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"I don’t want to be here anymore, Joe."
"Me either."
"I'm sick of feeling scared all the time."
"I know." He patted my back and then stood. "One of these days, everything will be better. I promise."
Walking over to his wardrobe, he pulled open the doors and dragged out the familiar sleeping bag and spare pillows.
I didn’t have to ask what he was doing; not when I already knew and it made my heart squeeze tight.
When Joey was finished setting up the makeshift bed on the floor, he dropped onto it.
Folding his arms behind his head, he released a heavy sigh. "Turn off the light, will ya, Shan?"
Complying, I leaned over the bed and flicked off his lamp before climbing into his empty bed.
"Thanks Joey," I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, as I settled under the covers.
"No problem."
Turning onto my side, I looked down at him lying on his bedroom floor.
His curtains were closed, but the streetlamps on the footpath outside the house cloaked the room in a dull hue of faded color, illuminating the shadows on my brother's face.
"Hey, Joe?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you do me a favor?"
He tipped his chin up, letting me know he was listening.
"Please don’t do to me what Darren did to us." Folding my hands under my cheek, I whispered, "Don’t leave me."
"I won't," my brother vowed, tone laced with grit and sincerity. "I won't ever leave you here with him."
I breathed out a shaky breath. "Mam is never going to leave him –"
"Mam can do whatever the fuck she wants," Joey interrupted, tone hardening. "She made her bed when she took him back last time. She can keep popping out his offspring and put up with his bullshit for the rest of her goddamn life for all I care. But you and me? We stick together." He turned his face to me and said, "When I get out of this shithole, and I will get out, I'm taking you with me."
Chewing on my lip, I asked, "What about the boys?"
Joey exhaled heavily but didn’t respond.
Na
Na
It was a strange arrangement considering she and my parents barely spoke, and one I had asked Na
She had raised my mother and her sister, Alice, when their parents passed away when they were children, but you'd swear Na
Na
She did it for us.
Because she loved us.
And we were not to suffer for our parents' poor decisions.
She had toilet trained every one of us when our mother was working all the hours god gave her and our father wasn’t interested.
Na
Na
Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean were relatively protected from the tornado that was our father because we were lucky enough to have a great-grandmother who loved us.
The problem was, Na
She couldn’t keep wading in and saving the day.
Her health was fading, old age was setting in, and money was as tight for her as it was for us. Na
It was for those and many more reasons why Joey and I had scaled back on our visits.
"They're our brothers," I whispered, dragging myself from my thoughts.
"I'm not their father," Joey croaked out. "And who knows, maybe Mam will come to her senses before they completely fuck them up like they did us and Darren. Either way, there's nothing I can do about it. I can't take care of them, Sha
"You promise?"
He nodded. "As soon as I'm finished with school and settled in college next year, I'll get a flat. It might take me some time to put together the cash and get on my feet, but I'll get out of here, Sha
"I believe you," I told him.
And I did.
He'd been telling me this plan since Darren walked out the door five years ago and left us to deal with our father's whiskey wrath alone.
I believed that my brother meant every word he was saying, every promise he was making.
Problem was, I could see the unimaginable sacrifices that would have to be made by my brother in order to make this work for us, and knew deep down in my heart that the probability of it actually going to fruition was slim.
Either way, the child inside of me clung to the promise for all it was worth.
And promises like that to girls like me were worth everything.
"Anyway, enough of the parental bullshit talk," Joey said, looking up at my face. "Tell me how you know Joh
"What?" I gaped down at him, startled by the sudden change in conversation.
It wasn’t uncommon for us to change the subject after a night like this and talk about ridiculous things. To others, it might seem strange that we were able to switch from serious, meaningful conversation to simple chitchat, but it was the norm for us.
We'd been dealing with our father's bullshit our entire lives.
Changing subjects came naturally to us. It was a coping mechanism we had perfected down through the years; deflection and distraction.
But asking me about Joh
That threw me.
"Kavanagh," Joey confirmed, eyes sharp and searching. "How do you know the guy?"
"He goes to Tommen," I explained, grateful for the semi-darkness so my brother couldn’t see how red my face had turned. "He's, uh, in fifth year, I think?" I know. "And I've seen him a few times at school. He's the one who knocked me out on my first day."
Joey's head snapped towards me. "It was Kavanagh who knocked you out?"
"It was an accident." I quickly reeled off the familiar words I'd spoken time and again in the past month or so. "He made a bad pass, or kicked the ball wrong, or something like that – anyways, he apologized like a million times, so it's all good…" I finished with a big sigh, unwilling to provide any further information on the matter. "All over and done with."
"Well, shit," Joey mused, scratching his chest. "You'd think a guy in his position wouldn’t be making mickey mouse mistakes like that."
"A guy in his position?" I remarked. "I'm pretty sure he's not the only person in the world to kick a ball arseways."
"No..." Joey shrugged. "Still though; I didn’t think they made those kind of schoolboy errors in The Academy."
"Academy?" I exhaled a huff. "It's called Tommen College, Joe. Not The Academy."
"I'm not talking about your school, Shan," Joey said. "I'm talking about The Academy – you know; The Institute of Further Progression. The Academy's only a nickname."
"What the hell is the Institute of Further Progression? And how do you know him?"