Chapter 6 #2
“I remember swinging down, landing on my feet, and thinking I was a likely contender for the next Olympics as a gymnast before my eyes landed on the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.
” I swallow, but the tears burning the backs of my eyes refuse to be held at bay.
They spill over and down my cheeks as my brother squeezes my hand.
“One of my first and last memories of Sean is his eyes: brown with flecks of gold. The whole world disappeared in that moment. My belly and chest felt like the space rocks were still going off inside them, and I knew, I just knew, one day he’d be mine. ”
“At eleven?” Daniel quietly asks.
“At eleven. I know. Crazy, right? And if one of my daughters, or sons for that matter, had told me they’d met their first love at eleven, I’d probably have slapped them up the side of the head to knock some sense into them.”
“And did he feel the same? Sean? What was his reaction?”
“He asked me to flash him my boobs.”
“Fuck me, he did as well, didn’t he?” Marley throws his head back and laughs. “I nearly decked the cheeky fucker. Right in front of me, he went, ‘Show us ya tits!’”
I bury my burning face in my hands, hoping they don’t catch fire while my husband and daughters look on.
“Did you?” Dan asks when I eventually look back up at him.
“No, she fucking never,” Marley interjects while I shake my head.
“No,” I say quietly. “Despite the stories that’ve been reported about me, nothing like that happened until I was older. I was nearly fourteen before he even kissed me.”
“Portugal.” Marley’s voice is barely a whisper, as this time, I nod carefully, the tears threatening me with another assault.
“Ah, Portugal. I think we may have something from that trip,” Daniel says as Marley and I frown in confusion.
When we sat down this morning, I noticed what looked like a huge flatscreen monitor or television set up behind the cameras.
I thought it might be a teleprompter or something like that.
But Daniel nods at one of his people, who has a laptop set on a high-top table.
She taps at the keyboard, and the screen lights up, and there, right before my eyes, appears a picture I’ve never seen before.
Jimmie and I are sitting on the edge of the pool at our parents’ Portuguese villa.
In front of us, standing in the water, are Marley and Sean, their arms raised, bent at the elbows, their fifteen-year-old, barely-there boy muscles flexed in a strong man pose.
We all have wet hair, and the water droplets covering our bodies glisten in the sun.
We’re so young.
So naive.
We thought we knew it all.
We thought we’d live forever.
“Oh, my God,” I sob as my hand flies up to cover my mouth. “Where did you get that?”
“Our researchers have been asking around your friends and family for old pictures we could use. Jimmie mentioned it to her mum, who remembered finding an old Kodak pocket instamatic when they moved house a couple of years ago. It was in a box with a few rolls of film. Jimmie got them developed.”
“There are more?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Dan replies, his eyes slicing to Marley, who’s sitting silently beside me.
I’m too scared to look his way, so instead, I reach for his hand. When we touch, his grip is so tight it’s painful.
“Look at us,” I whisper into the quiet room.
“Fuck,” I hear my brother say shakily.
I finally look his way, only to see him looking over his shoulder towards my husband and daughters. Kiki has both hands covering her face. Lu is openly crying. Cam’s jaw is set tightly, his posture rigid, arms folded across his chest as he stares at me.
The guilt I’ve carried for what feels like a lifetime but usually manage to keep buried explodes with such force, its impact is visceral. My body jerks as I take in the look on my husband’s handsome face. It’s not hurt or anger I see, but concern, and I don’t think I’ve ever loved him more.
His eyes don’t leave mine as we share a silent conversation.
“You okay?”
“I’m so sorry for crying. I love you. You okay?”
“As long as you’re coping, I can handle it. If you’re not, then let’s shut this shit down.”
I nod and give him a small, shaky smile before mouthing, “I love the fuck out of you.”
He silently laughs before giving me one of his customary headshakes, right before Marley interrupts our moment.
“Love you, big man. And, girls, you know I’d lay down my life for you both, but fuck me, I really miss my mate.”
Cam takes in Marley as he rubs his palm over his stubbled jaw, and I watch as he digs his fingers into his muscles in an attempt to loosen the tension he’s feeling there. “Totally understandable, mate. It’s all good.”
I want to go to him. Let him hold me. Kiss my girls. Breathe them all in. Instead, I lean into my brother as he wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his side. I raise my hand to find his and hold on.
“Ready for more?” Dan asks.
