Chapter Two
Oonagh (Eighteen Years Ago)
“Truth or dare,” Niall asked.
“Truth,” I replied.
“Do you plan on marrying Liam?” My evil twin brother mocked me before turning to Liam. “She marries her dolls and names them Liam and Oonagh.”
Liam’s eyes widened slightly, his cheeks growing red.
“Girls can’t play this game,” Niall sneered in my face, while Liam stood behind him with a horrified look on his face.
I glared at him, already plotting my revenge. “I’ve played this game with you every summer.”
“Girls are stupid,” Liam muttered, pretending to yawn.
“I hate you!” A tear escaped, and I dashed it away violently, annoyed with myself that I was crying in front of them.
“Good,” Liam crowed. “Go and play with your dollies.”
I watched as my twin brother and my ex best friend walked away, laughing.
Twelve years Niall and I had done everything together—learnt to ride our bikes, joined the school orchestra, played on the beaches near our holiday home in the small fishing village on the east coast of Ireland. Every summer we visited here and envied Liam that he lived here all year round. Now our trio had morphed into a duo and a solo. Our days of adventure on our bikes on country lanes and swimming in the ocean vanished in one encounter.
At dinner that night, Niall boasted about everything he’d done that day while I pushed my food untouched around my plate. When Mum asked what I’d done with my day, I shrugged and gave a non-committal response.
The next day heralded the start of my bookworm era. The beach was a lonely place by yourself, the lanes no longer filled with laughter and adventure. The other girls in the village ignored me since I was only here at the summer holidays. All that was left were my beloved books, where I could escape on adventures.
Instead of playing in the garden or in the treehouse Dad built us, I watched from the window in the attic as Niall and Liam shouted and laughed in the garden below me. Every summer I looked forward to coming to my favourite place in the world because Liam was here with his stories of what he’d done all year. He was a rebellious pirate while we were forced to go to school and do our homework.
A few weeks into our holidays heralded Dad taking Niall out on his small fishing boat. It was their boys time they had every year. Liam rode up our driveway on his bike, his shaggy black hair blowing in the wind. He’d grown a lot in the past year, his voice deeper than it had been before.
“Is Niall about?” he shouted, his long legs straddling his bike.
I shook my head and returned to my book .
Liam had been my friend first; I’d met him on the beach playing in the rockpools all alone and invited him home. Niall had been in bed with the chickenpox. We’d spent weeks playing together with me teaching him to ride Niall’s bike because Liam didn’t have one. His rejection of me hurt more than I could put into words. Knowing he’d be here helped me through the last few weeks of school every year.
His bike clattered to the ground and his shadow fell over me. “What’re you doing?”
“Reading.” I refused to look up because the pain in my chest threatened to erupt into sobs.
His foot scuffed the grass in a nervous gesture. “My brother says I’m too old to play with girls.”
Callum was a bully who stole from Mr. Wilson’s store. I’d seen him smoking more than once and Mum told Dad she’d heard he was drinking. He was one person neither Niall nor I were allowed to play with.
Liam crouched in front of me. “We’re twelve now, Oonagh. Surely back home you don’t have boy friends?”
My gaze lifted to his. “Niall and I go to the same school. We have both boy and girl friends.” I studied Liam, his clothes were scruffy and torn, and his shoes had no laces. There were bruises on his arms and a cut on his left cheek.
“Your face is cut. Mum has plasters inside.” Standing, I held my hand out to him. Liam stared at it as if I was going to slap him before he tentatively put his fingers in mine.
Mum kept a first aid kit in the kitchen because Niall was clumsy and never done falling off something. I dabbed the cut with witch hazel before putting a plaster on it. My fingers trailed over the bruises on his arms. “What happened? ”
Liam shrugged. “I fell off my bike.”
His trainers were cut at the bottom of the front seam and his toes poked out. Brigid in school had the same cuts on her shoes. When I told Mum, she made me take a pair of mine into school and give them to her. Without thinking, I left Liam devouring a cupcake and retrieved a pair of Dad’s from upstairs.
He glared at me when I held them out to him.
“Same thing happened to my shoes and Brigid gave me a pair of hers in school,” I explained. It was what Mum had told me to tell Brigid in case she was upset with me.
Liam’s gaze flickered to the trainers in my hand.
“They’re too small for Dad and you’re bigger than Niall.” I slid him another cupcake without a word. Liam spent his life being hungry.
“Why do you always have to be nice to me?” he demanded, his head lowering and his hair falling over his eyes.
“Because no matter how many times you’re mean to me, Liam, I’ll always be your friend.”
He glared at me with his stormy blue eyes, his fingers tightening into a fist. “I don’t need your charity.”
“Charity is something you give to strangers. You’re like a brother to me, and I borrow Niall’s stuff all the time.”
“I don’t feel like your brother,” he ground out, the blue in his eyes deepening.
“That’s just because you don’t have a sister at home.”
A strange emotion flashed across his gaze, but I had no idea what he was thinking. All I knew was that Liam needed help, and there was something I could give him. He left a few minutes later and didn’t return—even to play with Niall for another few weeks.
***