Bleaksummer - 𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫 ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ǝɹoɔ

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!!!! 💖🥳

Thank you sm my BABY ♥️♥️♥️

He washes, but is never clean, an impenetrable layer of grime as a reminder of the life to which he is associated. It is a tick he has picked up in his time here, scrubbing whenever able, and when not holding sore fingertips under hot water he is wiping his palms on his overalls, spattering blue with spreading masses of damp. Patting himself down incessantly, as if looking for his wallet, instead it is the way his body copes with being pulled from what he finds comfortable. 

Seventeen long months he has been inside, and he is not long from release. He went down  for grand larceny, possession with intent to supply, resisting arrest…and the assault weapon he’d been supplied with, courtesy of Locke & Co to take out his role. Thankfully he had chosen the right side of the fence to fall on and the Locke’s looked after their own, and they had enough cops on the payroll to avoid bringing the wrong noses in sniffing around any of the bodies that dropped to protect the business. Turns out, the bigger you grow, the more rats want to dig through plump bellies to further their own agenda. Spiriod just wasn’t big enough to hold that amount of dick swingin’. It wasn’t the world he would’ve chosen, but it was the life he had adopted in the name of belonging somewhere. 

For the moment, he belonged in maximum security, he had taken a plea deal as discussed with Lip, and had managed to reduce his sentence on good behaviour. Ruben had become a lot of things, but he wasn’t a rat, and even squirrelled away behind slate grey nothingness, he had a job to do - Douglas Morris was someone he needed to either; befriend and get information out of surreptitiously for his bosses to sort out. Or - remove him as an issue altogether. Douglas Morris was, to put it politely, a peculiar fellow, who worked for Mr. Shea himself. There was something about recruiting insanity that bred chaos, and Mick had made it a fine art. No matter what he did, Douglas Morris was a serial convict - and he supposed he too was a result of blind loyalty in a way, a man without a soul. Although he didn’t really understand his charges, or why he was inside and so oftentimes they didn’t stick. Blissful ignorance, he supposed. 

Ruben truly believed he had the constitution of an ox to cope with most things, but his track record in denial trailed behind him in a wake of horrors that would make most hard faced men blush. He did what he had to, and truly what he thought was right for the people he loved, sometimes blindly and very much to a fault. 

The front he had put on before he came in had faltered, and quickly. Instead, what was left behind was the little boy his sister had scooped out of the UK when he was 14. Unsure of his place here or otherwise and now he sat across from a man that seemed to putrefy as the seconds went by. A bulbous nose that had somehow grown a face around it, as though someone had pulled at the edges and made him from plasticine. Cartoonish in his appearance, hair stuck out as if damp fingers had prodded at a plug socket. There was a chirp in his voice that unsettled him, and unfortunately, now he discovered, befriending this man for information was far worse than removing him altogether. 

He told tales with such honesty, it made him sick. Some of them involved people he knew, people that wore the scars of being involved with him. He understood with perfect clarity why Philip had chosen this man to pull to bits. There is, indeed, a place in hell for men that allow animals like this one to lay their hands on their daughter, but it was what had happened. To Mick, Blair was both collateral and an obstacle and bless her, she paid the price. Ruben also knew, as stoic and stony faced as Philip was, he wouldn’t have managed a conversation with him without ripping his chest open and taking a mouthful of his heart whilst it still beat in his palm. Blair was his wife - and true, enough was enough now. 

Cold eyes stopped quivering just long enough to make him set his jaw, and rub his palms over his knees until they felt hot. Douglas cocked his head, in the same innocent way a dog would should he have heard his name. Ruben’s body ached, he fought at every turn the fight or flight in his gut and somehow managed to paint a plastic smile on thinned lips and irises flickered to the fork Douglas turned in his fingers, before replacing it next to his knife to painstakingly deconstruct his pie, lining the components up one by one. 

“Time for another story?”

Ruben’s brow lofted, as saliva slid like rocks down his gullet. “Better than the last?” 

Douglas shrugged, glowing vermillion in the pride he felt for his conquests. “Mick asked me once - “ Ruben frowned, feigning confusion at the name. “Oh, Mick Shea, he’s my best friend.” Ruben nodded, perturbed by his childlike passion for his little bubble.

“Do you miss him?” Ruben found himself asking, and a large snaggle tooth smile spread over his counterpart’s face. “Every day.” He paused. “Why do you ask?” He licks his thumb and squashes pastry into the hole in his face. Ruben watches the sugar coat his lips, and the pastry sink into his beard. 

