Ian
When I close my bedroom door behind me, I find Riley looking out the window.
“Hey,” she says, turning to me. “Everything okay down there?”
“I put the kids to bed. Hopefully they won’t try to suffocate each other in their sleep.”
She smiles sadly at me and looks outside again. “I think it’s going to snow,” she says after a few minutes of silence.
I go towards the window and set my hands on her shoulders. “That would be nice. A white Christmas.”
“It would be nice,” she echoes, sighing.
“Riley, about what happened…”
She shakes her head and walks away, going to sit on the bed. I let my arms fall by my sides and ball my fists, staying where I am.
“It’s not easy for me to talk about it,” I start, aware of the fact that it’s now or never. If I don’t do it now, I will seriously lose her.
I asked her to trust me and not to hide from me, and here I am doing the opposite.
“I came to this house when I was 15 and it was Nick who brought me to them. We went to the same school and were on the same rugby team.”
“Why did he bring you here?”
“He’d gone back to the field after training – he’d forgotten his jersey in the changing rooms,” I sigh painfully. “He found me under the stairs. I was trying to stay out of the rain. He didn’t think about it for a second, he took my arm and brought me to his house.”
I feel her eyes on me but I don’t have the courage to turn and look at her.
“I was living with my mother in a flat in Ballymount. Small, mouldy and claustrophobic. I came here to school in Santry. I took the bus when I could and walked when I couldn’t afford to.”
“And your father?”
“I never knew him.”
I hear her sigh.
“My mum had different men,” I say, gritting my teeth. “But none of them ever stuck around for very long. Until she met Mike. He and I didn’t get along too well. You could even say when he was there, I preferred not to go home.”
“Was he violent?” she asks, the fear in her voice palpable.
“No,” I shake my head. “Just allergic to children. My mother always looked for men she could lean on, men who gave her nothing - but she depended on them. It’s just that she wanted someone to be with her at all times. I wasn’t enough for her.” I say feeling a knot in my throat. “When Mike left her too, she just gave up. She wouldn’t do anything all day and stayed in bed. She was depressed, unresponsive. She drank. I tried to help her, to do what I could, but I was just a kid, you know? I was going to school, I had to study, I did the food shopping, the cooking and was trying to get both of us by on welfare.”
“Then what happened?”
“One day I woke up and she wasn’t there. She’d left with him. In the middle of the night. She abandoned me. I stayed there alone for a few weeks, until the owner of the building noticed she wasn’t there anymore. I was left with no mother, no house, nothing. The night Nick found me was the fifth night I’d slept at the stadium. No one noticed me except for him.” I smile despite myself. “Nick’s a bright guy, a lot brighter than people think, himself included. His family accepted me into their home without knowing anything about me. They gave me everything, Riley. But most of all, they loved me and helped me to trust people again.”
I turn to her.
“When you were telling me your story the other night on your sofa…I felt everything. I felt it all. Your loneliness was already mine. Your soul was already chained to mine. That night, Riley, you took my heart. I saw you for what you were and what you were trying to hide from me, because I saw myself in you. I saw and felt all of it, as if it were happening to me. It was a tie between us, Riley. Something that you only feel once in a lifetime. I knew it from the first day. I always knew you were special. You were the only person that could give me what I was always missing. But I was scared that I would never be enough for you…and that one day you would leave me. I couldn’t have gone through that again. And that’s what would have happened if that night…” he shakes his head. “I was convinced that you would’ve left me. Everyone leaves, it’s just a question of when. The day I walked into this house, I decided that I would stay alone. It was my choice, you know? I had to defend myself then, had to defend myself against you. But you seeped everywhere like a spilled glass of water, Riley and I couldn’t avoid it. You were dangerous and I had to protect myself, so I let you go before it was too late for me; I swore to myself that I wouldn’t ever get in so deep again. But when I saw you again…everything came charging back. What I felt for you, my fears…” I say gritting my teeth trying not to give in. “If I hadn’t had the O’Connors, what would my life have been? They adopted me. I was almost 17 when they gave me their name. Can you believe it? They took in a perfect stranger – a potentially dangerous boy who was angry at the world. Who would have done that? And now my father doesn’t even recognise me half the time—”
She stands up from the bed and throws herself into my arms. I hold her up as she wraps her legs around my hips. I bury my face into her hair and breathe in deeply.
She’s still here.
“You’ve become a wonderful man, Ian O’Connor,” she tells me, squeezing me tightly. “Your family is proud of you and I…I’m even more proud.”
I take her face in my hands and look her in the eyes.
“Don’t go, please. I couldn’t bear it.”
And she kisses me. Sweetly.
She takes my lips in hers and gives them life. She loves them. She puts her hands in my hair and pulls me to her and the kiss becomes more passionate.
Her tongue in my mouth, her hands on me and her…
Her. Everywhere.
