Page 62 of Keeping 13

Breathing hard, Joey dropped his head in his hands and pulled on his hair. “Where’s my phone?” Exhaling a choked breath, he hissed, “I need myphone. I need to call my… Fuck!”

“You don’t have a phone anymore, lad—or a wallet,” Gibsie replied calmly. “Your sister said you sold it, right along with your dignity, for that horrendous pain you’re in.” Grabbing another towel off the rack, Gibsie tossed it on Joey’s lap, covering him up. “All that shit flushing its way out of your system right now? Everything you puked out of your body? It cost you exactly one wallet, one phone, and one soul. Pretty high price, huh? I sure hope it was worth it.” He patted his shoulder. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I need a shower of my own.” Peeling his drenched shirt over his head, Gibsie tossed it in the laundry hamper next to the door before strolling out of the bathroom.

I half expected Joey Lynch to erupt right there in the middle of my bathroom, but he didn’t do a thing. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his knees and dropped his head. “Fuck.” Cupping the back of his neck with one hand, he rocked back and forth, muttering the wordfuckover and over.

“What did you take?”

Silence.

“Okay.” Lowering myself onto the edge of the tub, I rubbed a hand down my thigh and tried a different approach. “Why did you do it?”

“Don’t judge me,” he hissed, swinging his gaze to meet mine. “Don’t you dare fucking judge me…” Squeezing his eyes shut, he balled his hands into fists and made a hitched sound in his throat as his body trembled violently. “Not until you’ve been in my shoes. Seen what I’ve seen. Heard what I’ve heard.”

I remained still as a statue and resisted the urge to reach over and steady him. “I’m not judging you, lad.”

“No?” Tortured green eyes locked on mine. “You saw her. Saw whathedid to her. And I didn’t… I couldn’t—” His words broke off and he dropped his head in his hands. “Fuck it. What’s the point?”

“It’s not your fault,” I replied slowly, brow furrowing. “You have to know that.”

More silence.

“I didn’t mean it,” I tried again. “What I said on the phone. It was my panic talking, lad.”

Nothing.

His lack of response caused a trickle of unease to creep up my spine. “You are not responsible for your father’s actions,” I repeated, fighting down the huge swell of sympathy flooding my body. “You’re not, so don’t fuck up your life and your future by thinking you are.”

Dropping his gaze to his knees, Joey whispered, “I couldn’t protect her.” Shaking his head, he exhaled a broken sob. “I couldn’t protect any of them.”

“That’s not your job.” My heart hammered wildly in my chest.Jesus.I felt like I was drowning in his pain. “You’re not supposed to protect them.They’re supposed to protect them. They’re supposed to protectallof you, lad. Including you.”

“I thought she was dead,” he confessed in a voice so low it was barely audible. “All the blood? On the floor? On the walls? On my clothes? Coming out of her mouth? Those gargling sounds she was making because she couldn’t breathe? Because she was fuckingdying! And then the silence? The sound ofnothingat all?” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and hissed, “I can’t get the image out of my head—and believe me, I’ve tried.”

Jesus Christ.

Reeling, I sat there, cold to the bone, and listened to his truth.

“I couldn’t get him off me,” he choked out, chest heaving. “I knew she needed help—I fuckingknewit—but I couldn’t fight him off. I couldn’t doanything!” Shaking his head, he let out a humorless laugh as tears trickled down his cheeks. “And my brother,my eleven-year-old baby brother, had to get him off me.” Sniffing, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and choked out a harsh sob. “Whileshestood by and didnothing.”

“Your mother?”

“Who else.”

I let that sink in for a moment before asking, “And now?” My voice was thick with emotion, but I forced myself to keep my shit together and continue. “What happens now?”

“The same thing that always happens,” he muttered. “Nothing.”

“With your ma?” I pushed, pressing my hand to my knee to stop it from shaking. “I mean, the Gards obviously know what your da was doing to ye, and they’ll arrest him when they find him, but her?” I shook my head, struggling to take it all in. “There’s no consequences for taking a back seat? You’re just supposed to go back and live with her?” I swallowed down my anger and hissed, “In that house?”

Joey shrugged. “Didn’t you hear? She’s a victim, too. She needs to besupported.”

“Shannon told me,” I muttered, rubbing my jaw. “That’s so messed up, lad.”

“Yeah, well, it’s on Darren now,” Joey spat, blinking back his tears. “He can figure it all out because I’m done. I c-can’t f-fucking—” His words broke off and he exhaled another hitched sob. “D-do this anymore,” he finished with a sniffle. “I c-can’t forget and I won’teverforgive.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t know what to say to any of it. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this conversation. For these people and their pain.

“Your sister loves you,” I told him, feeling the need to tell him that so that he knew at least one person in his world cared.

---