Ruben shrugged this time. “Just talkin’ Doug.” 

He nodded, dusting off his hands and Ruben shifted in his seat, thinking of the bacteria landing onto Douglas’s food, and so he clung to his knees. 

“There was a girl, blonde, let's call her Heather, so bubbly. Mick thought she spoke too much, ya know? Told me that secrets kept families close, and that she was going to tell the bad people things and it would upset Mrs. Shea.” 

“Wouldn’t want that, Mr and Mrs Shea sound like good folks,” He agreed, barely masking the disdain in his voice. 

Ruben fixed his gaze, as the creature sat opposite him unfurled his sorry tale with immense joy. He felt as if he had spent all of this time working the relationship to get a kick in the teeth at the end of it. He recognised it was evidence Lip needed to use against Mick, and yet, the doubt in his gut as to what the greater good was where these two men were concerned had spread like a cancer and he questioned often between the clanks of cell doors, and the cries of trapped men, whether it was all worth it. 

Then he thought of his sister, and it gave him more gousto to continue. 

Douglas finished his story, panting like a hound in glee - it was evident he found joy in the horrors of snuffing out life. Or perhaps it was more pleasing his master so he could get a treat that did it. Either way, it took a few for Ruben to come back down to earth. 

“Sounds to me pal, like ya did the right thing.” He responded meekly. “We gotta do our best for our family, huh?”

He prayed between guttural sobs that evening, if there was a God, he had never begged him before, but he needed out and set his mind to it that he would no longer follow blindly. That these people weren’t family, not really, he had one sister and that was it. He belonged there now, and he would still go to the ends of the earth for them…but he would use the tongue in his head to voice his doubts. 

FOUR WEEKS LATER. 

Daylight spread over his skin like melted butter, sunshine hit differently when accompanied with freedom he supposed. His sister had barrelled into him, reminding him she was surprisingly spry for a tiny woman. Lip stood silently, drawing on a cigarette - no change there. 

“Y’alright der brother?”

Ruben craned his neck to look back at where he had been the small dots behind the windows and wondered for a moment what Douglas would think happened to the only friend he’d ever made in there. 

Meeting Philip’s gaze, hidden behind dark framed sunglasses, he nodded. Meeting him toe to toe for a lax hug. “Let’s get ye home, eh? Pour a lager down your neck and put together what you got from inside.” Lips palm felt hot on his spine, almost alien and if it weren’t for the sweat that beaded at his hairline, he wouldn’t think his skin was his own at all. He didn’t have sleeves on to wipe his hands now, and so instead he awkwardly scratched his forearms. 

The reunion did not go as Lip had envisaged, he may have felt guilty, but he wouldn’t show it. Blair had left early, dismayed by the bits her husband had left out of Ruben’s stay in the big house and all at once he noticed she had the same issue, her skin didn’t fit quite right and it pulled her, she had given him a knowing look. There were two of them in that room that had seen the same look in Douglas Morris’ eyes and it had changed them forever.

It had aged him, and the ticks remained. The lager his boss had promised had instead opened the proverbial floodgates to a shower of shit he hadn’t counted on. The joy and the partying had given to drunken disorder and leant against Lip at the bar, a rare smile coating his visage, Ruben sniffed. 

“Dunno whut you’re so ‘appy about.”

Brows furrowed. “What? Yer home, s’all I’m bothered about. Proud of yer, Ru.”

He turned. “Fuckin’ proud of me? I did the dirty work, that fella is a fuckin’ monster and you left me in there.”

Lip stayed quiet, which only made him angrier. “Owt to say? No - sorry I put you in that position Ru. Just get me to do the shit jobs ain’t ya? Ruben’ll do it. Do this Ru, do that Ru, jump of a bridge and break ya fuckin’ neck for us, Ru.”

No response, just a heavy hand at his shoulder, which he knocked off with all the surly attitude of a teenage boy. 

“Feck off, Lip. Only reason I did that and not you is cause youze a fuckin’ coward.” He drew the word out like it was poison and Philip lapped it up, grasping his face and pulling it toward him. 

“Listen ere’, we all do our fair share of shite, believe you me. It’s dirty work, ain’t all coke and whores and fuckin’ sunshine. This is ours, and I’ll do owt to protect what’s ours.” He let go, jabbing an outstretched finger into his chest. “M’ fuckin sorry.” Ruben swallowed, not expecting the apology, as flimsy as it was, he recognised it came from his gut to deliver and so this time, Ruben stayed quiet. 

