Page 1 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

CHAPTERONE

PADRAIG

The Ruocco Home, Agrigento, Sicily

I thinkabout the day I died at least a million times a day.

I know that may sound like a lot, but I reckon it’s a step in the right direction. I was thinking about it way more when I first arrived here.

Maybe I should change that wording to something a little less melodramatic likeI think about the day my life ended at least a million times a day.

That sounds far less theatrical, even if the former is way more fitting, but then I’m told I’ve always been the kind of fella who likes to over-dramatize things.

My life ended almost a year ago now. The day I gained Sophia. The day I lost Jaine.

Not that the latter was ever mine to lose. I realize that now.

My wedding day was meant to be the happiest day of my life. A day when I should have taken the vows with my Disney princess, and we then went on to live the happily ever after together.

My soul mate. My fated other. My one and only.

My Jaine Jones.

It should have been the girl of my dreams. Instead, it was the one from my nightmares.

I think back to the complete carnage that took place. When Jaine personally hand-delivered permanent cease-and-desist notices to two of her sniper comrades.

That was the last thing I clearly remember from the day my life ended before I packed up the full one I was living in New York and headed off to start existing in a life of limbo in another country.

It was all about survival, you see. It was easier to stop living. It was easier to start existing with my eyes closed.

All this time, I’ve stayed away. I willingly took my finger off the pulse and instead stuck them firmly in my ears, refusing to listen to anything that wasn’t business-related.

Why?

Because I don’t want to hear about what it’s like living in the real world when I have to exist in a pretend one.

It may seem a bit extreme. It might also seem a bit selfish. But I needed to at least attempt to heal. To try to piece back together the shards of my broken heart.

A heart that was shattered by the realization that my cliché blonde, my Holy Grail of women, and the girl I’ve been in love with since I was nineteen doesn’t love me back.

Never has. Never will.

Not that it matters. I’m married.

And here’s me once again thinking about the day that my life ended. Make that a million and one times a day.

Have I healed? Don’t be daft.

Take it from me. Adopting the burying your head in the sand approach doesn’t work. All it does is make the single biggest regret you have to live with echo even more loudly around your lonely skull.

You can pin your wishful thinking and foolish hopes on whatever makes you feel better, but in my experience, dreams don’t come true, and prayers remain unanswered.

At least for me.

All the time spent away has achieved is to make me more accepting of what is now my existence. A day to day that I can’t change, and one I’ve got no option but to continue on with because there’s no alternative.

I stare at the email on the screen for the second time.

---