I drop Jamie at his house first, killing the engine out front because I need to set some ground rules. “I need to say something.” I eyeball my mate.
“If this is about Ash, it doesn’t need to be said.”
“It does.” I drill him with a warning look. “My sister is completely off-limits, Jay. I know you liked her before, and I want to make sure you know this isn’t an opportunity to get with her.”
He pins me with an angry look. “Give me some fucking credit, Dil.” He tugs on his new eyebrow piercing while glaring at me. “The girl is fucking heartbroken, and I’m not a selfish prick.”
I know he’s not. He’s also not good enough for Ash. He’s too much of a hound like me. “I’m not just talking about now. I’m talking about forever, Jamie.” Grabbing the back of his neck, I press my forehead to his. “You’re my brother, Jay. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you, but Ash is the exception. She’s not the one for you, mate.” I ease back. “You hear me?”
He looks pissed. After a couple tense beats, his shoulders relax, and he sighs. “I hear ya, Dil, and it won’t be an issue. All right?”
I nod, relieved. “Thanks for backing me up and for taking our side.”
“Don’t thank me for that. I’m always Team O’Donoghue.” He flashes me a devilish smile as his fingers curl around the door handle. “Besides, I’ve been dying to knock the shit out of that prick for years. He had it coming.” He gets out and leans down. “If I can do anything else to help, let me know.”
“You’re killing me, Ash,” I say when I enter her bedroom to find her curled on top of her bed, hugging the giant teddy Cillian won for her last month at Funderland and sobbing like it’s the end of the world. She doesn’t move, acknowledge me, or stop crying. A heavy sigh cleaves my lips as I kick off my runners and lie down on the bed beside her. Curling my arms around her from behind, I tuck her in close. “He’s not worthy of your tears. He’s a piece-of-shit human who never deserved you.”
Ash cries harder, and I decide to shut up and just hold her. A few minutes later, she turns around, buries her face in my chest, and continues sobbing. I kiss the top of her head, feeling helpless. Her pain is my pain. My chest feels tight, and my hands itch with a renewed need to beat the crap out of her ex.I hope he’s in physical pain. He deserves to hurt for the agony he’s inflicted on my sister. This is the last thing she needs in the run-up to her Leaving Cert in June. Unlike me, Ash wants to go to college, and she’s set her heart on going to Trinity. If Cillian ruins that for her, I will fucking bury that dick six feet under.
Ash clings to my shirt, soaking it, as she cries. I didn’t know a person could cry that much. I feel fucking useless as I dot kisses in her hair and rub a hand up and down her back. I don’t really know what else to do.
“Dil,” she croaks in a raspy voice sometime later, lifting her chin and staring at me through red swollen eyes. “Make it stop,” she begs over a sob. “Make it go away.” She slaps a hand over her chest. “It hurts so much.”
“If I could take all the hurt and pain for you, I’d do it in a heartbeat, Ash.”
Her soul-crushing cries bounce off the walls of her bedroom. “How could he do this to me?”
“He’s a selfish coward and a disloyal prick. I will never forgive him for this.”
“I want to die,” she wails, and her entire body is shaking as she clings to me.
“No, Ash. Don’t ever fucking say that.”
“This is killing me, Dil,” she says in a shrill tone. “In my dreams, it was always me carrying his baby andmewalking up the aisle to him. Not that fucking scheming, manipulative, slutty bitch!” She dissolves into another round of tears, and only for the fact Ash needs me I would be paying another visit to Cillian Doyle and making good on my promise to bury him alive. Right now, I honestly think I’d be capable of murder. I want to rip him apart for doing this to my sister.
“They deserve each other. Let them rot in hell together.” I brush hair back from her face and kiss her forehead. “I know this feels like the worst thing in the world, Ash, but you will getover it. Get over him. There is someone better out there for you. Someone amazing who will treat you like the fucking queen you are. This happened so you’d find the right person one day.”
“I already had him,” she sobs, fisting her tiny hand in my wet shirt. “He was mine. He was my forever.”
I don’t agree. Those two were only ever heading for Splitsville, but I don’t voice that opinion. She won’t hear me now. She won’t hear any of it. So, I shut my mouth and let her purge her thoughts, holding her and comforting her the only way I know how.
The next couple of months are rough. On the one hand, things with the band are going well, and we’ve got a regular Friday night spot at a pub in Bray Harbor. Our set is mostly covers, but we throw in three of our own tracks, and they have gone down well. But it’s hard to enjoy the fact we’re now getting paid to play music when my heartbroken sister is falling apart before my eyes.
That bitch Kelly is prancing around school, wearing tight, non-uniform clothes to draw attention to her growing belly, with Cillian on her arm, pawing at him any chance she gets, purely to gloat and piss my sister off. I came this close to hitting a pregnant girl last week when Kelly started loudly discussing her wedding plans at the top of her voice in the school canteen, on purpose, knowing Ash was in listening distance.
Ash has refused to return to school since then, and Ma and Da are really worried about her. She has barely opened a book since the end of January when all this shit went down, and she’s been in constant trouble at school for not showing up and not turning in her homework.
Ash only leaves her bedroom to do chores around the house and to eat, though she mostly picks at her food, and she’s definitely looking way too skinny. I’ve been making her some of my chocolate protein shakes and forcing her to drink them, so at least she’s getting some nourishment into her. She refuses to talk to or see her friends, and she has lost all interest in Toxic Gods. Instead, she hides in her room, listening to sad songs, watching even sadder movies, and crying over photos of her and Cillian in between bouts of stalking him with his skanky fiancée on social media.
Cillian hasn’t attempted to talk to her since that last day, and I’m glad he’s at least doing this one thing for her. It would be so much worse if he was still sniffing around her.
I’m the only one she’ll allow in. Ash is pushing everyone else away. I want to be there for her, but, I swear to god, if I have to sit throughThe Notebookone more time, I’m gonna throw the TV out the fucking window. And I think I’ve developed a permanent aversion to mint chocolate chip ice cream. For weeks, it was the only thing Ash ate, so I bought cartons of the stuff because, as bad as it is for her, it’s better than an empty stomach.
“Get up,” I say on Saturday morning, pulling the covers back. I’ve decided some tough love is in order. I’m not standing by and watching my sister piss her life away over the shithead any longer.
“Go away, Dil.” She yanks the covers back over her pajama-clad body. Her voice is devoid of all emotion, and it hurts me so much to see her like this.
“I know you know what day it is.” I move to her wardrobe and grab some clothes.