“That vile pig of a man, will stop at nothing to ruin our lives and he uses psychopaths like that freak to do it. He did this to his daughter, my-” He drew in breath as the air between them changed and the hand fell on his shoulder again, instead, this time Ruben put his over top. “She’s my fuckin’ wife, Ruben. My second chance. M’family’s all I got, n’ if we take our foot off their necks for one second they could take that from us. You hear?”

Ruben nodded, choosing to let Lip have his soapbox. “You was put in there cuz I trust ya’, and you’ve never let me down.” His hand dropped and reached for the crumpled cigarette packet on the bar. “Plus I thought you might’ve found a little boyfriend in there, lord knows you need one.”

Ruben took a cigarette from the packet as it was offered and a huff of laughter departed open maw. “You’re a wanker.”

“P’haps.” Lighter met the filter and Lip reached to light Ruben’s for him. “Look, you need a thick skin for this shite, it doesn’t go away, just gets gnarlier until you don’t know what’s a nightmare and what’s your wakin’ reality. Swallow what shit he told you, and use it, do not let it break you.” 

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞.

The world under his feet was shifting at a rate that neglected to allow him to steady himself; and the air, the air was thick, hot. His Aunt Orla had always told him to take a step back.

It came with a sense of looming horror; the realisation that perhaps his world was as small and as insignificant as a snapped neck in hunters mouth - more often than not now, Tadgh Shea was drinking himself unsensible and these waves came more often than he cared to admit. Their family was slipping into something far darker, and he was powerless to stop it – and he was implicit.

Though they were brothers in arms; he and his father had always been different. Mick was graceful; would wring someones neck and somehow find a way to make it look graceful. As if perhaps the victim had slipped into peaceful asunder and he did it with a smile on his face. When Tadgh chose his side, there was still a small part of him that knew his Aunt and Blair would hurt for him if they knew, but equally, the demons in him knew she’d take him back into the fold eventually regardless. When you have everything to gain, Tadgh chose to gamble. What he neglected to realise was Mick relied on his unreliable memory, in his UNHINGED MENTALITY, on the gaps of time that turned black.

Blackness —- Thursday, Rapacity.

Cool palms grasp clammy cheeks, the scent of tobacco and whiskey seeps into his sinuses and the fuzz around him seems to settle. A steady tone cuts through the din and Tadgh begins to refocus; foggy irises seek to piece the splintering around him together and he chokes in air though it feels thick, like tar and coats the inside of his lungs until he splutters, sputum coating chapped lips, he tasted the iron of the blood on his tongue and his pupils dilate. 

Mick stood over him, grasping his face; and he blinked, his father's lips were pressed into a thin line, it had happened again, family meetings gone awry. Part of him knew his father had needed this, the animal within his son.

It happened every now and again; for years now - gaps of time he couldn’t explain, fits of panic that took over like fog rolling over the moorside. A last sharp pat to his face and his dear old twat of a father slid down at his side and patted his knee, his body heat serving to show him how he quivered despite how stifling the bar had become. He liked to think all sides of his family protected him, but they all knew he teetered as ever on the edge of a cliff, and falling off would only spell true madness. It was only Mick that underneath he knew would be the one to give him the final shove.

Little by little the room around him came into focus, and his ears rang. They sat on the dusty wooden floor of an old bar in Rapacity; owned and ran by a fella whom he only knew was in the way of something the elder Shea wanted. His volatility was an asset, he’d tell him. Recounting the way he handled other human beings as if they were made of rags - and yet, it wasn’t in his nature, he didn’t mean to though it was clear something in him needed to. 

Eyes flicker to the man beside him; and he feels his stomach drop as he looks at the damage around him; his conscience kicking in. They were brothers in arms; bound by a collective cause (or so Mickey thought) and slave to their secrets. Broken glass and moaning bodies; a scramble of furniture.

Another empty shell to add to the list of victories - the very kind of victories Orla would berate him for mind. Most of the time he still felt like a little boy; he had no control of himself, of his head. As though his foundations were collapsing in on himself. He was HEAVY. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t - he had tried to opt for the quiet life, but there was a greed in him that playing the legitimate businessman wouldn’t sate. Tadgh Shea would never be one for a noble cause; he wasn’t as strong as Blair to be able to walk away entirely, his sister had an ethereal nature, much like his aunt, and he knew they would always be better than him. Despite all, he still moved with the ebb and flow of violent delights and added them to his mental anguish afterward. 

𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐰; 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐲𝐩𝐬𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧.

MY FUCKING BABY????

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Gold. Who was that guy that touched everything and, ‘ting!’ pure gold? All that money thrown at education and I don’t have the foggiest. I suppose mommy wanted me to have the best, and possibly meet some kids my own age, but honestly I’d have been better being thrown into the local high school, at least then I’d have had a chance at talking to people who are more likely to have a soul. 

I am well aware of my place, and truly, I know I could fall in shit and come out smelling of roses. Most of the time I don’t have to think at all, days upon days of blissful nothing and fuck me, I have no idea why the rest of my family make it look so fucking difficult. Forever jamming their fists into where they can make more of it; green. The thing that makes the world turn on its axis, so they say. Don’t make us any happier though, does it? I’m sure the foundations of this place are built on valium and loud sighs. 

We are, mostly, very stupid, and very far removed. It is wealth you simply cannot dream of, the gap between us and your average joe, middle class with a 401k, 2.5 kids and wife with a Louis Vuitton handbag is actually a fucking chasm. So deep and so wide it could unhinge it’s jaws, and snaffle the Grand Canyon. IT'S NOT REAL. A world of no consequence, no one need grow up, endless fucking frolicking at the bottom of Mary Poppins’ carpet bag with Peter bastard Pan and all of his merry men, or whoever the fuck Disney said. 

We just are. 

True enough, we could do more to help the needy, or…those that are on the breadline, whatever the PC term is now. But our ignorance means our own problems, usually of our own doing are usually far more important. Frivolous, but far more important than the fact you’ve shoved another kid out and can’t afford a grocery shop. The fact that those little colourful tickets designed to look like you aren't completely fucked, the ones you cash in at the foodbank, the proverbial begging bowl, is your life line. Who the fuck do we think we are?

Uncle Philip does an especially good job of knotting himself up to be the King on the funeral pyre of his making. Good businessman, fairly bad human, but so are we all I’d wager. Silly little footnotes stomping around unending halls crying at our fistfuls of cash. He hates it. Recently, he spends most of his time lurking and chain smoking, it almost appears it physically pains him to smile, which is a shame because I remember a time his lips would crack and his laughter would make his whole frame shake. He was, is…warm, he’s just forgotten in all the din of being one of the luckiest motherfuckers on planet earth. 

Our family is odd, though. I see that now, The Sheas are very much new money, it's a dirty term around people like us. This miserable nature hasn’t become engrained in them yet, they are still worker ants, bringing their wares back to the nest, stockpiling wealth for a rainy day. But fuck me, they are like sunshine, and they are just so…well, REAL Their emotions aren’t regulated by having a stick up ones ass, they've just fuckin’ grafted for the world they inhabit. There is a certain levity, to having them around, and they have so much familial turmoil and yet they are simply magic. It’s fascinating. 

I realise sometimes how tone deaf I am when I try to have conversations with them, or, well anyone outside of the Locke family prison. I am coveted, surrounded, and yet none of them fucking listen. I am nobody, not a victim, but a nobody. Just the prize pig, and I must say some of the most heinous shit, because our life is just playtime, and theirs actually means something. 

I am aware how trite I sound, rich kid wants to mean something. What’s wrong with that though? Well, I suppose the sun shines out of my ass, and therefore, I have to work harder to prove not everything of value I am capable of producing was funded entirely by the obscenity of the wealth in my estate. All at once I want to hide and I want to be seen, instead I am balls deep in a stereotype I am incapable of shaking off. How tragic.

They knew better. 

Intimacy – their journey to a new recovery had revealed different layers this time, dynamics to their untraditional coupling. They had agreed to stop trying for a while, their bodies both holding evidence of too many failures. Failures of something that should come natural, but didn’t. Perhaps it was a punishment for the lives they were laced into. 

However, of late, she had noticed a small shift, a reversal of roles; nights in which she lay at his side – she the one rattled awake, paranoid for his well being. Medicine induced slumber made stony features soften and she admired, soothed with delicate fingertip trails over clammy flesh. When he did stir, she watched, moved; fluid, pressed to him, skin on skin. Blair basked in newfound vulnerability. The animal in him lay dormant, revealing soft, exposed flesh. 

