Chapter 53
Ryan
Evan opens the front door. “Oh, hi…”
I poke my head out of the kitchen to see Nick waltzing into the living room.
“I brought back up,” he says, as Ian and Riley appear behind him.
“What the hell…?”
“How is she?” Riley asks right away.
“Better. She’s upstairs, having a shower. What are you doing here?”
“We thought you might need us.”
“Why would I?”
Nick shrugs.
“I get it: you guys don’t trust me. You don’t think I’m capable of taking care of someone, right? Always the same fucking story – Ryan’s the immature little boy who can’t be trusted.”
“We’re here for her, you dick. And maybe a little bit for you,” Nick grabs my shoulder and looks me in the eyes. “I saw how you were at the hospital. You were in shock. We just wanted to make sure you were okay, too.”
I look at him, doubtfully.
“So why are they here, then?” I ask, nodding at Ian and Riley.
“Well, Riley didn’t want to stay at home because she was too upset, and Ian…he’s here to cook.”
“You cook?” Evan asks, approaching him. “Welcome, mate. Make yourself at home! The kitchen’s over there.”
We all burst out laughing.
“What’s going on?”
Christine appears on the stairs, still wrapped in her dressing gown.
“An O’Connor-style invasion,” I tell her.
“Chris,” Riley goes right over to her and throws her arms around her. “I was so worried, I wanted to come and see how you’re doing.”
“I’m okay, thank you. But…why are they all here?”
Riley turns to look at my brothers.
“They’re kind of a package deal. A bit like the Three Musketeers. You need to get used to it.”
They’ve only been here for a few minutes and I already feel suffocated.
“So, kid. The kitchen?” Ian turns to Evan.
“This way, mate. I hope you’ve brought ingredients with you, because we don’t have a fucking thing.”
“Evan!” Christine cries.
“I have some bags in the car, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand.”
Ian and Evan go outside to grab what I presume will be supermarket bags full of shopping. Nick turns to me and says: “I stopped by your house and picked up some stuff for you, in case you were planning on staying here for a while.”
I nod.
“Good, so everyone’s here,” Christine says.
“You’re lucky Mum and Dad didn’t tag along too – I almost had to tie them to the sofa.”
“I can imagine,” Riley smiles.
“Here we go,” Ian and Evan come back into the room, laden with shopping bags.
“That looks like more than enough for one dinner,” Christine comments.
“Well, we held back,” Ian says, grinning, before heading into the kitchen with Evan at his heels.
“What should we do?” Christine asks.
“You’d better go and get dressed.”
“Sorry?”
“Or I’ll have to break Nick’s nose if he keeps staring at you.”
“What? I wasn’t looking at anything!”
“Oh please, don’t kid yourself.”
“So what if I was? She has nice legs – what’s wrong with admiring?”
I shoot him a glare.
“What’s wrong is that you’re looking at my girlfriend,” I snarl.
“Oh, for…”
“Don’t start,” I say, pointing my finger at him.
He mimes zipping his mouth shut.
“Hey,” Ian pokes his head into the living room. “Cut it out, guys. You’re giving me a headache.”
Christine laughs, perfectly comfortable being dropped into the middle of the O’Connor chaos. She isn’t shocked at all by the ridiculous scene playing out in front of her; it would freak anyone out, but not her.
I look at my brothers: always the same overbearing dickheads.
But they’re genuine, thoughtful. I look at Riley, ready to pop any minute, but whose beauty could light up a whole city.
I look at Evan, who takes everything in his stride, even more than he himself expects.
And then I look at her. Her full smile, her round face sprinkled with sexy freckles, her flame-red hair which is sticking up from all angles.
The way she is, with other people and with herself: so wonderfully real.
I look around at all these people, together, and myself in between them, and realise that, for once, I’m not pissed off with the world.
I don’t want to run as far as possible. I feel the chasm in my chest start to dwindle, see something rise from the ashes, casting its light once again over my life.
And, for the first time in years, I can feel that part of me – the one I thought I’d buried forever – claw its way back to the light, pushing aside the hate and the pain, feeding from a supernatural force that I don’t even recognise: but it tastes like hope.
“So you weren’t the only victim?” Ian asks.
Christine told us everything the police had said.
She was actually one of a handful of victims in a series of attacks through different cafés in town.
It looks like the guy also broke into a few houses, maybe hoping to find something more valuable.
So, they’re not just dirty thieves: they’re also fucking vandals who seem to enjoy destroying everything they can.
“The whole neighbourhood’s worried. A few streets are even organising night watches.”
“But you have a burglar alarm, right? The house is safe?” Nick asks, concerned.
“Of course. Not that there’s much to steal here – they’ve already taken everything they can from me,” she adds sadly.
