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They would never have to sit behind a barricaded bedroom door with a hurley in hand.
I would be here to do it for them.
I knew what it felt like to have my protector abandon me, and I wouldneverallow that to happen to them.
I would die first.
Yeah, fuck Darren for leaving our brothers and sister to fend for themselves against a monster.
Fuck him for making me our father's number one punching bag.
You've always been that, lad…
Fuck secondary school, too, for that matter. My gaze drifted to my unopened school bag that contained a mountain of homework. I hadn’t the slightest intention of completing shit given by teachers whose opinions on me were the least of my worries.
Yeah, it was safe to say that secondary school was another bust.
Understatement of the century, lad…
According to my new principal, Mr. Nyhan, I wasshort temperedandunresponsive to authority. If he had to put up with half of the crap I did, he wouldn’t be so responsive to authority himself.
Asshole.
I reveled in pissing him off.
The reason for my blatant dislike of him was simple; he had played hurling with my father back in the day.
Hurling.
A shiver rolled through me.
It was both my saving grace and my living nightmare.
Forced to play by my father from the age of four, and terrified of having that weight dropped onto Tadhg’s shoulders like it been dropped on mine when Darren quit, I pushed myself to keep it up.
And I was good.
I was better than my father or Darren ever were, and I think it made him hate me more – the fact that I wasn’t completely useless like he constantly reminded me.
Dick.
It was because of thoughts like these, and fucked up nights like the current one, that when Shane Holland, a lad a few years above me at BCS, offered my first hit from a joint in fifth class, I took it.
When he promised that it would relax my racing mind and help me sleep, I sucked that shit so deep into my lungs that I almost choked myself in the process.
And do you know what happened?
Itworked.
I went home that night and slept like a baby, blissfully unaware of anything outside my locked bedroom door.
After my first night of unbroken sleep in years, I was instantly converted, and decided that weed was for me.
After a smoke, I could relax, better than I'd ever been able to. I could close my eyes at night and not hearherin my head.
I could ignore the burning pain of betrayal and rejection that crippled me every time I thought of Darren leaving me to fend for the family alone, or what would happen if I tried to leave.
I had peace.