The two of them were perhaps basking in the release of the pressure they had put on themselves. Too much. Her body betrayed them; and he could appreciate the weight it left on her frame. Words were never enough; gentle touches were no longer enough to soothe. He ached to give her what she so desperately wanted, They were not normal, and perhaps this was just another facet to a conclusion they could both see but wouldn’t meet.

They knew better.

Those shielded oceanic orbs, the discomfort in masculine frame began as a shudder, a nudge –  the way thick lashes attempted to pry open his eyelids, to see who haunted his mind, but his resolve remained weak, eyelids too heavy.  

“No, no….shhh. Shh.”

She would soothe, attempting to lull him back down before pain would tear through broken body – opening wounds he had thought long since healed.

“It’s alright, I’m here – it’s nothing.”

Cool knuckles brushing over set jawline, fingers tangling in his hair.

“It’s me, sweetheart, it’s Blair.”

Visage would loll into the pillow, slow, sluggish breaths marked sleep though his fingers would curl into her flesh. “I love you.” She would whisper. There was a version of them here; somewhere between night and day when they would exhibit tenderness. He’d peer at her through the blackness, reaching for her, rough thumb pad brushing over her lip.

But he’d remember.

Philip propped himself up in bed, the coldness rushed in quickly as with consciousness came memory - he remembered. It had only been a few weeks, and this time, in the aftermath, she appeared to be wearing it better than he. Blair watched as the man that had coiled to her but moments ago, now reached for a cigarette, wordless. 

To many, it was a harmless movement as any, but to her it was another knife in her barren gut. She was the woman that couldn’t sire him a child. It was a paradox, archaic and all at once coveted. She was not, and would not be a natural mother, just as he would not be a natural father. For a couple that when they wanted something they had it; it was this, the most natural of loves, that evaded them. 

The very praxis of her womanhood betrayed them. She should be able to - but she couldn’t. 

He lit the cigarette, slowly, measured. The glow in the blue light the only thing she could find to focus on as his features blurred. 

“Go back to sleep Blair.” He noted cooly.  “I’m here.” 

“Are you?”

He wasn’t.

They knew better. 

Knew better than to think they could hang onto the promise of that tiny life. This path was well trodden; they memorised the steps, knew the way. The path had been lined with flora and fauna, but now, they had walked it too many times - it was lifeless. Dark, dry cracked earth. It never stopped her though, imagining, pink plump joy, the ache in her to hear a cry, to hold tiny hand in hers.

No one told them, how time after time; her body would prepare, swell. How each time she would begin to nest; and he would watch, the ghost in her doorway. It wasn’t something he could fix, nor did he have any right to stop her. 

He knew better.

The bathroom floor had become a cold, stark companion. A reminder that perhaps this wasn’t meant for them. The white tile sullied all too quickly with the evidence of the life they were incapable of hanging onto, coming out in clots - their dirty secret and no one knew. It was never soon enough to tell, never safe enough to say. The soiled linens, mixed with sweat and tears. The hand wringing. The clinging. Then - silence. 

It was a process. Clinical features would be restored. Linens would be replaced. Begin. Again. 

They knew better. 

The last time it had happened, it was he that rose to the guttural sobbing beside him. The warm wetness in the space between them. Blonde ringlets hung matted at the nape of her neck and he reached for her but she flinched. Hands pressed to the growing mass on night gown; she hadn’t had the energy to get herself to the bathroom. To hide. To close herself off as she normally would. This time; he had time to see from the inception what it did to her. Blair was haunted; the vacant look behind glassy eyes filled with tears. 

The way hands stuck to the crimson at her gusset. The light in her was going out. 

Though - this time it had gone far enough for Orla to notice, as she had done when Rose had fallen pregnant with Tadhg’s first. The woman just knew, had predicted ten tiny fingers and toes and a baby girl with raven hair as thick as her mothers - and then all at once, their burden was no longer just theirs. It was a shame that had spilled out; ugly. Unnatural. 

A gaping scar on the knowledge that normalcy would never be there's. A reminder for him that the ring on her finger felt to her like a weight on her, pulling her under. Blair was drowning and he couldn’t stop it, he would never understand. It was not a man's place. Long, unending grief for children that would never be hers, be theirs. It was this stark, staring fact that drove the inevitable wedge between them every single time. 

Grief that twisted itself into something more monstrous. It was easier to be angry at one another for letting another fuck it away. It was easier to cover the problem with another - it was easier to argue about infidelity than to watch the forlorn gazes at other parents with children. To watch expectant mothers gush over the promise of a new start whilst they would be eternally chained to this one. 

