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“No,” he agreed with a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t.”

“I’m so freaked out,” I confessed, biting down on my lip. “I keep thinking, what if he’d turned around when we were in the hall?” I shivered again. “What the hell would have happened to those kids—”

“But that didn’t happen because you got them out,” Gibsie reminded me. “You’re all safe, lad.”

“She got them out, too.” I turned to face him. “She helped me, lad, and I know that sounds fucked up, but she did. It was like she was…willingme to get them out of the house.” I shuddered. “And once I did? She just turned around and went back to him. She…sacrificedherself for those kids. For me…”

“Shit,” he whispered.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Shite.”

We sat in silence for several minutes before Gibsie finally rose to his feet and moved for the ladder. “I better make tracks,” he said. “My mam will be in meltdown mode.”

“Gibs?”

“Yeah, lad?”

“Don’t go home yet, okay?”

He paused on the ladder, hands clasping the wooden frame, and I watched as a multitude of emotions flashed across his features. Finally, he climbed back up and reclaimed the space beside me. “You know, if you wanted to watch the sun come up with me, you only had to say, lad,” he mused, nudging my shoulder with his.

“Yeah.” I choked out a hollow laugh. “That’s what it is.”

69

Rebuilding

Johnny

“What are you doing up there, lad?” Gibsie asked on Friday afternoon when he found me down the field at the back of the house. It had been four days since the fire, since Shannon and her brothers’ world had collapsed, and I’d never felt more helpless in my life. The sun was splitting the stones and I’d been out here since dawn broke and the crying restarted. Sick to death of social workers and the Gardaí, not to mention family friends and relatives, I kept my distance from the house. Nothing I said or did seemed to be helping matters anyway, so I decided to remove myself from the situation. Not far enough that I couldn’t come back if she needed me, but enough to give her some space with her family.

Besides, people had been calling to the house all day every day since it happened, and if I had to hear the“You’re a hero, young man”spiel one more time, I was going to lose my shit. I was no hero; I loved my girlfriend and I did what any other lad in my position would have done.

“You’re afraid of heights, Johnny,” Gibsie reminded me, as if it was something I could easily forget. “And you’re up pretty high there, buddy.”

“I’m revamping our old tree house,” I replied as I dangled from a branch of the old oak, with a hammer and nails in hand. “And I’m not afraid of heights,” I bit out. “I’m warily cautious of anything that poses the threat of me plummeting to my death.”

“Makes sense.” With his hands on his hips, Gibsie stared up at me, expression thoughtful. “So, why are we revamping the fort?”

“Because I need to do something,” I explained. “And I can’t do anything in the house.”

“You been to training today?”

“Nope.”

“The gym?”

“Nope.”

He signed heavily. “Johnny…”

“I need to do this, Gibs,” I choked out, voice thick with emotion. I felt useless and it didn’t bode well with me. I couldn’t fix this for her and I couldn’t change what had happened. “I need to fixsomething.”

“Then we’ll fix it,” Gibsie replied simply. “I’ll call the lads.”

* * *

Within an hour, Hughie and Feely had arrived on one of Feely’s father’s tractors and trailers, drawing old boards and planks of timber. “Hope you don’t mind, Cap, but my mam’s after pulling up with Claire and Lizzie,” Hughie puffed as he hauled a tractor tire off the back of the trailer and rolled it over to the trunk of the tree. “They’re gone inside.”

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