Chapter 66
Ryan
I’m sitting at the dinner table with my family, staring at the plate in front of me.
I haven’t got the strength to eat. I can hear them talking as if they’re in the distance, making jokes, asking questions.
But I don’t pay them any attention. I sit there, closed off, barricaded inside myself for fear that something could hurt me even more.
The pain in my chest is growing bigger every minute, lodging my breath in my throat. It stops me from thinking of her hair, her hands all over me, her mouth. The heat of her body, driving me crazy.
There won’t be any more TV dinners eaten out of Tupperware boxes.
No more films on the sofa, bickering over the most useless shit.
No more uncontrollable passion, waking up next to her in unexpected bliss.
No more of her laughter, which stops all my tears in their tracks, No more hearts beating so loud they could shatter out chests.
No more her. No more me.
No more us.
“Ryan…Ryan!”
Someone calls my name, and I shake my head, trying to bring myself back to reality. I lift my gaze and find Evan standing next to me, in my parents’ house.
“What…?”
“Outside, now!” he threatens, stabbing his finger towards the back door.
“Kid, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to take on someone so much bigger than you,” Nick interjects, but I stop him.
I nod at him to head outside, and I follow, striding through the awkward silence that settles over the dining room.
It’s raining outside, but Evan doesn’t care. He stands there, in the rain, glaring at me like a man who’s ready to fight to the death to protect his woman.
And that woman is his mother.
“You’re a bastard, Ryan!”
I nod.
“She didn’t…she didn’t deserve that.”
I nod again.
“She deserves more than you.”
He’s right. He’s always been right.
The door opens behind us. All the O’Connors are outside, trying to break up the thousandth family fight.
“Evan, son…” Dad tries to intervene, but Evan won’t let anyone get between us.
“Ryan’s a dick!” he yells.
“That’s nothing new,” Nick comments, inappropriate as always.
“He just wanted to fuck my mum!”
“Hey, keep your voice down,” Ian cuts in.
“But that’s what he did. He pushed his way into our house, made her think that he’d stay, then pissed off at the first opportunity. Without a fucking word.”
“I explained to your mum that…”
“Well you didn’t explain it to me!” he says, close to tears. “I thought you were my mate, that we could trust each other. But you treated me like a little kid.”
I see his gaze give way, his stance starting to crumble. I can see that his emotions have been trampled by what I’ve done. He collapses before my eyes; not like a little boy, but like a man who’s been hurt. By me.
I didn’t just hurt her. I hurt them both, and I’m only realising this now.
Coming into their lives like that made him think that I’d stay, that we could’ve built something together. The tomorrow that Christine wanted. The forever that she deserves.
“The only kid here is you, Ryan O’Connor,” he concludes.
And I know that he’s right.
He turns on his heels and runs off down the alley, probably to cry in a corner somewhere: just like I used to, when I didn’t want my brothers to take the piss. When I didn’t want to show anyone my weakness.
But his isn’t weakness. It isn’t a sign of immaturity.
Evan has the strength to fight for what he believes in, for who he loves. He isn’t scared to show the world how he feels. He isn’t trying to hide who he is – he doesn’t need to.
Because Evan really is a man.
I chase behind him and stop him before he makes it out onto the road.
“Leave me alone!” he screams, before shaking off my grip. “Go to hell – you and all your bullshit! We don’t need you. We don’t need anyone!” he shouts at me.
And I grab him by the shoulders and pull him into a hug. He tries to push me away, but my grip is tighter: not because he needs it, but because I do.
I’m the one who’s lost her, lost them. I don’t know where to go. I’m the one who’s lost that ‘us’ that I decided wasn’t worth it.
His tears mix with the rain, with my own. They mix with my stupidity, my selfishness. I let him sob until he calms down, crumbling into my arms.
“You’re right about everything. You guys don’t know what I’m like – I’m no good to anyone.”
He lifts his head slowly.
“I’m the one who needs you, don’t you get it? And it terrifies me.”
He pulls away from me, wiping his eyes.
“I need both of you, because you make me a better person. You make me…a man.”
“So why did you leave?”
“Because he’s an arsehole,” Ian interrupts.
“Because he never does anything right,” Nick jumps in.
“Because he doesn’t know what else to do,” Riley adds.
“Because he’s a scared little boy,” my mother chimes in.
“Because Ryan’s only just understood,” my dad comes to my rescue. “Just now, thanks to you, he’s just understood what it means to be a man.”
“So? What are you going to do?” Evan asks, sipping at the cup of tea my mother made for him. “She won’t forgive you, mate. Just so you know.”
“I didn’t think she would.”
“You have to do something big, something that will make her weak at the knees, you know? Something that will shock her, show her that you’re not a useless arsehole.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“Something that seriously fucks her.”
“And not in the way that you’re thinking,” my father adds.
My whole family are so at ease with my life and my bullshit. I’m twenty-eight years old and I have to run to a teenage boy for help with women.
“What should I do then? Turn up at your house? Bring her flowers, maybe?”
“Don’t be stupid. Flowers? Are you kidding? She’d shove them down your throat.”
That’s how I imagine it’ll go.
“It needs to be something…”
“Something that makes her realise that you’re serious,” Riley says. “Something that comes from the heart, Ryan.”
“Does he even have one?” Nick butts in, as my mother slaps him forcefully around the head.
Fuck. For once, everyone’s on my side.
“Think, O’Connor, think!” Evan presses me.
Think, think…Think.
Maybe something…a few things…
“There we go, he got there eventually,” Nick says.
I take a deep breath, lift my head and announce determinedly: “I’ll need a hand.”
Ian and Nick glance at each other in agreement – but this time, they’re not hiding anything from me. They’re not trying to protect me, to keep me out.
For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I’m on the outside looking in. I feel like I’m part of them, of the whole family. Of everything.
Ian stands up and solemnly says: “You didn’t even have to ask.”