The conversation turns to a more cheerful topic: everyone noticed that Christine didn’t want to talk about it, and tried to shift the attention elsewhere to distract her.
“Is everything okay?” I lean in towards her, as she sits on the sofa, her untouched plate resting on her lap.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“Ian won’t be offended,” I smile, taking the plate from her hands. “Maybe they shouldn’t have just turned up like this, and invaded your privacy…”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t spent an evening like this since… well, I never spend any evenings like this, really.”
“It’s not…too much?”
She looks at me, her head tilted to one side.
“It’s not too fast, too…strange?”
She sighs. “I don’t know – but I know that I like it.”
I smile suddenly.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” Ian says, helping Riley to her feet, “Or you’ll fall asleep here on Chris’ sofa.”
“Sorry, Chris. I’m always so tired at the moment.”
“I understand, I fell asleep everywhere when I was pregnant with Evan. Once I actually fell asleep on the bus, and woke up at the airport.”
“Why does that not surprise me,” Evan comments sarcastically, and his mother slaps him around the back of the head.
Riley and Ian hug Chris, who thanks them for coming as they head towards the front door. Nick gets up and comes over to us.
“Are you sure I can leave you alone with him?” he asks Christine.
“I’ll be here too,” Evan cuts in.
“You’re right, sorry. Can I leave you with these two? Because, you know, Ryan could have a terrible influence on this kid.”
“I’ll try to keep them in line.”
Nick hugs Christine, sending a blaze of fury through my body.
“I’ll speak to you tomorrow,” he says to me, before joining Ian and Riley at the door.
My brothers leave, and we’re left alone.
The three of us.
The overwhelming instinct to run and find a paper bag hits me immediately.
“I’ll start clearing up,” Evan says, collecting the plates from the coffee table.
“I’ll give you a hand.”
I help him take everything through to the kitchen, putting the leftovers in the fridge and loading the dishwasher, as I hear the sound of the TV floating in from the living room.
Evan comes up to me and whispers: “She’ll be okay, won’t she?”
I look at this boy, trying so hard to be a man for his mother: but inside, I can see he’s shaking with fear. I grab his shoulders and give them a squeeze.
“She’ll be okay,” I say, trying to act surer than I really am.
“I know that she’s tough, but this…the café is everything to her. And now it’s…”
“We’ll sort everything out.”
“I was so scared,” he says, his eyes wide. “You don’t know what it’s like to find your mum unconscious, on the floor, in a pool of blood. I thought that she was…”
“You’ve been really brave, Evan. You were amazing.”
“I didn’t know who to call, I panicked.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I tried to call my dad, but I always just get hold of his secretary instead and…”
“Call me. For anything, okay? Always call me.”
Evan nods, and turns towards the living room.
“I think she’s fallen asleep.”
We tiptoe towards the sofa, where Christine is sleeping.
“I’ll go and get a blanket from her room,” Evan says.
“No, wait,” I stop him. “I’ll carry her upstairs. She’ll be comfier up there.”
He looks at me suspiciously.
“Don’t make that face. I’m not going to try anything.”
“You’d better not. My room is right across the hallway from hers.”
I smile. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
“You’ll take care of her then?”
“I’ll take care of her. Go and get some rest, you must be exhausted.”
Evan heads towards the stairs. I pick up the remote and turn off the TV, before turning to look at her again. I take a deep breath and lift her off the sofa, away from her chaos and her fear and drop her, unexpectedly, into my life.
I hold her close to me, hugging her against my chest. I take the stairs one at a time, and push her bedroom door open with my shoulder, laying her down on the bed.
I sit down next to her and watch her sleep, letting this wave of newfound emotion lap over me, shocking me, but putting everything right.
I let it shake me then calm me down all at once.
I lie down and pull her in to me. Her tiny frame fits mine perfectly, as if someone had sculpted her just for me, for this exact moment, so tender and intimate. Something I ran away from, that terrified me, but something that seems to me now like the only thing that makes sense in my life.
I breathe in the scent of her hair, and immediately I feel safe, at home. I snake my arm around her waist, never moving her away from me for fear that she’ll run away again, leave me without a roof over my head. Without a reason to go on.
I think about what I said to her, what I did. I think about her reaction, and the pain that I felt settle itself around me the moment I realised that I’d ruined everything before it could even begin. And that fear comes back, invading my body and my mind, holding me hostage.
The fear that she’ll realise that I’m not who she thinks I am, that I’m not the right man for her. That I’m still not a man. That I don’t fit in here, with them, in this house.
She could realise at any moment that Ryan O’Connor is nothing but a little boy who can’t grow up and just leave the past behind him. Someone who can’t look past the pain and see positivity, trust.
I’m damaged goods; and she’s a beautiful dream that I know will really fucking hurt. Because the best dreams are the ones that make you crumble, leaving you devastated when you’re forced to wake up.