Chapter 8
8
AGE 17
“ I warned you, Doyle. I told you what’d happen if you hurt my sister.” I land a vicious kick to Cillian’s side as he lies on the ground in our play barn. Jamie and I dragged him here the instant he left my house after breaking my sister’s heart for the second time today.
Ash’s devastated face resurrects in my mind. As long as I live, I’ll never forget her anguished cries in the school hallway this morning after that little bitch Kelly told her she was pregnant with Ash’s boyfriend’s baby. It’s the worst betrayal, and the fact my mate—now ex-mate—didn’t even have the balls to tell my sister himself is the final nail in the coffin. “How fucking dare you let her find out from that slut!”
“I love Ash, and I didn’t know how to tell her!” Cill looks up at me through pleading eyes, his face already bruising.
I level another savage kick to his ribs, hoping I broke them. “You don’t fucking know the meaning of the word!” I roar.
Cill curls into a fetal position on the ground between me and Jamie, moaning and constantly repeating he’s sorry.
“Sorry means jack shit, dickhead.” Jamie delivers a swift kick to his balls, and Cillian howls in pain before breaking into sobs.
He’s such a pathetic prick.
Crouching down, I get all up in his battered face. “Ash was always way too good for the likes of you.” I punch his nose, and blood gushes out of his swollen nostrils. Let him get married looking like the ugly piece of shit he is. Gripping his chin, I force his gaze to mine. “Kelly doesn’t even compare. That slut snuck into my bedroom and tried to suck my dick. When I told her to fuck off, she went and sucked Ro’s dick. That’s the kind of girl you cheated on my sister with.”
“I know she isn’t in Ash’s league! I messed up.”
Understatement of the century. “I hope you’re miserable as fuck with that cunt because you deserve it.”
“It was a mistake,” he snivels, wrapping his arm around his middle. “I was locked, and she pounced. I felt sick the next day when I realized what I’d done. When Kelly told me she was pregnant, I panicked. I was trying to convince her to get an abortion. I’d no idea she was going to blurt it to Ash, I swear.”
He really is a piece of work. He would’ve said nothing to Ash if Kelly had aborted the baby. He makes me sick. How was I ever friends with this wanker?
“It doesn’t fucking matter now.” Jamie bitch slaps him in the face, and Cillian yelps. “You’ve agreed to marry that skank. That says it all about the kind of pathetic prick you are.” Jay presses his boot in hard between Cill’s legs, and he cries out in pain.
“Ash doesn’t see it now, but you’ve done her a favor. Now she can find a decent bloke, someone worthy of her,” I say, spitting in his face. “You’re scum, Doyle. We should probably thank you for being a cheating dickhead, but I’m not thanking you for shit.”
I jerk my head at Jay in silent communication. As much as I want to continue beating the shit out of that asshole, I’m not doing time for Cillian Fucking Doyle. My sister needs me, and she’s my priority.
We lift the sniveling bastard by the arms. “You stay away from Ash, Cillian,” I warn as we drag him towards the door. “If you love her like you say you do, you will leave her alone. You’ve hurt her enough. End all contact. It’s the only way she’ll heal.”
“Don’t give us any reason to come for you again,” Jay says as we toss him on the dirt outside the barn. “Next time, we won’t go so easy on you.”
After we dump Cillian outside his house, we hop back into Shane’s Beamer and get the fuck out of there before Cill’s prissy mother comes out and goes mad at us. Shane doesn’t let me borrow his pride and joy that often, but he didn’t want Ma seeing the state of Cillian. He wasn’t about to let Cill soil his precious car, and I had no issue shoving that prick into the boot. It’s good enough for the shithead.
I’m saving up for a Kawasaki, and now I have a learner’s permit and can legally drive, I can’t wait until I have my own set of wheels.
I drop Jamie at his house first, killing the engine out front because I need to set some ground rules. “I need to say something.” I eyeball my mate.
“If this is about Ash, it doesn’t need to be said.”
“It does.” I drill him with a warning look. “My sister is completely off-limits, Jay. I know you liked her before, and I want to make sure you know this isn’t an opportunity to get with her.”
He pins me with an angry look. “Give me some fucking credit, Dil.” He tugs on his new eyebrow piercing while glaring at me. “The girl is fucking heartbroken, and I’m not a selfish prick.”
I know he’s not. He’s also not good enough for Ash. He’s too much of a hound like me. “I’m not just talking about now. I’m talking about forever, Jamie.” Grabbing the back of his neck, I press my forehead to his. “You’re my brother, Jay. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you, but Ash is the exception. She’s not the one for you, mate.” I ease back. “You hear me?”
He looks pissed. After a couple tense beats, his shoulders relax, and he sighs. “I hear ya, Dil, and it won’t be an issue. All right?”
I nod, relieved. “Thanks for backing me up and for taking our side.”
“Don’t thank me for that. I’m always Team O’Donoghue.” He flashes me a devilish smile as his fingers curl around the door handle. “Besides, I’ve been dying to knock the shit out of that prick for years. He had it coming.” He gets out and leans down. “If I can do anything else to help, let me know.”
“You’re killing me, Ash,” I say when I enter her bedroom to find her curled on top of her bed, hugging the giant teddy Cillian won for her last month at Funderland and sobbing like it’s the end of the world. She doesn’t move, acknowledge me, or stop crying. A heavy sigh cleaves my lips as I kick off my runners and lie down on the bed beside her. Curling my arms around her from behind, I tuck her in close. “He’s not worthy of your tears. He’s a piece-of-shit human who never deserved you.”
