Page 180 of Releasing 10
Hugh
JANUARY 1, 2000
THE FIRST THINGINOTED WHEN WE PULLED UP ATOLDHALLHOUSE WAS A FAMILIARcar thatshouldn’thave been there.
The way Lizzie squeezed my hand when she noticed the car assured me that we were thinking the same thing.
What the fuck is he doing here?
Mark Allen had been prohibited from stepping foot on this property since last summer. Ever since Mike realized that Mark had impregnated his teenage daughter and then taken her to England to get an abortion—but Mike also considered Mark to be the driving force behind Caoimhe’s failed Leaving Cert to boot.
I knew for a fact the cretin knocked up Lizzie’s sister, because I had heard it from the horse’s mouth. I hadn’t been intentionally eavesdropping, but when I slipped downstairs to grab a drink during a sleepover, I’d heard Catherine and Mike talking about it.In graphic detail. Returning to my makeshift bed on Lizzie’s bedroom floor, I’d laid back down in bed and never once breathed a word about what I heard that night.
Not even to Liz.
So why now, after half a year of giving Mark the cold shoulder, was Mike standing on his front porch hugginghim?
“He’s back,” Lizzie whispered, tightening her hold on my hand. Sniffling, she turned to look at me with wide, glassy eyes. “Why is he back, Hugh?”
“I don’t know, Liz,” I admitted, pulling her hand onto my lap. While I fully accepted that grief evoked strange reactions from people, this took the biscuit.
“Best behavior, Hugh,” Mam instructed from the driver’s seat. Unfastening her seat belt, she turned back to give me a warning look. “I mean it.”
Jaw ticking, I swallowed my frustration and watched as Mam climbed out and walked up to the house to join Caoimhe, Mike, and the cretin.
“Look at me,” I instructed, turning my attention to my girlfriend. “Liz, look at me.”
Reluctantly, she did.
“Tell them I’m staying with you,” I instructed, squeezing her hand. “When we go over there, tell them you want me to stay.”
“Idowant you to stay,” she strangled out, unfastening her seat belt to crawl onto my lap. “I don’t want to be here without you.”
“I know you do,” I coaxed, wrapping my arms around her. “I just need my mam to hear you say it because otherwise she’ll think I’m overstepping.”
“Iwantyou to overstep,” she pleaded, wrapping her arms around my neck so tightly, I felt slightly dizzy. “Whenever Mam gets sick, Caoimhealwaysgets to have him over.” She choked out a pained sob. “It’ll happen again this time. Dad will leave and I’ll be left alone.”
“No, it won’t because I won’t let that happen,” I promised, holding her close. “She has him, but you have me.”
According to Mike, things weren’t great at the hospital, and one of the nurses had suggested letting the girls visit their mother—just in case.
Mam had dropped all three of them back to the hospital and had agreed with Mike that I could stay the night, to be there for Lizzie when she got home.
This was how I found myself in my current position, sitting opposite Mark Allen in the front room of Old Hall House, waiting for the sisters to get home.
He sat in the armchair on the left side of the open fire, while I sat in the one opposite him on the righthand side.
Drumming my fingers on the armrests, I continued to stare at the asshole across from me, silently daring him to say something. I’d never thought much about eye color before tonight, but after staring at his soulless eyes for over an hour, I was glad my eyes were brown and Lizzie’s were blue because this prick had ruined green eyes for me.
There was a fire poker within reaching distance of my right hand, and I wouldn’t think twice about shoving it up his hole if he started his shit.
Just one word.
That’s all I needed.
Like usual, he wasn’t nearly as brave in my presence as he was around Gibs. It was like I’d told our parents a thousand times: Mark was a fucking bully, and bullies were nothing if not cowards.
He knew I had taken his measure. I could see it in the nervous way he turned away whenever he dared to look in my direction and found me staring right back at him. I could smell the uncertainty rolling off him in waves.
