Page 88 of Our Secrets and Lies

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Kelly was getting really worried about Dylan. She’d tried talking to him and asking him what was wrong, but he kept fobbing her off and saying he was fine. It hurt, because they’d always been so close in the past.

Kelly and Dylan, Dylan and Kelly. Peas in a pod. It was Kelly’s hand that Dylan had reached for when the teacher asked them to make a Father’s Day card, aged five. He’d squeezedit so tight, it hurt. Kelly had put up her hand and asked, ‘Can we make one for our granddad instead?’ It was on Kelly’s bed that Dylan had cried when one of the guys on the opposition football team had called him an illegitimate bastard before he was about to take a penalty to win the match. It was Kelly whom Dylan had come to aged thirteen when he’d felt sudden blind rage at his father for leavingthem. It was Kelly who had calmed him down and told him not to ask Lucy for information. Kelly had made him see that Lucy didn’t want them to ask about their father.

Lucy always got this really awful look on her face whenever anyone mentioned their father. When someone asked if Kelly looked like ‘her dad’, Lucy’s face would kind of crumple. Kelly always held her breath when it happened. She couldsee how hard her mother struggled with it. There was no way Dylan could go in and demand to know what his dad’s name was so he could track him down and tell him how much he hated him. Kelly wanted to ask him why he’d left them, why he’d never cared or wanted to know them. But she knew that asking Lucy for his name would make her facecrumple and Kelly didn’t want that to happen. She wanted toprotect her mum from all the pain.

It was Kelly who had sat up with Dylan late into the night, going over every single second of the all-Ireland final that his team had won last year. But just as she had been there for him, so he had been for her. Dylan had punched John Long when he’d called Kelly ‘skinny freak’ in third class. Dylan had handed her tissues and held her hand when the headmistressgave the maths prize to the girl who had come second in the exams. It was Dylan who’d always acted as the mediator when she argued with Mum.

Kelly hardly saw him now – he was busier than ever. She missed her brother. She felt left out. While he was thriving at St Jude’s, she was drowning. They were drifting apart and it frightened her.

Kelly knew that either football or Taylor was upsettingDylan. It was Melissa who ended up telling her the truth.

‘Thank God Taylor’s finally free of your brother. She can get a decent boyfriend now, not some charity-case footballer.’

‘I can’t believe he dumped her. Is he insane or blind?’ Alicia asked Kelly.

Melissa glared at her friend. ‘My sister did not get dumped,’ she hissed.

Wow, Kelly thought. Dylan had dumped Taylor. But he’d seemed sointo her. And if he was the one who broke up with her, then why was he so miserable?

Kelly spent the day trying to catch sight of Dylan. After lunch she saw him. He went over to talk to Taylor in the corridor, but she completely blanked him. She looked straight through him as if he didn’t exist. Kelly could see he was crushed. Why had he broken up with her if he still liked her? Kelly didn’tget it.

That night, Kelly waited in Dylan’s bedroom for him to get home from training.

‘What are you doing?’ he snapped, when he saw her sitting on his bed.

‘Waiting to talk to you about Taylor. I heard you broke up with her.’

‘Yeah, and it fucking sucks.’

‘Why did you do it?’

Dylan wiped sweat from his face with a towel and threw himself into the chair beside his desk. ‘Because, as youknow, she’s a party girl and I was staying out late and drinking and playing badly. Jordan pulled me aside and told me I was risking everything and to cop on. He said he’d drop me if I turned up and played badly again. He knew I was hung-over. I can’t let him down. I love training under him.’

Kelly felt her stomach drop – risking everything? He must have played really badly. ‘You did the rightthing. To be honest, I’m relieved. I was worried about all the late nights and lying to Mum. You know she’d go insane if she knew you were drinking till all hours.’

Dylan wrapped the towel around his neck. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I still have to see Taylor every day in school and it’s killing me.’

‘Try to avoid her.’

‘I go to the gym at lunchtime and pump weights so I don’thave to see her in the canteen. But I can’t totally avoid her. She’s in three of my classes.’

‘There are always ways to avoid people,’ Kelly said quietly. She could tell him lots of places to hide. Kelly was an expert at being invisible in school.

‘I don’t want to avoid her. I like seeing her. I want to see her. I want … God, I don’t know.’

‘She’s not worth it, Dylan. Focus on your footballand school. You can’t mess up. St Dylan can’t blow this.’

‘Stop calling me that.’ Dylan threw the towel at his sister.

‘You know how proud Mum is of you and how much this scholarship means to her.’

‘I do.’ Dylan stared up at the ceiling. ‘Sometimes I wish it didn’t mean so much.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Kelly exhaled deeply. She wished every bloody day that the scholarship had never happened.‘I wish Mum could be happy with her life, like Sarah. Why is she so obsessed with us being successful?’

Dylan moved over and lay down on his bed, groaning as his aching muscles sank into the mattress. ‘I guess she had to give up her life for us when our dad buggered off and she wants us to have a better life.’

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