Chapter 7
7
AGE 16
I don’t sleep, but I stay under the covers, contemplating everything Ma just said. I know I got lucky. As much as my parents piss me off at times, they are seriously good people, and for the most part, I’ve been happy. It’s not their fault there’s something lacking inside me. I don’t know how to explain it without making them feel guilty or like they’re responsible because they’re not. I’m just dysfunctional. A patchwork of jagged pieces with a hole where the core should be. It’s part of the reason why I don’t speak about this shit. There’s always this hollow ache inside me, like I’m missing a vital part of me. Even at times when I’m super happy, it’s still there—a constant gnawing ache inside. I don’t know what it means or if it’s fixable, but as long as it exists, I don’t feel whole.
The door creaks open, and I twist around, widening my eyes when I see Kelly Rogers creeping into my room. I sit up and stare at her as she grins and skips across the carpeted floor towards me. “What the fuck, Kelly?”
“Hey, Dillon. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. Everyone’s so worried at school.” She plonks her skinny arse on my bed like it’s commonplace to just steal into someone’s house without invitation.
I have no idea why she is here unless she’s trying to use me to get to my sister or Cillian. Ash hates her guts because she’s always following Cill around like a puppy dog, and she’s been a bitch to my sister. She has a rep for going after other girls’ guys and for stirring up shit any chance she gets.
“How did you get up here?” There’s no way Ma would’ve let her upstairs. Girls are not allowed in my room, and I have no problem complying with that rule. I take them to the play barn or the band outbuilding to fuck them instead.
“The front door was unlocked, and your ma was busy in the kitchen, so I just snuck up here.” She giggles, and the sound is like rusted nails scraping over my skin.
“You need to leave, Kelly.”
“Not before I’ve given you your present.”
In a lightning-fast move, she peels back my duvet, grabs the waistband of my tracksuit bottoms, and tugs them down to my thighs.
News flash—I’m not wearing boxers.
“Kelly, no.” I swat her hand away as she moves to grab my dick.
“Let me blow you, Dil. You must be bored out of your mind, and it’ll distract you from the pain.”
“I wouldn’t let you touch me if you were the last girl on the planet,” I snap, pulling my bottoms back up and covering my very flaccid dick. Nothing about this girl turns me on, and trust me when I say that means a lot because it doesn’t take much to get me hard. “In case my words or my soft cock is too subtle for you, both of us have zero interest in getting with you. I’d rather ask Jamie to blow me than let your vile lips anywhere near my dick, so fuck off and don’t ever fucking come back.”
“There’s no need to be so mean.” Her hands ball into fists as she stands. “You’re an ungrateful dickhead, and I was only being charitable because you’re injured. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t touch your disease-ridden cock,” she lies.
“Yeah, whatever. Get the fuck out.”
She shoves her middle finger up at me before stomping out of my room, slamming my door after her.
Good fucking riddance.
The next day, Ro tells me she burst into his room, dropped to her knees, and gave him his first blowjob before leaving. Manipulative little bitch. I laughed my arse off when Ro told me how he panicked when he started coming in her mouth, so he pulled out mid-flow showering her face with cum and getting some in her eye. She left his room bitching him out and cursing all O’Donoghue men.
It was karma at its finest, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving girl. Ro wasn’t aware of the bad blood between Ash and Kelly, and now he feels bad. I told him to forget about it and steer clear of her if she tries anything again.
Ro and I agreed Ash doesn’t need to know and we’ll keep it a secret to the grave.
“I’m freezing my bollox off, mate,” I tell Conor, rubbing my hands together to keep warm and wishing I’d brought extra blankets. Deciding to head to Killiney Hill for a songwriting session in the middle of November was a ridiculous decision. It was my idea because I like coming up here to think, and I thought it might get our creative juices flowing. We came up late in the day, after the families and kids were gone, and our only forethought was to bring a couple of torches, beer, and weed. Next time, I’m bringing sleeping bags, food, and a tent. “Do you think your grandpa could come get us earlier?”
He shakes his head. “He doesn’t get off work until nine.” Wind-tossed strands of his long, straggly dark hair curtain his face. “Have another toke.” He passes the joint back to me.
I swear that’s Conor’s answer to everything.
I’ve got the worst case of blue balls. Have a toke .
I can’t write this fucking essay. Have a toke.
Cill and Ash’s relationship drama is doing my head in. Have a toke.
But maybe he’s on to something. He’s constantly spaced out, but he’s a fucking dynamite bass guitarist and a decent songwriter. We work well together as songwriting partners, and we’ve already written enough for one album. Together, we come up with the harmony, and I’m usually the one to add the lyrics, though Conor jumps in when I’m stuck, and his input is always spot-on.
“God knows what kind of shite we’re writing,” I say as I accept the weed and take a long puff.
“Bob Dylan wrote songs while stoned,” Conor replies, sitting cross-legged. “Tons of artists write their best hits when high. Drugs and music go together like peanut butter and jam.”
“If you say so.” I smirk as we pass the joint back and forth in between working our way through the beer. The one good thing about freezing our asses off at the top of Killiney Hill on a winter’s night is the beer is nicely chilled.
We play our guitars as we work on the melody for a new track. Then Conor gets a text from his grandpa saying he’s on his way, so we pack up and start the trek down to the car park.
“What’s a song you like you’d never admit to in public?” Conor asks as we try not to trip over the uneven path in the dark.
I don’t even have to think about it. “‘I Knew I Loved You’ by Savage Garden.”
“Why?”
