Page 7 of Paddy

She met me at the door of the spare room I stayed in as I handed her a wad of rolled up $100 bills, trading it for a cup of unknown liquid that she handed me.

“Take this.” I sniffed it, shooting her a confused look.

“The fuck is this?”

“It'll help you sleep. Do you have your pills?”

“They're on a nightstand,” pointing back behind me.

“All right, then I'll see you in the morning.” She offered a hug before I closed the door behind me and stripped out of my clothes. At leastmostof my clothes. The sleeve on my leg, I only took off to shower. It hid my injury the best it could, and I didn't go anywhere without it.

Downing the cup with my pills, I prayed I didn't have to deal with being awake for long. The pills just helped take the edge off when I slept. Helped me with not reacting to the nightmares as much.

Sometimes I slept like a baby. Other times it was like I was in a war in my own head. The nightmares used to be worse before I started taking them. I used torefuseto take them. Made me feel like a nut job for having to need them. But I couldn't always trust myself without them.

Finally feeling the effects of the nightcap, my body slowly drifted into some semblance of peace.

***

A loud cracking sound forced me out of bed. Ihatedsudden loud noises. Anytime I heard a sound like that, my mind went through a slight fog. Grabbing my gun from the nightstand, I rushed outside to find out where the noise had come from. Through the haze, the only thing I could focus on was how wet I was all of a sudden.

Must have been raining, as a loud crack echoed from the sky, and I pointed my gun in the air and fired.

“Paddy, you'rehere.” A voice behind me yelled. “Paddy, look at me!”

I reluctantly turned to find a drenched Órfhlaith in her house robe. “Give me the gun.” She politely held out her hand, as all I could do was fight against the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Taking the gun from me, she guided me to her lawn. “Paddy, touch the grass,” she lightly demanded.

“Touch the grass?” As confusion consumed me in the moment.

“Paddy.Touchthe grass. You'rehere, not there.” She did her best to convince me.

“I'm here, not there.” I repeated over to myself until I started to believe it. The combination of damp but a texture of soft and wax made things appear clearer. I didn’t see much grass in a warzone. I washere. Not on a battlefield.

“Órfhlaith, I'm sorry,” I apologized, the tears falling due to shame. I wasn’t always like this, but when I was, I was a danger to her.

“Oh Paddy,” she assured me, reaching into hug me. “Most times you're good. This is just a bad day.”

“Idon'tlike thunder?—”

“I know you don't.”

As my skin nearly jumped off me at the sound of another spark. “I fuckingdon'tlike thunder,” I admitted, fighting all the emotions flowing through me.

“Come inside, Paddy. You need to dry off before you catch something. I'll stay with you until the thunder stops, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, as Órfhlaith helped me inside. I felt like shite when my demons affected people, especially my family. Sometimes my mind wasn't kind to me, and the memories old and new didn't help. I was broken and couldn't nothing fix me.

After a while I just stopped trying to.

Three

Paddy

“Hey, good job with the handling of the Kirkpatrick accounts. Profits are up and prices are down. We need to keep the flow steady so we can keep the suppliers happy at the current purchase price,” Tadhg said, as we went over our current numbers.

New faces were always popping up in the market, and it was an unspoken rule that it wasmyjob to keep the competition down to a minimum. There were still a few neighborhoods that needed that extra push to accept Sullivan protection, and we had to move fast.

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