Chapter 43 Padraig
forty-three
Padraig
Later
The door shuts behind me, soft as a breath, and the townhouse swallows it whole.
My bag slides off my shoulder and thuds to the floor.
I make it to the sofa on muscle memory, sit, fold forward, hands over my face.
The first sound surprises me. A dry hitch. Then another. I suck air, miss, and my insides break open. Deep and ugly. Ribs working like bellows, shoulders shaking until my muscles burn.
Tears push hot across my knuckles. I try to slow the flood. Useless. Every breath brings the scene in the kitchen back: Isla with her poster. The way Stevie’s mouth trembled when she looked at me.
Now I know the truth. She fucked Cooper days after I thought we were getting back together.
How. Could. She?
I couldn’t get it up for another woman for two fucking years.
I press my palms into my eyes until stars burst. Doesn’t help. Images keep coming. First days of school I didn’t see. Loose teeth I didn’t pull. Jokes I never heard, fights I never broke up, songs I never taught. Years stack in a crooked tower across the room and I can’t reach any of them.
It ebbs only when my chest gives up. I fall back into the cushions, throat raw, shirt damp at the collar. Silence moves in again, heavy as wet wool.
I stare at the ceiling until it blurs.
I can’t sit inside my head alone. Not tonight.
Unlocking my phone, I hover my thumb over his name.
We haven’t spoken since the New Years Eve show with LTZ, what was supposed to be my last gig with the band. He was cold. Angry. It hurt, but I didn’t change my mind.
Pride tries to pull my hand away. I hit call before it wins.
Two rings. Liam fills the screen, hair in his eyes, a square of dim kitchen behind him.
He blinks when he sees the state of me. Sits up fast. “Jesus. You alright?”
I shake my head. No sound comes.
“Okay.” He focuses on me like he used to back in the days after Da’s accident. Counts my breaths. “You with me?”
I nod, swallow. “Don’t know where to start.”
“Anywhere.” He leans closer. “Start with the feeling.”
“Empty.” The word scrapes. “Torn open.”
“Alright.” He waits. Doesn’t rush. “What happened?”
I comb through my hair, find a knot, pull until it hurts. “I keep seeing her face.” I’m hoarse from crying. “Isla. Standing in our kitchen with questions Stevie can’t answer.”
“Okay. I’ll admit. I’m lost.”
“Dar.” I look straight into the camera because I can’t say it to a wall. “Tonight I found out she might be mine.”
He doesn’t speak. His eyes hold steady, like he heard me before I said it. “Come again?”
“Isla might be mine.”
He exhales, slow and clean. “Alright. Well. Fuck.” His gaze sharpens. “Why’d you think?”
“Some school project. A science blood-type thing.” I can’t get the visual out of my head. “She got an incomplete because Coop’s type and Stevie’s type don’t make her type. One look at the results and it hit me square in the heart. No working it around, no easing into it. I knew.”
Liam shuts his eyes, processing.
“I had it out with Stevie. We tore it apart, every angle. She swears she didn’t know, but the timing…” I let the silence finish it for me. “She fucked Cooper four, maybe five days after she was with me in New York. It lines up.”
“No shit?”
“In my head, she’s mine. Has been since Stevie and I got back together. In my heart, too. Now, she’s my actual blood. I’ve got no proof yet. I can feel it, though.” Tears leak out of my eyes again. I’m so overwhelmed.
Liam sighs heavily. “Jesus, Dar.”
I wipe at my face with the heel of my hand, but more tears slide out. “I don’t even know what to do. I feel like my chest’s split open.”
“Breathe.” He leans closer to the screen. “Try and breathe.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing since I left the house. Big, empty breaths.” My voice cracks. “I keep thinking about the years. All the shit I missed. I don’t know how to live with the loss if it’s true.”
“Then don’t.”
I frown. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t live with it like it’s a punishment. You’re already the father figure in her life. If she’s officially yours, what’s changed? You make the years you’ve got matter more than the ones you lost.”
I look at him through the blur, trying to believe this woo-woo advice is actually coming from him. “You think it’s simple?”
“It’s not. It’s worth it.”
My eyebrows raise to the sky. Is this my brother?
He smirks faintly. “Don’t look so shocked. Now, tell me exactly what went down with Stevie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you said you had it out?” He leans back in his chair. “What was said and how did she say it? Did she freak out? Don’t give me the shorthand.”
I recount the story in as much detail as I can. “She swore she didn’t know. And if I’m honest…” I exhale, eyes dropping for a second. “She seemed as shocked as I was.”
“Then maybe she really didn’t. You know Stevie, she’s not a liar. If she looked blindsided, she probably was.” Liam rubs his mouth, watching me through the screen.
I shake my head. “But she knew the timing. It had to cross her mind.”
