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“Conor.”
“Diarmuid—”
“Conor!”
“Diarmuid, would you just listen?” I said, raising my voice before remembering Aurnia was asleep in the next room. “Diarmuid,” I half whispered, “would you just stop shouting for a minute and listen to me?”
“Listen to you?” Diarmuid hissed angrily. “Conor, do you know how many codes you’ve violated? Fuck, do you know how many codes you’ve pinned against the wall and fucked? Absolutely fucked? She’s a goddamn minor!”
“She’s eighteen,” I said.
That was the wrong fucking thing to say.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Diarmuid yelled.
“Diarmuid, I’m sorry,” I said, “but when I went there to her house…fuck, that dump… When I went there and saw…”
Diarmuid sighed heavily. What I was telling him was nothing new. In his position, I’m sure he saw what I saw on a near daily basis. Maybe even worse. Probably even worse.
I continued anyway. Because it was Aurnia. Because it was Aurnia.
“When I saw the people that lurked around that house,” I said, bile already rising in my throat at the thought of it, at the thought of them. “When I saw her have to climb through her goddamn bedroom window…” My voice was rising again. I was going to wake her if I wasn’t careful. But the only way I could make Diarmuid understand was if I kept talking about it. Why was I always in this fucking position? “Diarmuid,” I tried to whisper, “Diarmuid, when I saw her in there…so small…so alone…so…so helpless…”
My fists were shaking. I regretted not taking the call down to the garage. There was something to hit down there. There was no one to wake up with my yelling down there.
Diarmuid was quiet for a moment and then all he said was, “I know…believe me, I know.”
I rested my forehead against the wall as I tried to even out my ragged breathing. I uncurled my fist. Finger by goddamn finger. But it didn’t matter. They kept curling back up no matter what I did. Nails digging into my palms.
“So you understand?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice steady. “You understand why I—”
I stopped because I’d done more than just take a helpless girl into my home. I did more than shelter her. Feed her.
I’d done far more than that. I couldn’t tell Diarmuid. That he could never understand.
“Yes,” Diarmuid said, sadness in his voice until he quickly amended, “I mean, no. Goddammit, Conor, no. I mean yes. Of course, yes. But no. No. We can’t— I mean, you can’t.”
“What was I supposed to fucking do, Diarmuid?” I shot back angrily, again too loud, again far too loud.
I glanced back at the bedroom door. It was still. It was quiet. Thank fucking God.
“I don’t know, Conor,” Diarmuid responded with just as much frustration. “You could have called me. Her JLO. The person with resources. The person who could get her help. The person who could put her somewhere safe. I mean, fuck, Conor, you brought a minor into your house!”
“I know full well what good the government is to kids like Aurnia. I know exactly what you could have done, or not done, if I’d have called you.”
“And that’s the reason?”
Diarmuid’s question caught me off guard.
“What?” I asked.
Diarmuid hesitated a moment. Silent a moment.
“Conor, these kids…when you want to help them…and…when you see them and you see yourself in them…it’s just…I know…I know boundaries can get blurred.”
I don’t know if I was madder that Diarmuid had the gall to imply what he was implying. Or that he was right. Dead fucking right.
“What you’re suggesting is wrong,” I said, vehemence in every word. Vehemence at Diarmuid. Vehemence at myself.
