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Sure, Joey fought me at every hand’s turn. He pissed me off to epic proportions, and drove me batshit crazy at times, but on the other side, I had never felt more alive, and more like, well,methan when I was with him.
The truth was that nothing about being with Joey was easy, and yet being with him felt so incrediblyright.
Like I was exactlywhereI supposed to be, with exactlywhoI was supposed to be with.
Excitement thrummed to life inside of me the minute my eyes landed on him, walking up the road towards the school, with his little sister in tow.
Feeling ridiculously perky, considering it was the first day of a new school year, my last one, I tossed my lollypop in the nearby bin and strolled down to greet them both.
“Nice shirt.”
“Nice legs.”
Hooking an arm around my waist, Joey pulled me roughly to his chest and kissed me hard.
“Yeah,” he said against my lips. “It’s going to be a good day.”
“Is that an analogy for something dirty,” I teased, pulling back to look at him, only to feel my stomach somersault – andnotin a good way – when my eyes landed on his face. “No.”
A surge of sadness threatened to drown me as I took in the sight of fresh bruises.
It hurt to look at him sometimes.
To see the marks and bruises on his skin.
It made me so utterly depressed to think about the life he lived when he wasn’t with me.
I loathed the fact that he had been thrust into playing the role of both mother and father to his siblings because his shitty parents wouldn’t do their job.
It sucked.
It pissed me off that they depended on him for every bloody thing.
Especially his mother.
She was the worst one of all.
Sometimes, I wanted to stand in front of him and screamback offto his family.
He has a life of his own to lead!
Because I knew in my heart that he would never leave Ballylaggin and take a year out to travel.
Not while those kids were still in that house.
No, because he needed to work to pay for his parents' mistakes.
I knew that I was extremely selfish for wanting his family, kids included, to back off and leave him alone. I mean, they were little kids for Christ's sake.
Theydependedon him.
Still, that didn’t stop me from wanting to snatch him away and keep him safe, from wanting to give him a safe place to fall, to stay, to rest, and recover.
Of course, Joey was as closed off now as he ever was when it came to his home life.
He never wanted to talk about it, and whenever I tried to broach the subject, it usually resulted in a fight, with him storming off with those assholes from the terrace.
Andthatwas something that scared me almost as much as when he was at home.
