Page 172 of Redeeming 6

“Back there?” Sniffling, I reached up and batted a tear from my cheek. “If you’re using again, then you’re already there, Joe.”

“Molloy.”

“Do you love me?”

“You know I love you.”

“Then stop,” I pleaded, reaching up to cup his neck. “Stop, Joe. Please.”

“I will.”

“No.” I shook my head and stepped away from him. “Don’t say you will. Say you are.”

“Molloy…”

“You’re putting me in an impossible position,” I choked out. “You’re forcing my hand.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

“Well, whether that’s what you’re trying to do or not, that’s what’s happening,” I argued, hating how pitiful I sounded. “Yesterday, you accused me of manipulating you by using your feelings for me against you, and now you’re doing the exact same thing to me.”

His brow furrowed. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” I strangled out. “Because what am I going to do, Joe? Leave?” I threw my hands up in utter resignation. “I don’t have a bargaining chip here. I’m just the fool who’s supposed to sit back and watch you wreck yourself again, and that’s exactly what’s going to end up happening, because we both know that I love you too fucking much to ever contemplate walking away.”

“I promise, this time it’ll be different,” Joey tried to coax, ignoring every truthful word I had spoken in his bid to convince me of the same lies he had used to wallpaper over his common sense. “I only need a few more weeks. That’s it, Aoife. Just a couple of weeks to get me through, and I’ll be done.”

“Whatever, Joe. I’m done talking about this.” Weary to the bone, I stepped around him and grabbed my schoolbag off the floor, unable and unwilling to go another round with him, not when my heart had just taken such a beating. “Let’s just go to school.”

55

The Birds, the Bees, and the Dub

JOEY

“What are you doing in my room?” Shannon asked when she walked into her bedroom at lunchtime on Wednesday afternoon, breaking the rare silence I was soaking in, with everyone else out of the house.

“Sean pissed on my bed,” I explained, exhaling a cloud of smoke as I stared up at her bedroom ceiling, coming down from my high. “My sheets are in the wash.”

“Oh.” Dropping her schoolbag on her bedroom floor, she kicked off her shoes and walked over to her bed. “Push over.”

Obliging, I shifted closer to the wall and rested an arm behind my head as she flopped down on her small single bed beside me. “It’s lunchtime, Shan. What are ya doing home from school?”

“Like you can talk.” Digging me in the side with her skinny elbow, she mimicked, “It’s lunchtime, Joey. What are you doing home?”

“I’m in the doghouse.”

“With Aoife?”

“Yep.”

“Is that weed?”

“Nope.”

“Are you lying?”

Inhaling another deep drag of my smoke, I held it there for a long moment before exhaling slowly. “Yep.”

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