“No,” we say in unison. “Yeah,” we add, again, both at the same time. We laugh. The sound is nervous and brittle. My stomach is in knots as I try to both prepare myself and process whatever I may be about to see.
The hand not holding my big brother’s for support covers my mouth, because I don’t trust myself not to sob out loud.
The next picture to appear is of Marley and Sean.
They’re standing next to the pool table at a bar we used to go to near our villa.
Sean’s wearing a Kappa vest, very short football shorts, and flip flops.
His skin’s tanned, hair long and curling at the ends—exactly the way I used to love it—and I’m flooded with the memories of how it felt when I ran my fingers through it, and how he always smelt of Kouros aftershave back then.
Marley’s shirtless and wearing the tightest, shortest pair of cut-off denim shorts that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. He has a pool cue in his hand, a cocky smile on his face, and a chunky, but very fake gold necklace, which I remember turned his neck green after a few days.
“Fuck me,” Marley mumbles.
“Jesus fucking Christ, hide your eyes, girls,” Cam says behind us.
I hear a gagging sound and know without looking that it’s Kiks.
“Well, well, well, Uncle Marley,” Lu teases. “Is your left bollock actually hanging—”
“Lu!” I cut her off before she states the obvious, what we can all see up on the screen.
“Cocky, much?” Makenzie calls from somewhere.
In that moment, the mood in the room changes as quickly as I know firsthand that life can. From the shock and solemnity of the first picture, my cheeks now hurt from grinning at the second.
“What can I say? There’s a reason my wife’s always happy,” Marley says with a grin.
“Always, Rock Star. Always.” We both turn to see Ash has now joined our growing audience. “Although, if the rumours are true, your sister’s about two inches happier than I am.”
And there she is, my beautiful, straight-talking sister from another mister. She winks and gives us a little wave.
I turn back to the screen in time to see the next image appear.
It’s Jimmie and me dressed in identical outfits: big hair, black headbands, white vests with a black mesh cropped top over it, black rara skirt, and flat white pumps.
Apart from a little too much eyeliner, our faces are bare of makeup. Fresh, young, glowing.
“Mum, you were such a babe. Just look at you,” Kiki calls out.
“Your mother still is a babe,” Cam corrects, and my smile grows.
The next picture appears on the screen.
It’s a different bar, but we’re still in Portugal.
It’s Sean and me.
Young.
So fucking young.
Tanned.
I’m wearing a short, black leather skirt, an oversized Sex Pistols tee—it was one of Marley’s—that hangs off one shoulder and is tied in a knot under my boobs, leaving my waist and belly on show. My hair is big and curly, probably permed, held up on one side, and I have high-tops on my feet.
Sean’s arm is slung across my shoulder. He’s wearing white shorts and a black and white Ramones tee, with black and white trainers on his feet.
His hair is pushed back off his face. Again, it’s curling behind his ears and collar.
My fingers tingle as I, once again, recall how it felt: so fucking soft.
It looks like we coordinated our outfits. We didn’t. It was a pure fluke, but everyone gave us shit that night anyway.
But none of that is what’s striking about the photo displayed on the screen.
What floors me, and once again brings silence to the room, is the way Sean is looking down at me.
The absolute adoration in his eyes, the lopsided smile on his lips.
It’s the way I’m looking up at him, looking so much older than my almost fourteen years, because I’m not smiling.
Not with my mouth, anyway. I’m smiling from my heart.
It’s radiating from within me, and in the way I’m looking up at Sean.
Anyone looking at this picture knows they’re looking at a couple of kids in love.
A couple obsessed. A couple who, in that moment, the rest of the world did not exist for.
This picture captures what, for years, I’ve failed to put into words when asked about the love Sean and I had shared.
Yes, we were young and dumb, we only thought we had it all figured out, but what we knew with absolute certainty was that we were it for each other.
We just knew.
“That’s it. That’s them,” Marley says beside me.
“When people used to ask me about Maca and my sister, if I was worried about her being so young, this picture explains exactly why I wasn’t.
This picture is… it’s just them. This is what no one else saw.
I did. Jim, Lennon, we’re the only ones who really knew how deep and obsessive their love for each other was.
Right from the very beginning…” Marley trails off.
“We were so young,” I whisper.
“You were. We all were.”
“So, how did you handle it, Marley? Your best mate, bandmate, dating your little sister, who’s not even of legal age.”