“It’s the lyrics and the sentiment behind them. It resonates with me personally.”
“How?” He brushes stray branches out of the way, and I duck my head to avoid a piece of bark in face.
Maybe it’s the beer or my semi-stoned state or the fact I know with complete confidence that Conor will never tell a soul what I confide in him, but I find myself opening up without hesitation. “My entire life I’ve felt like there’s this void inside me. I’m constantly searching for a sense of completion—the missing pieces I need to feel whole. Those lyrics could’ve been written especially for me, but it’s more than that. It’s the notion that fate is out there waiting to be claimed. It gives me hope that whatever I’m seeking is out there. That there could be a time when I don’t feel so empty. Where I’m enough .” I shrug as we exit the narrow path and hit the back of the car park. “It just speaks to me.”
“You want to dream someone into life,” he says, nodding as we walk across the large empty space in the direction of the headlights streaming towards us.
“You know the song?” Savage Garden are not a current or cool choice among my peers, but Conor has always danced to his own beat.
“Music is my only companion. There isn’t much I don’t know.”
“You know about the emptiness, don’t you?”
He stops and turns to me with a rare lucid look. “Darkness is who I am. That is a given.”
“What happened?” I ask as curiosity gets the better of me. I’m not normally one to pry.
“Maybe someday I’ll tell you.” He starts walking towards his grandpa’s car, and I keep pace with him.
He stalls with his hand on the door handle, glancing sideways at me. “Hang your hopes on the stars, O’Donoghue. It might be too late for me, but you can still pack your bag for outer space.”
I’m cleaning out the cow barn when Da’s rusted brown 4x4 comes to a noisy stop outside.
“Dillon,” he calls out, and I stop what I’m doing and jog to the entryway. Da leans out the driver’s side window. “Get in. I need your help with the fencing on the top field.”
“I thought Shane was helping with that?” Although my brother manages the business side of running the farm, he’s very hands-on too, and I know he was working with Da to replace some of the rotten wooden fencing around the larger field.
“Fiona was feeling under the weather today, so he stayed home to look after her.” Shane only told us last week he’s knocked his long-term girlfriend up. Baby’s due next year. It wouldn’t be for me, but Shane’s happy as a pig in shite. Ma is super excited at becoming a granny, and it’s helping to distract her from her grief.
I climb up beside my ole man and we take off. Country music plays in the background as we amble over the bumpy path towards the rear of our extensive farm. Da doesn’t speak, but it’s just his way.
He puts me to work immediately, hammering the posts into the ground while he secures the panels. It’s repetitive work, but it’s soothing on the brain. The only sounds out here are the rustling of the wind through the trees, the intermittent chirping of birds, the pounding of two hammers, and the screaming of my own thoughts.
Since Ma and me had our little talk last month, I’ve thought a lot about my bio parents and what she said. There’s an overwhelming sense of sadness I never had a chance to know my mother. I’ve wondered what part of America I was born in and what my life might have been like if I’d grown up there. Would I still have found music? Was one of my bio parents a musician? Is that where I get this calling from? Would I still have felt this ache inside? Is that missing piece the mother I never knew? Guilt crawls up my throat at that thought, like always, and I swing the sledgehammer harder as if it can pound the horrible thought from my brain.
I don’t want to believe this hole inside me is from missing the woman who gave me life when I have the best fucking mother in the world. It feels like such a disrespect to Ma to even think such a thing. That cannot be the reason for the emptiness I feel. But I sure as fuck am not aching for that prick that gave me up with little consideration.
I’ll be seventeen in two months, and I can start a conversation with my aunt’s friend in the agency that will lead to finding where I came from. I haven’t changed my mind, per se, but a part of me wants to confront that man and ask him why ? Why did he discard me so easily? Why didn’t he want to cling to me as something precious created with his wife before she died? Perhaps their marriage was like Jay’s parents’ marriage—a totally shitty one—and he saw a two-for-one opportunity to terminate it permanently.
I don’t know.
And that’s the problem.
What if this ache is because I’m missing the truth? Will it always exist unless I have all the answers? Should I take a risk and find out in the hope it will help me to find the closure I so desperately need?
I don’t know.
I hammer in another post, lost in thought as I move my way around the field, working in companionable silence with my dad.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, but at least I’m kind of working through it in my own head.
“Let’s call it a night.” Da clamps his hand on my shoulder. “Nice job,” he says, admiring my handiwork.
I’m good with manual labor. Good with my hands. I like to keep them occupied. Music, English, history, and woodwork are the only subjects I like at school and the only ones I put any effort into.
The current argument with Ma is over Irish. I want to stop going to Irish class as I don’t plan to sit the Irish exam for my Leaving. It’s technically a requirement by law, and if you want to go to certain colleges in Ireland, you need it. But uni isn’t in the cards for me even if I did briefly consider studying history at Trinity. I’m dedicated to the band and music, and that’s not going to change. I’m in fifth year now, and I’ll be sitting my final exams in a little over a year and a half. I don’t see the point in going to Irish class when I’m not going to do the exam. But Ma and the school board are digging their heels in and making me go, which is fucking stupid and a complete waste of my time.
I help Da load our surplus supplies in the back of the vehicle, and we head off back to the house for dinner.
“Did it help?” Da asks as we enter the house and walk upstairs to get cleaned up.
My brow puckers. “What?”
“I do my best thinking out in the fresh air, keeping my hands busy.” He squeezes my shoulder. “There’s a lot more fencing to be done, son, if you need it.”