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“Well, shite.” Dad laughed and shook his head. “This one”—he inclined his head toward the son whose throat he was clutching—“has more balls than brains.”

“Let them go,” Darren repeated coldly. “If you want me at that match tomorrow, you better take your hands off those kids.”

Dad stared at him for a long moment before releasing Joey and me. “It’ll be a good match,” he said, doing a complete one-eighty. “We should win,” he added. “If you’re on form.”

Coughing and spluttering, Joey charged for our father again, but Darren blocked his way. “Go to bed.”

Tears filled Joey’s eyes. “But he just—”

“Take Shannon and go to bed,” Darren repeated, giving Joey a hard look. “Now.”

Furious, Joey looked to our mother. “Don’t do this, Mam,” he begged. “Don’t brush this under the table.”

“Do what he said, Joey.” She sniffled, offering him a small smile. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“No,” Joey choked out, “it won’t be.” Reaching for my hand, he dragged me to the door. “He’s going to leave us, Shannon,” he whispered, low enough so that only I could hear him. “He’ll be gone soon.”

“Daddy?” I asked, hopeful.

“No.” Joey shook his head, half dragging me up the staircase. “Darren.”

“Darren won’t leave us,” I replied, feeling sick at the thought. “He said he’d never leave us.”

“I saw it,” Joey hissed. “In his eyes. He’s going to leave. He doesn’t care, Shannon. He’s just waiting until he finishes school and then he’ll be gone.”

I shook my head. “But he can’t go…”

“Don’t worry,” he said, stopping outside his bedroom door. “No matter what happens, we’ll stick together.”

“You promise?”

Jerking awake with a start on Monday morning, I kicked the bedcovers off my sweat-soaked body and just lay there, still as a statue, waiting for my pounding heart to return to its normal rhythm. The back of my neck was slick with sweat and I could feel the cold beads trickling down my skin. Shivering, I focused on one single spot on my bedroom ceiling and breathed in and out, deep and slow, until my heart stopped trying to thrash its way out of my rib cage.

Every night since coming home from the hospital, I’d woken up to the exact same nightmare.Memory,my brain reminded me.They’re only nightmares if they’re not real.

Why my brain seemed to be stuck on one specific night eight years ago was obvious, and the fear of the unknown had me paralyzed to my mattress most mornings, drenched in a cold sheen of sweat and burning in my own personal hell.

In the throes of my panic, I came to the conclusion that my brother was psychic. It was either that or he was a living, breathing lie detector, because everything Joey had ever predicted, good, bad, or indifferent, down through the years had come to pass. He had this spooky ability to look at a situation, feel out the lies, taste the danger, and then submit his prediction with crushing words and eerie accuracy.

Like Joey predicted, Darren was beginning to crack under the pressure of living under this roof. He was withdrawing from the family life and was taking more and more extended work trips to Belfast. We hadn’t even met his boyfriend, Alex, which only proved to me that he had no intention of blending his real life in Belfast with his temporary one in Cork.

Patricia and her team of social workers had scaled back on their visits. Content with our progress, they popped in once every couple of weeks rather than every other day—like Joey predicted.

And just like Joey predicted, our father was currently walking around Ballylaggin a free man. It had been a couple of weeks since Dad and Johnny’s confrontation outside the cinema, and while the piece of paper downstairs in the kitchen assured us that he couldn’t come back here, the woman who birthed me gave me room for pause.

Everything was changing, my life was in a spin, and the only thing that seemed to be still and calming in the middle of the carnage was the boy whose T-shirt I was wearing. My phone pinged then, right on time, and I practically fell out of bed in my rush to swipe it off the charger. Every time I heard my phone vibrate or saw the screen light up, I was immediately attacked by an onslaught of butterflies in my stomach. My heart fluttered. My palms turned slick from sweat. I was completely enraptured with him. It wasn’t good or safe or sensible, but it was exactly how I felt—and I craved the danger. I longed for the text messages and secret meetings. I longed forhim.

J: Leaving the gym now, baby. Be with you in 30. x

Excitement thrummed in my veins, making it hard to keep my hands steady enough to tap out a text.

S: How did it go? Are you sore? Were you careful? x

I clutched my phone to my chest and waited impatiently. Less than a minute later, my phone sounded.

J: All good. Stop worrying. x

I couldn’t help it. Iwasworried. I wasalwaysworried about him. My phone sounded again.

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