Secrets and Spies
Niall
“TELL ME.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I need you to tell me. I’ll literally die if I don’t find out. Or kill somebody. Do you want me to go to jail Molly Lockhart?”
“I told you already,” Molly says, leveling a glare at me that could crack glass as she packs away the little bag she keeps her makeup—mascara and strawberry flavoured lip stuff—in the front pouch of her backpack. “You have to ask JJ. Or your sister. I’m not your informant, Niall.”
The windows of the car are slightly fogged up, despite my best efforts with the defroster. Rain has been threatening all day, and the sky overhead is a thick blanket of grey that makes it feel later in the evening than it actually is.
I groan, letting my head fall forward until my forehead connects with the cold plastic of the steering wheel. The horn gives a pathetic little toot at the impact, startling Molly.
“Sorry,” I mumble into the wheel, not lifting my head. “This is just killing me is all.”
For the past two weeks, Molly has known exactly what got JJ and Claire to start fighting and she won’t tell me. She’s sworn to secrecy by Claire.
“Pinky promises are sacred, Niall. You know this.”
“Sacred my arse,” I groan, sitting back up and running a hand through my hair. “They’re my best mate and my sister. That trumps pinky promises. I have a right to know, don’t I? At least a partial right?”
I have some ideas of what could’ve happened between them, but none of them are particularly appealing to me. I don’t know if I really want to broach the topic with the two of them, but the possibilities have been running through my head on a loop for weeks.
Maybe JJ said something stupid—pretty likely.
Maybe Claire finally got fed up with JJ’s constant, annoying flirting
Maybe—and this is the one that keeps me up at night—maybe one of them tried to make a move and the other wasn’t having it.
JJ was trying to avoid me in the days after their big fight, but it didn’t feel right being parted with my best mate. So I told him that whatever was going on between him and Claire needed to stay between them and not come between us. And so I got my best mate back.
Sort of.
In the last couple weeks the two of them have been a bit too normal. Everything seems normal about them except for two things.
1). They’re not talking to each other.
2). Claire is talking to Stephen Rafferty. Really talking. In fact, they’re on a date right now.
“I still think we should go in with them,” I tell Molly again, probably for the hundredth time.
Stephen had asked Claire to the cinema, and Claire asked Ma at dinner last night if she could go.
Ma said it was alright if I would drive them, and I wanted to be the good big brother and say yes. So, I did, and Claire was ecstatic.
I’ll admit though, I also wanted to spy. Molly agreed to be my partner in crime when I brought it up to her. To reign me in, she had claimed, though I secretly think she’s also curious. The way her eyes had lit up when I suggested it told me everything.
Speaking of Molly and I...
I still don’t know what happened with Molly that night on the couch.
She keeps insisting she’s fine, that it was nothing, just her stressing out and overthinking things.
And she’s insisted over and over again that it had nothing to do with anything I did, that I wasn’t pushing her too hard, or going too fast.
She said she thought that it would be okay, too.
Then why weren’t you okay? I wanted to ask. Instead I just asked her to communicate with me more, which she has been doing. Mostly to tell me—when we were kissing in my car, or wherever else it was that we could get a moment alone—that she was okay and I didn’t have to be so hesitant.
But I have to be. Doesn’t she realize that?
I don’t want to ever be responsible for that kind of pain in someone’s eyes again.
Molly and I had told Claire and the little rat she’s got with her that we were gonna take Comet to the park again (which we’d done last Sunday, the day after my first game back on the pitch, a game which we won by the way).
But instead we just made a loop and parked ourselves in front of the door for when they came out.
Comet is panting softly in the backseat, his head resting on the window and occasionally letting out a soft whine. I feel bad about cheating him out of a day at the park. I’ll have to take him on an extra long walk later.
“We don’t need to go inside. This and putting the dog between them in the car is hindrance enough,” Molly says, reaching back to scratch Comet behind the ears. He responds with a happy thump of his tail against the seat. “It’s good for Claire to have these kinds of life experiences, you know.”
“I’m not against my sister dating,” I say, just so we’re clear. I’m not that kind of brother, and I do want my sister to have a social life and do teenage girl things like fall in love. “I’m against my sister dating him.”
Comet barks from the backseat, and I can’t tell if he’s agreeing with me or agreeing with Molly, who rolls her eyes.
“Remind me again why you hate Stephen so much?” Molly asks, turning back to me.
