Page 63 of Keeping 13

“My sister lovesyou,” he replied wearily.

“She needs you,” I added, ignoring the way my heart slammed wildly in my chest. “And from what I hear, your little brothers need you too, lad.”

“Because I’m foundations,” he choked out. “That’s it. That’s all I am to them.”

“Foundations?” I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m the guy who goes around cleaning up everyone else in my family’s shit.” He dropped his head and clasped the back of his neck. “It means I’m the fucking mother.”

“Well.” I exhaled heavily and stretched my legs out, trying to ease the burn in my thighs. “You’re one hell of a mother, Joey the hurler.”

“Someone has to be,” he muttered as he ran a hand through his hair.

“Well, you did a good job,” I told him. “And you’ve come too far to throw it all away on a temporary high, lad.”

“The fuck would you know about it?” he sneered.

“I know you’re trying to escape,” I shot back. “That much is perfectly clear. You want to forget about the shite for a while—and Jesus, I don’t blame you—but it’s temporary. It’s notreal,Joey. And it’s not going to fix anything. All of your problems will still be there waiting for you, regardless of how much powder you snort up your nose or how many tablets you toss down your throat. You can smoke all the weed you want, drown yourself in a bottle of whiskey, shoot yourself up with every drug known to mankind, and it won’t change a damn thing because life willstillbe waiting in the wings to kick your ass when you come to. I also know that if you keep going down this road, you’ll get to a point where you won’t be able to find your way back.”

“Easy for you to say,” he shot back, tone bitter. “You’ve never seen a hard day in your life.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed. “I don’t know what you’re going through. I have no fucking clue what it feels like to be you, and I’m damn glad for that. But I have my own demons, lad. My own choices I had to make, where it would have been so much easier to pop a few tablets to kill the pain when my body was falling the fuck apart from the inside out, or use steroids to build up my body instead of grafting in the gym six hours a day. I know that sounds like nothing in the grand scheme of things, not compared to your family shite, but I didn’t do it, Joey, not one single time. Because Iknewthat putting that shite in my body would only be a choice for so long before itstoppedbeing achoiceand started being anecessity.”

“Shit,” he choked out, and then laughed humorlessly. “Where the fuck were you when I was sixteen, Kavanagh?” Sniffing, he wiped his eyes and sighed dejectedly. “Could’ve done with the pep talk back then.”

“Wrong school,” I offered with a half-hearted shrug.

“Wrong life,” he whispered.

I sighed heavily. “Yeah.”

There was a long stretch of silence before I spoke again. “Can I help?” I finally asked, feeling like a spare prick. “Can I do something foryou?”

“Yeah.” With shaky hands, Joey clutched the basin of the sink and pulled himself to his feet. “You can loan me some clothes.”

We both knew thatclotheswasn’t what I meant, but I didn’t push him—not when he seemed to be clinging to the edge. Without saying another word, I stood up and walked back into my room. Pulling random items of clothing out of my dresser, I tossed them into the bathroom and left him to it.

Confused and on edge, I walked stiffly over to my window and stared out into the darkness while I waited for him to come back out, watching as droplets of rain pelted against the glass.So this is their life,I thought.This is what she was hiding from me.

Gripping the windowsill, I ignored the pain in my body and concentrated on my whirling thoughts, desperately trying to find a solution for something I wasn’t entirely sure could be solved. One thing I knew for certain was that I could never untangle myself from this girl. And what’s more, I didn’t want to.

I knew this wasn’t good. Jesus, a blind man could see I needed to run far,faraway from this situation, but Icouldn’t. Fucked up as it all seemed, I was quite content to remain right here, wrapped up in her personal breakdown. More than that, I wanted to wade in and do something, anything, to help her brother. It wasn’t even just about Shannon for me anymore. It was about Joey and three other little kids I hadn’t even laid eyes on. I wanted to help them all. My conscience demanded nothing less from me.

Several minutes passed before the bathroom door swung open and Joey appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in a pair of my gray sweats and a white T-shirt, and looking like absolute shite.Clean shite, I mentally acknowledged,minus the vomit and smell.

“Thanks for the clothes,” he muttered, eyes bloodshot, face deathly pale. “Do you have a phone I could use?”

My jaw twitched. I wasn’t sure about this. Was he planning on busting out of here? “Why?”

“Because I need to call my girlfriend.”

I eyed him warily. “Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, my girlfriend,” he hissed. “Can I use your phone or not?”

Uncertain, I took my phone out and handed it to him. “You don’t have to leave. You can stay, lad. For as long as you need.”

Ignoring me, Joey leaned against the dresser and stabbed his trembling finger against the keypad of my phone, messing up repeatedly to the point where he threw his head back and roared, “Come the fuck on!”

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