Saving 6: Boys of Tommen #3

DECEMBER 31ST 2004

JOEY

I USED to think that my words were bullets, but I was wrong. Nothing I could ever conjure up in my mind could inflict as much pain as had been inflicted on me by her words. Each word after soul destroying word, splintering me and cutting me to the bone.

“Why can’t you love me more?” she continued to cry, holding onto me with a vice-like grip. “Why am I not enough for you?”

“I do love you more,” I choked out, feeling my soul crack in half, as I reeled in the unimaginable fucking horror of what I’d done to her. “You are enough for me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” Blowing out a pained breath, I added, “I don’t want to be the way I am. I don’t fucking love what I do. I despise it.”

“Then why do it?” she begged, trembling in my arms. “Why?”

She was asking me to give her the answer to something I couldn’t explain.

How did you justify addiction to someone who had never lived through it?

How was I supposed to make her understand that, for most of my life, I had been desperate to escape. That the only solace I’d ever been able to find had been in the soothing drag of a joint, or a mind-altering line of coke, in the numbing effect of benzos, or the thrilling buzz of uppers? How could I forget the euphoric fucking feeling of heroin?

Because Molloy didn’t know what it felt like to wake up every morning with a strong inclination to attempt suicide.

She didn’t know how it felt to be a helpless child, half-starved from hunger, and even more starved for a way out of a home she wasn’t wanted in.

She didn’t know what it felt like to be that hopeless kid who finally found something that helped him through the pain and sheer fucking misery that was his life.

And she had no idea how quickly the shift in balance had happened for that kid, how it had snuck up on him so unexpectantly.

She could never understand the excruciating self-loathing that came with the realization that the one vice that had once helped that kid make it through the day had silently morphed into something he couldn’t make it through a day without.

She would never understand how it felt to transition from controlling your life with something you once enjoyed to becoming controlled by the very thing you now despised.

I didn’t tell her any of that, though.

Because I couldn’t.

Because it wasn’t fucking good enough.

“I don’t know,” was all I could say instead. “I don’t know why I do it, Molloy.”

Sniffling, she looked up at me and whispered, “That’s not good enough.”

I know. “It’s all I have.” Cupping her face between my hands, I leaned in close and pressed my brow to hers. “I’m sorry.”

Shivering, she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch. “I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

“Neither do I,” I replied hoarsely, and then it almost killed me to add, “But I don’t want to hurt you either, which means that I need to stay away from you, and you need to let me.”

“No.” With tears dripping down her cheeks, she shook her head and tightened her hold on my waist. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” I croaked out, feeling every ounce of her pain because I shared it right along with her. “Because I need to get my head clear before I can trust myself to be near you.”

“But you’re fine now,” she sobbed, clutching onto me. “You didn’t go out tonight. You’re here. You’re here, Joe! You’re not strung out, or stoned, or drunk.”

“We both know that I’m not fine, baby.”

“But—’

“Listen to me.”

“No, because you’re not saying what I need you to say.”

“You want the words?” Roughly clearing my throat, I sucked in a sharp breath before saying, “Fine; I love you, Aoife Molloy.”

“Don’t.“

“I love you,” I reiterated, eyes locked on hers, as I brushed away a tear from her cheek. “I love you more than I have ever loved another person in my life, and that’s not an exaggeration. That’s the god honest truth.”

“Joe.”

“Which is why I can never put you in a position like the one I put you in on Christmas Eve.” Sniffing back my emotion, I shook my head and expelled a harsh breath before adding, “It’s because I love you that I will never allow that to happen to you ever again.”

“You’re not supposed to tell me that you love me after we’ve broken up,” she cried, burying her face in my chest. “You were supposed to say it when we were still together.”

“Before, during, after.” I shrugged helplessly. “It still stands.”

“I don’t want this, Joey,” she strangled out. “I don’t want to lose you. You’re my best friend.”

“And you’re my best friend,” I admitted, torn apart. “Nothing I feel for you has changed, Molloy.”

“Then I need something more than just words,” she demanded. “If you expect me to walk away, then I need you to give me some sort of guarantee.”

“Like what?”

“Like this isn’t forever,” she whispered, green eyes searching mine. “That this is a temporary break, and as soon as you process whatever it is that you need to process, we’re going to get back together.”

“And if I can’t?”

She shook her head. “That’s not an option.”

“Molloy.” I blew out a breath. “I don’t want to make you a promise that I can’t keep.”

“Then make it and keep it,” she urged, reaching up to entwine her fingers with mine. “It’s as easy as that.”

No, it wasn’t, and we both knew it.

“How’s this,” I offered instead. “I’m going to go and do my thing for a while, clear my head, and get my shit together.”

“Without me,” she whispered numbly.

For you. “And you’re going to go off and do your thing with Casey, and the girls, and you’re going to have a fucking epic time,” I continued. “And you’re not going to worry about what I’m doing or who I’m with, because you already know that you’ve got my heart in your ass pocket.”

Sniffling, she looked up at me expectantly. “And your dick.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a warning, but I answered her anyway. “And my dick.”

She nodded her approval and I swiftly continued.

“And we’re going to see each other at school, and it’s not going to be fucked up and awkward because we both remember that before we were us, we were…“

“Us,” she filled in softly.

“Exactly. I’m not replacing you, Molloy. I couldn’t. I’m trying to fix me.”

For you.