This life of gutter crawling, squalor wrapped in diamonds. Deceit. Cheat. Lies. All dipped in nice white powder. 

This was no place for a child.

They should’ve known better.

And yet.

I tilt my head, there is something about being here nowadays that makes my skin itch, as if it should come away from me in parched, dry sheets, a snake shedding its layers. This used to be mine, and now it mocks me. I always did think it stuck out too far, too high, almost too regal of a skeleton for the disease it housed. All I see when I look at this fuckin’ building, is failure. Failure of a marriage, or failure of the chance at one and all its trimmings so to say. 

Respected though he was, or feared, choose how you spin it, I still know him for what he was, is and had been to me all those years. How different things were, when they met, the Locke siblings were no more than blithering idiots trying to make a go of it after their maw and paw snuffed it. 

I hate comin’ here, he’s so different nowadays. We became so poisonous to one another, I could sit here and play the victim, course I could, but it wouldn’t be honest. I ain’t the kinda girl to sink into the wall flowers and act small and unassuming. I could, and do hold my own. He could be a fuckin’ bastard, towards the end. I knew he wanted out, but he just wouldn’t say it, and part of me wanted to prolong the inevitable, cling to the power I had left. Already balls deep in her. Fillin’ her belly with the baby I wanted. I won’t say it’s karma one hasn’t stuck, but ya know. 

I fuckin’ hated her then, because I thought she’d won. Miss Fuckin’ Sunshine. She had him, and she’d won, and I may as well have been screaming into the void cause every fucker just accepted it. We had been married since we were nineteen, all those years just gone. I prayed for the first time in my life, but there ain’t no-one up there that gives half a damn, and I also mildly considered the smooth metal of a shot gun bringing me peace. God wasn’t listenin’, and I figure that he don’t listen to folk like us. People that sink into the dirt and swim in it like dogs, writhing in their ruin. In fact, the only one of us that probably has any kinda ongoing conversation with the big man upstairs and maintains any kinda kinship is Sean is, orla’s crackpot lad. Too teeming with guilt to accept this cess pool for what it is. 

I don’t hate her now, cause i see the life she leads, and the loss she wears on her gullet like a boulder. Blair shea is the victim i didn’t ever want to be. I often imagined what it would be like to crawl up inside her, feel the soft pink wetness of her innards and just get him to look at me the way he sees blair, just once. 

Instead all i see is his face, twisted and cocky, cigarette ever perched at the end of yellowed fingers. I nipped the end off of one, lobbing a vase as hard as I could. I just wanted to hurt him. It was vapid, blind regret, lip didn’t even flinch, just accepted the onslaught with the same stony resolve he always had, peered at his finger as droplets of vermillion sank into the thick carpet between his toes. “Fuckin’ big now are ye?” he hadn’t so much as brushed past me. Violent though he was, to his credit, i was the banshee he had tried to tame all these years. A fuckin’ toddler stampin’ her feet as i’d always done. Fat lotta good it did me. 

When that man was done, he was done, just wouldn’t say it if it killed him. Preferred to get on his soapbox after the fact. He only ever turned on me once, rattling my skull into the closet door until my ears rang. I cant really remember why, only that i’d poked and prodded too much, but as soon as he’d grabbed me, his fingers melted to a quiver and he let go. Too ashamed to continue the conversation he had walked out. Never touched her though; never would.

Shouldn’t have followed him and yet, i found myself nose to nose, bent over his desk as he bowed his head, pupils sinking into the words he couldn’t absorb on the papers in front of him. Quietly, and all too calmly, he dropped a heavy palm on top of mine, the hot metal of his wedding band as he removed himself again said all it needed to. 

I’d been a cunt, we had been. Now it was all gone and he was different somehow, he glowed. We had settled over the years, i didn’t hate any of them. Turned out once you’d been married that long, you ceased to have an opinion at all. Years of toil, reduced to the unofficial alimony check he still delivered every month. Loyal as a labrador that man, it’s not the money, i can do without it. But we always have a coffee, and manage to laugh at the idiocy in our marriage, and i know there’s a heart beatin’ in that tin chest. We’re different folks when we’re with the person we’re meant to be with. 

I do wonder though, what he’d do, if he knew most nights i still slept under this roof. I do wonder how he’d alter if he knew his brother was the one keepin’ me warm at night nowadays. That was difference I suppose, one of them would lay down and die for the other, dermot, however, only loves dermot.