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The look in her eyes that night had complicated everything for me because I was now fully aware that I had the ability to hurt her, whether I was near her or not.
The was a sobering thought, but not as sobering as the scene I had arrived home to after walking her home from said house party.
Yeah, the absolute carnage I had been faced with had quickly killed any notions of girls, and a social life.
Mam had fallen down the stairs while I'd been out and had broken her arm.
How fucking convenient.
I had spent the following twenty-four hours at home alone with the kids to look after, not to mention reeling in my guilt, while my mother sat in the A&E withhim.
“Did she hit her?” I asked, dragging my thoughts back to the present. “Was it bad? Come on, Dan, just tell me.”
“It was bad, Joe,” she whispered, reaching up to rub my arm. “There was a lot of shouting and screaming. Apparently, someone cut her hair, too.”
My blood ran cold. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Your Mam is up there now,” she added, cringing. “They called her in. She’s talking to the principal.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Chest heaving, I cleared the five-foot wall enclosing the pitch in one quick sweep, before storming off in the direction of the school building, football studs clattering against the concrete as I went.
“Don’t lose your head, Joey,” I heard Danielle call after me, but it was too late for that.
My head was long gone, lost in fucking space, the moment I heard someone had taken a pair of scissors to my sister’s hair.
Like a red rag to a bull, I stormed through the school yard towards the main building and slammed my hand against the glass door so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter.
"Where’s the fire?" Alec asked when I stormed past him and the rest of the team, who were heading outside for training.
“Lynchy, the pitch is the other way.”
“Get fucked!” I roared, losing what little self-control I had left inside of me, as I thundered towards the girls’ bathroom.
“You can’t go in there, Joseph,” Miss Lane, one of the female teachers, warned when I stormed past her.
“Oh yeah?” I sneered, shoving the door open. “Fucking stop me.”
“Excuse me?” she demanded; tone laced with shock. “You’ll be suspended for speaking to me like that.”
“Then suspend me,” I countered, turning my attention to the group of girls huddling at the communal sinks. “Get the fuck out now!”
“I’m getting the principal,” Miss Lane warned in a shaky voice, as she quickly ushered the girls out of the bathroom.
“You do that,” I sneered, slamming the door shut in her face.
Blowing out a breath that felt like flames, I walked along the row of a dozen or so toilet cubicles, pushing in each door as I passed, until I came to the last one.
It was locked.
“It’s me,” was all I said, and then waited, heart rate spiking as I prepared for what I would find on the other side of the door.
Several beats passed before the sound of a lock clicking filled the air, and then the door swung slowly inwards.
Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, with her knees tucked into her chest, and her eyes bloodshot from crying, my baby sister peeked up at me.
“Hey, Joe.”
My heart cracked clean open in my chest at the sight of her.