“You were there that day in the cafeteria. He pushed her on the ground.”
“On accident,” Molly says. “He didn’t mean to hurt her, and Claire has said multiple times that he’s already apologized for that.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have been fighting over a table with her in the first place,” I reason.
“He probably just had a crush on her,” Molly laughs. “He’s not that bad, Niall. He’s actually quite nice to me when we see him in the halls.”
“That’s because he wants to get on your good side so you’ll say nice things about him to Claire,” I grumble, but I know I’m being a bit unreasonable. Still, I can’t help it. Claire’s my little sister, and the thought of some lad like Stephen Rafferty putting his hands on her makes my stomach twist.
Molly just laughs at me again, shaking her head and cooing about my ridiculousness to Comet.
I almost ask her the question that’s been sitting at the tip of my tongue for weeks—are we dating?
—but once again, I chicken out. Besides, if we were dating, Stephen Rafferty is already doing better at the date thing than I am.
I’ve only ever taken Molly to the park and to the bakery to make late night brownies.
What a boyfriend you make, Christ.
“You don’t think they’re snogging in there, d’ya?” I ask her, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
“Hmm. Maybe. I got my first over the pants experience in the back of a movie theatre,” she says, so fond and serious that I believe her until she bursts out laughing. “Ha, oh my god, your face. Calm down, Casanova. I was kidding.”
“Watch me ever take you to a movie,” I say, then hate the joke as soon as it leaves my mouth. Molly just laughs though, clearly not looking as far into it as I feared she would. Thank fuck for that.
She likes you. She thinks you’re funny. Ask her out.
God, what was that advice I was giving Finn a couple weeks ago?
Ask her to the dance, ask her.
I open my mouth, but Molly’s faster. “Look, there they are. Quick, look sweaty.”
“What?” my brows furrow. “Why?”
“‘Cause we just got back from the ‘park,’ stupid,” she says in such a tone I’m surprised there’s no ‘duh’ at the end of her sentence. She fixes her long, wavy hair into a ponytail, and then reaches out to mess mine up.
Her fingers feel nice against my scalp, and I have to fight the urge to lean into her touch like a dog.
“Your roots need redoing,” she says casually, pulling her hand away, and I reach up to touch my hair.
“Ya think?”
“Yeah. Hey, do you think you could give me highlights—keep talking, don’t look at them, act natural.”
“You’re great at this spy thing, it’s almost scary—I wouldn’t wanna give you highlights. I like your hair the way it is. It’s the perfect colour.”
She smiles. “Really? You think so?”
The back door opens, making Comet bark. We both turn as if we didn’t see the two of them approach at all.
“Hey, Claire-Bear?” I grin wide. “How was the film?”
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
“I'M TELLING YA, lad, it was the strangest thing,” Fitzy shakes his head, taking a sip from the little bendy straws of those juice things Finn’s parents buy for the girls.
The four of us lads are sprawled around Finn’s room, taking turns playing FIFA 06 on his Playstation. Finn’s room is the largest of ours—since it’s technically just the basement—and the lad’s got his own bathroom.
Plus, his Mam doesn’t mind if we eat down here as long as the dishes get brought up. They got us all takeaway tonight, so the smell of Chinese food mixes with the lingering scent of deodorant and dirty socks.
He’s got a couch that Fitzy and I are hoarding, while JJ and Finn are each in a bean bag. Posters of football heroes cover the walls, their faces frozen mid-celebration, a reminder of what we’re all aspiring to be.
“Like she was... afraid of me.”
I nod, my eyes still fixed on the screen as my players scramble to regain possession of the ball. I understand what he means perfectly. Well, almost. Our situations were a bit different.
The girl he was making out with didn’t have a panic attack underneath him.
All Fitz had tried to do was give this girl—Aurora Towney, one of Claire and Molly’s friends—back the ipod he'd accidentally broken last week in PE.
We'd been playing rugby — a game most of us football lads admittedly sucked at—and Fitz lobbed the ball so badly it ended up on the girls' side of the field and knocked this poor girl’s iPod right out of her hands. Chloe Holland nearly ripped his head off, but Rory was sweet about it. Sweet meaning she wouldn’t really look him in the eye, mumbling that it was alright and it was old anyway, and had accepted his apology without a second thought.