“Think about it, Dar. She’d been with you forever, then broke it off and suddenly found herself pregnant with a guy she’d barely started dating.
” Liam’s arms are folded around his chest. “She was probably scared shitless he’d think she trapped him.
It might never have crossed her mind to question it.
Should it have? Maybe. But only she knows the answer. ”
I shake my head glumly. “Did I mean so little to her?”
“Get the fuck out of town. No woebegone bullshit. Look at the life you have now. The one you left our band for?” Liam shakes his head.
“She did what people do when they’re gutted.
Grab what’s right in front of them. I understand how it is.
Besides, you’ve already lived with the hurt of her moving on for years.
This doesn’t make it new. You’re over it. ”
I stare at him. “My first thought when I saw the paper was she knew I got her pregnant, told Cooper it was his and he swooped in to take my place.”
“Jesus, Padraig.” Liam sounds exasperated. “Does lying intentionally sound like our Stevie? Nah. If you stay locked in the ‘how could she,’ you’ll eat yourself alive. You already replayed the movie on repeat. For fucking years.”
My laugh comes out jagged. “What about Isla? She’s sixteen. She knows pieces of who Stevie and I were back in the day. If she learns the man she’s called Dad all her life isn’t…” My voice trails off. “What will it do to her to find out it’s me? She’ll feel so betrayed by both of us.”
“Isla already looks at you like you’re her da.
The ground might shake, sure, but it’ll steady.
You’ll be the reason. Lila and Jude, they’ll take their cues from her.
It’ll be a storm, but kids survive storms if love’s holding the walls up.
Look at our family, what happened to us was a hell of a lot more devastating. ” Liam takes a pull from his soda can.
I try to soften the bitter edge in my throat. “You sound like you’ve been taking night classes in therapy.”
“Aye.” He gives a half shrug. “Or maybe I’m watching my twin bleed out and trying to keep him upright for once.”
The corner of my mouth twitches, but it’s nowhere near a smile. “You’re not wrong. Feels like I’m bleeding from the inside out.”
“Then don’t do it alone.” He narrows his eyes. “You need to go back home.”
I shake my head as I pace the length of the room. “I don’t even know where to start. With her. With Isla. With myself.”
“Start with the truth. Get the test done, face it head-on.” He points at me. “Then you man up. Deal with whatever comes.”
I scrub at my face, desperate to shift the focus. “What about you? How’re you holding up?”
Liam shakes his head hard. “No. Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Turn it back on me.” His voice firms, leaving no room for argument.
“You’ve done this our whole lives, Dar. Looked after me, carried me, made my storms the bigger story.
I’ve let you. Relied on you. Not tonight.
I’m fine. This isn’t about me.” He leans closer to the screen, eyes cutting through me.
“This is the first time I can remember you calling me in a crisis. The first time you’ve let me be the one to hold you up.
So let me. Don’t reach for my pain to take the weight off yours.
Sit in it. I can handle mine. Tonight, I’m here to help with yours. ”
Tears stream down my face. I feel broken. Also, seen. I realize how much of my resentment toward my twin has stemmed from exactly what he’s admitted.
“You fought me like hell to leave the band. You stood up to me and chose your family. Challenged me to rely on the people who love me.” His emotions mirror mine, and I’m surprised to see his eyes well up with tears too.
“Don’t throw your family away now. Whatever’s happened tonight, don’t abandon them.
Not after everything you sacrificed to be there. ”
The silence between us stretches, thick with everything we’ve said and everything we haven’t. My chest heaves, tears sliding unchecked.
“I missed you,” I choke out, the words foreign on my tongue after so long apart.
Liam blinks hard, a tear finally breaking loose down his cheek. “Christ, Dar. I missed you too. More than I’ll ever admit to anyone else. You’re my other half. Always have been.”
My throat burns. “We’ve spent our whole lives side by side. From the worst nights at home to tour buses for twenty years. No one knows me better than you. Being estranged from you has gutted me.”
“Same.” He nods, tears streaking his face now. “I gave you shite for walking away, but truth is, I wasn’t angry you left the band. I was angry you left me. Felt like I’d lost my twin for good.”
The ache in my chest softens. “You never lost me. Not really.”
“Good.” He furiously wipes tears with the heel of his hand. “Because I couldn’t survive it.”
For a beat, we stare at each other across the screen. Two halves of the same whole. Cracked but never broken.
“I love you, Liam,” I manage, voice splintering.
“I love you too, Padraig.” He breathes it out like a vow. “No matter what.”
We both hesitate, neither wanting to end the call. Finally, he nods. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”
“Yeah.” I warble through emotion. “Talk tomorrow?”
“Aye. Give me the update.”
The screen goes dark, leaving me in the quiet of my empty townhouse.
Lighter somehow.
The weight of what’s in front of me shifted by knowing my brother’s still with me.
Always.