Ash cries harder, and I decide to shut up and just hold her. A few minutes later, she turns around, buries her face in my chest, and continues sobbing. I kiss the top of her head, feeling helpless. Her pain is my pain. My chest feels tight, and my hands itch with a renewed need to beat the crap out of her ex. I hope he’s in physical pain. He deserves to hurt for the agony he’s inflicted on my sister. This is the last thing she needs in the run-up to her Leaving Cert in June. Unlike me, Ash wants to go to college, and she’s set her heart on going to Trinity. If Cillian ruins that for her, I will fucking bury that dick six feet under.
Ash clings to my shirt, soaking it, as she cries. I didn’t know a person could cry that much. I feel fucking useless as I dot kisses in her hair and rub a hand up and down her back. I don’t really know what else to do.
“Dil,” she croaks in a raspy voice sometime later, lifting her chin and staring at me through red swollen eyes. “Make it stop,” she begs over a sob. “Make it go away.” She slaps a hand over her chest. “It hurts so much.”
“If I could take all the hurt and pain for you, I’d do it in a heartbeat, Ash.”
Her soul-crushing cries bounce off the walls of her bedroom. “How could he do this to me?”
“He’s a selfish coward and a disloyal prick. I will never forgive him for this.”
“I want to die,” she wails, and her entire body is shaking as she clings to me.
“No, Ash. Don’t ever fucking say that.”
“This is killing me, Dil,” she says in a shrill tone. “In my dreams, it was always me carrying his baby and me walking up the aisle to him. Not that fucking scheming, manipulative, slutty bitch!” She dissolves into another round of tears, and only for the fact Ash needs me I would be paying another visit to Cillian Doyle and making good on my promise to bury him alive. Right now, I honestly think I’d be capable of murder. I want to rip him apart for doing this to my sister.
“They deserve each other. Let them rot in hell together.” I brush hair back from her face and kiss her forehead. “I know this feels like the worst thing in the world, Ash, but you will get over it. Get over him. There is someone better out there for you. Someone amazing who will treat you like the fucking queen you are. This happened so you’d find the right person one day.”
“I already had him,” she sobs, fisting her tiny hand in my wet shirt. “He was mine. He was my forever.”
I don’t agree. Those two were only ever heading for Splitsville, but I don’t voice that opinion. She won’t hear me now. She won’t hear any of it. So, I shut my mouth and let her purge her thoughts, holding her and comforting her the only way I know how.
The next couple of months are rough. On the one hand, things with the band are going well, and we’ve got a regular Friday night spot at a pub in Bray Harbor. Our set is mostly covers, but we throw in three of our own tracks, and they have gone down well. But it’s hard to enjoy the fact we’re now getting paid to play music when my heartbroken sister is falling apart before my eyes.
That bitch Kelly is prancing around school, wearing tight, non-uniform clothes to draw attention to her growing belly, with Cillian on her arm, pawing at him any chance she gets, purely to gloat and piss my sister off. I came this close to hitting a pregnant girl last week when Kelly started loudly discussing her wedding plans at the top of her voice in the school canteen, on purpose, knowing Ash was in listening distance.
Ash has refused to return to school since then, and Ma and Da are really worried about her. She has barely opened a book since the end of January when all this shit went down, and she’s been in constant trouble at school for not showing up and not turning in her homework.
Ash only leaves her bedroom to do chores around the house and to eat, though she mostly picks at her food, and she’s definitely looking way too skinny. I’ve been making her some of my chocolate protein shakes and forcing her to drink them, so at least she’s getting some nourishment into her. She refuses to talk to or see her friends, and she has lost all interest in Toxic Gods. Instead, she hides in her room, listening to sad songs, watching even sadder movies, and crying over photos of her and Cillian in between bouts of stalking him with his skanky fiancée on social media.
Cillian hasn’t attempted to talk to her since that last day, and I’m glad he’s at least doing this one thing for her. It would be so much worse if he was still sniffing around her.
I’m the only one she’ll allow in. Ash is pushing everyone else away. I want to be there for her, but, I swear to god, if I have to sit through The Notebook one more time, I’m gonna throw the TV out the fucking window. And I think I’ve developed a permanent aversion to mint chocolate chip ice cream. For weeks, it was the only thing Ash ate, so I bought cartons of the stuff because, as bad as it is for her, it’s better than an empty stomach.
“Get up,” I say on Saturday morning, pulling the covers back. I’ve decided some tough love is in order. I’m not standing by and watching my sister piss her life away over the shithead any longer.
“Go away, Dil.” She yanks the covers back over her pajama-clad body. Her voice is devoid of all emotion, and it hurts me so much to see her like this.
“I know you know what day it is.” I move to her wardrobe and grab some clothes.
“Which is why I’m not leaving this room today.”
“Get the fuck up.” I throw jeans and a black hoodie down on the bed before walking to her dressing unit to grab underwear and socks. “Aisling O’Donoghue always has the last word, and there is no way in hell my sister is letting that cheating prick and his skanky slut get away with what they did.” Tossing her things on the bed, I hover over her, putting my face all up in hers. “I know you’re heartbroken, but this isn’t you. Fuck them, Ash. They don’t get to suck all the light from your eyes. They have taken enough from you, and it’s time for some payback.”
A tiny spark flares in her eyes, and inside, I’m fist pumping the air. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Get up and find out.”
Come on, Ash. I’m silently praying, begging my sister to find her fighting spirit. If she can’t do this, I won’t push any harder than I already have. Jamie, Jono, and I are prepared to do this alone, if necessary, but one thing is certain—Cillian Cheating Doyle and Kelly Slutface Rogers are not getting married today without feeling the wrath of the O’Donoghues. They can fucking bank on it.