But Fitzy being Fitzy had felt terrible about it. He’d brought the thing to me, knowing I’m good with my hands, and I’d spent the better part of a weekend (when I wasn’t spying on my sister and her date) fiddling with it, managing to fix the screen and get it working again.
But when Fitzy had gone to give it back to her in the hall yesterday, Rory had frozen up, her eyes going wide with panic, and had literally run away from him.
I’m not messing—she ran.
Fitz doesn’t know why, but I have a guess.
Claire thinks that she's got trouble at home, but Rory won't talk about it with anyone. She’s a quiet girl, always has been, with a shy smile and eyes that seem to be constantly darting around, as if she’s expecting something to jump out at her.
She doesn’t have very many friends in her year, though I know Molly hangs out with her a lot now. But Claire has said before that Rory can’t ever hang out outside of school. She’s not allowed was the phrase that was used, which always rubbed me the wrong way.
It was way back in Claire’s first year, when she was bummed that Rory couldn’t come to her birthday party (they had just become friends a few months before), but I’ve never forgotten it. It just didn’t sit right with me.
The only other things I know about her is that she lives on Clover Row (the council estate), and Finn's sister Ailbhe is in the same class as a little girl named Nessa Towney, who I’m guessing is Rory’s younger sister.
Finn's ma seemed to try and get over for a playdate more than once, but it never actually happened.
Finn supplies this story about little Nessa to us now, and it only puts Fitz more on edge.
“What did your Mam do?” he asks, sounding deeply concerned. Lottie Marshall was something of a bulldozer, and everybody knows it. So it was practically a given that she would’ve done something.
“She asked around town, lad, whatdaya think?” Finn speaks around the crisps he’s shoving in his mouth.
“They're bottom rung Clovers. The Towney's get a big check from the gov't every month 'cause they've got at least 5, maybe 6 kids.
The Da doesn't work, but the Ma does at the Tesco.
I can't tell ya where all that money goes, but if you've ever seen those kids you'd know it isn't going in their bellies.”
Fitz frowns, his dark brow furrowed in concern. “That's awful.”
Finn gives him a ‘what can you do’ kind of expression and shrugs. “That's Clover Row, lad.”
JJ shakes his head. “Whole estate feels like a separate island from the rest of Mayville. No offense to your da, of course, Nialler.”
“None taken,” I say, understanding what he means. It may have been where my father came from, but I’d never even set foot in the area. The lucky ones don’t.
I’ve been past the estate before, and JJ’s right about it being a separate world. There’s a darkness there, a sadness that seems to seep into the very pavement, and I have no desire to get close to it.
Fitz rubs his face, his frustration palpable. “That poor girl.”
“Which one?”
Fitz sighs, the fight going out of him. “Both of 'em. All those kids.”
The group falls into silence, the only sound is the crunching of crisps and the game on the telly.
I don’t know what Finn and JJ are thinking, but I’m thinking about Fitz’s heart, and how big it is.
If I know my friend, he's going to try and bulldoze this situation soon enough, try to fix it, try to help this girl from whatever it is keeping her wings bent.
And I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Sometimes, with things like that, trying to help only makes things worse.
I figure now is the best time to make the announcement to my mates, before Fitzy's mind runs him into ruin and he starts getting wild ideas. Besides, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to talk to them all night.
I need their advice, their questionable, probably terrible advice, but advice nonetheless. I need to know what to do about Molly, about the way my stomach flips every time she looks at me, about the way I can’t seem to think straight when she’s near.
I open my mouth with all intentions of asking for their help, of laying it all out on the table and begging them to tell me what to do.
What comes out is: “I think I’m in love with Molly.”
Three heads whip around to stare at me, their eyes wide with shock.
“Christ, lad,” Finn laughs, shaking his head and chomping more crisps. “It’s about bloody time.”
JJ gives me a shit-eating grin, shaking his head. “About time,” he echoes, voice full of amusement. “We already figured that out.”
Fitz just shrugs, a small knowing smile on his face. “We were just wondering how long it would take before you figured it out.”
“Wait– No– Stop– I didn't mean to say that,” I stammer, my face growing hot. “I wanted to ask for help with... aw fuck. Lads, I don't even know what I'm doin'.”
I bury my face in my hands, abandoning the game controlling, my heart pounding in my chest. I can’t believe I just said that out loud. It’s one thing to think it, another thing entirely to say, to put it out there into the world where it can’t be taken back.
“Mate.” JJ shakes his head. “Nobody does.”