ask. Normally I wouldn't be so presumptuous, but I remember seeing the pictures in the hall. He was everywhere.
Niall’s grip tightens on the wheel, knuckles whitening. “Well, last I knew, he was at St. Jarlath's.”
“Is that a bar? A pub—sorry, you guys call it a pub.”
There’s silence for a minute, and my stupid mouth decides to keep moving.
“I wonder where that word comes from? Like, I get the word bar, cause the thing that you serve on is, like the bar, but what the hell is a pub?”
He exhales a sharp breath. “It’s a graveyard, Molly. My dad’s dead.”
What?
Oh. Shit.
The air leaves the car. I feel a cold, sick weight drop into my stomach. “Oh. Oh, god. Niall, I’m so sorry. I didn't know.”
I can't believe it. Jesus. This is why I don't drink; I hate not being able to control and filter my thoughts. I’m worried I'll end up saying something stupid and yep, there it is. I wish I had done something like call him hot to his face instead.
Niall exhales sharply through his nose. “It's fine. Happened when I was a wee lad. Long time ago.”
“Still,” I say softly. “I’m an idiot. I shouldn't have...”
He shrugs. “‘S a’right, really. You didn’t know.”
Another stretch of silence stills between us. I glance over at him—his profile is sharp against the passing streetlights, eyes fixed on the road.
“Molly,” he says suddenly, and it startles me because I think he's caught me staring at him. I hope he can't read my mind or anything. Because I'm only half thinking about how I accidentally brought up his dead dad, and the other half is finding him to be incredibly attractive, even in lamplight.
“Yeah?”
He sighs. “You need to tell me where you live.”
12
...i’ll cry if I want to
Niall
September, 2007
SHE LIVES OFFthe Coast Road.
At the edge of town, just past Main Street, are the docks my father used to take us to. There are other docks in town—bigger ones up on the way towards Dublin—but these ones are down by this sandy area everyone calls The Strand that people usually go to for swimming when the weather’s warmer. We used to go a lot when we were younger, but that was before Da died.
We used to do a lot of things before Da died. Things that I don’t think we even mention around the house anymore.
Sometimes I still go to The Strand, all on my own.
If you keep going down Blackenridge, it eventually turns into Strand Street (which is thetechnicalname of the coast road, but no one ever calls it that for no apparent reason), which puts The Strand straight on your right. Kilmore Road is a left turn off the coast road, and there are only two places on Kilmore that I know of.
One is Rafferty’s farm, which is way far down and I’ve never really been there on my own, but sometimes the lads and I pass it when we drive down the backroads. The other is this big emptyhouse that I reckon is haunted—or at least I thought so when I was small. It used to belong to some Brits, but they moved to England ages ago and I guess the rumor gets started up that there’s some headless maiden terrorizing the place.
Of course, the haunted mansion is the house Molly tells me to turn into.
This girl has not ceased to amaze me since she’s gotten here. One day she was nowhere, the next she was everywhere. How is it that, by chance, the very same girl my best mate nearly knocks down with a trolley, is the same girl Principal Lynch asked my sister to be a welcome buddy before, and ends up being the girl who earns her way onto the footie team?
I told her my da was at St. Jarlath’s for the sake of ambiguity. I had all intentions of just nodding or shrugging along with whatever she understood me to mean. But then I went off and told her my dad was dead—for no reason at all—even though she’s probably the only person in town who doesn’t know.
