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It had been almost two weeks since Joey Lynch dropped the pink-lace-thong bomb on me, and I wasn’t really angry with Paul anymore.
I wasn’t even that irritated about the whole debacle to begin with.
Sure, I was far from happy with him for discussing me with his buddies, but I knew enough about lads my age to know that was what they did.
They talked shit.
A lot of it.
My best friend, Casey, thought I should be raging about what Paul did, and maybe she was right, but I didn’t seem to care enough about it – or my relationship – to wrangle up the necessary feelings.
Besides, being with Paul was nice. He was good-looking, clever, and, for the most part, we had a lot of fun together.
Still, though, I couldn’t help but feel restless.
For what, I couldn’t fathom.
Yes, you can, you little liar…
"What are you doing out here, Aoif?" Katie Wilmot, my next-door neighbor, asked, dragging me from my daydream.
Friends since childhood, our paths had changed course last year when I left her behind in primary school for BCS. Next year, she would be pushing the bar out further by heading off to Tommen, the private school outside of Ballylaggin, but living next door to each other meant that our friendship would remain intact.
Hoisting her small frame onto my garden wall beside me, she slipped her arm through mine and rested her head on my shoulder. "It's freezing out here."
"Yeah, I know." I let out a heavy sigh and rested my cheek on her red curls. "I'm just people watching."
"You mean you'reboywatching," Katie corrected with a smirk.
Not bothering to deny something we both knew was true, I turned my attention back to the commotion occurring across the road from our row of houses.
It was half past eleven on Friday night and the Gardaí were making an arrest – which was nothing new for this area of town.
Lately, they had been cracking down on underage drinking, and had scored a coup for themselves in the form of a gang of teenage boys.
I knew them all.
Some were from my street, more were from my school, and then there washim.
“Hey, isn’t that the lad who works with your dad?” she asked, voicing my thoughts aloud, as we watched one of the male Gardaí pin Joey Lynch to the side of the paddy wagon.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut like the others, Joey laughed and taunted the Garda, who was roughly patting him down.
Dressed in his usual attire, an oversized navy hoodie that concealed his blond hair, he continued to talk back to the Garda, goading the Gard into losing his cool with him.
“Joey Lynch,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “And yep. It sure is.”
Snatching the cigarette that was balancing between Joey’s lips, the Garda tossed it on the ground before stamping on it.
The move earned him a slew of verbal abuse from my classmate.
“What an idiot,” I grumbled with a shake of my head, feeling sourly disappointed in his behavior, mostly because I knew he could do better.
Never mind do better, hewasbetter, dammit.
I thought that sharing a box of cereal with him two weeks ago had somehow melted those arctic walls erected around him, but I was sorely mistaken.
He had shown up to school the following day more closed off than ever, sporting one hell of a nasty shiner, and an even nastier attitude to match it.
