Page 25 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

PADRAIG

The Ruocco Home, Agrigento, Sicily

I’m packed.

I realize I’m way ahead of schedule, as we still have a week to go until we fly out, but I like to be punctual. I don’t appreciate other people’s tardiness either.

In the end, I decided not to make anyone aware of my return. I want to see genuine reactions when I turn up on the doorstep of the family home unannounced, having been gone for a year. I don’t want to see painted-on expressions.

They’ll be shocked, I’m sure, but I’m more interested in knowing if they missed me or if they just continued on as normal in a world without me in it.

I’m regressing. I know I am.

I need to get out of here now. I’ve gone from feeling content at being isolated to feeling like I’m about to self-combust.

I stare out the window, taking in views that won’t be mine for much longer. Sights that, although stunning, I won’t miss. I know I’ll never return to Sicily. I came here to heal, and I’m undoing the little I did by digging through my past with Jaine line by line.

All it took was one email and a bunch of decade-old photographs to pretty much take me back to square one. Proof, not that I needed it, that stealing myself away for the last year was pointless. It achieved nothing.

My brain has been plagued with thoughts of what she’s been up to these days. When I had no return date, it was far easier to push those thoughts to the back of my mind because it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to witness her moving on with a life without me in it and without a backward glance.

Now I’m headed back; it’s all Icanthink about.

How is she? How are the kids? Has she met someone new? Does she still not love me? Does she still not miss me? Did she return to New York as she had planned? Is she living there now? I’m not sure how I’d feel about that. Knowing I could bump into her at any given moment just by turning a corner.

That we’d be breathing in the same air.

It would be far easier for me if she were out of sight permanently. She’ll never be out of mind, but at least it would be half the battle.

I stare at my phone.

New handset. New number. New start.

I guess now that I’m returning to my old life, I could revert to my old number. Did anyone care enough to call me or message me? Aside from my family, did anyone even notice I was gone?

Good old Paddy. Always game for a laugh. Always the life and soul. Until the day he became soulless, his laugh nothing more than a distant echo.

And here’s me once more thinking about the day I died. Make that a million and two times a day.

We fly back in on the day of Fletch’s reunion. Maybe I’ll drop in unannounced.

12 Years Earlier (Age Nineteen)

Yale University, Connecticut

“Brittany’s having a party at her house tonight if you’re up for it.” Fletch ruffles my hair on his way past, and I bat his hand away.

Annoying fucker.

Unlike Jaine, I share a room on campus. It’s not because I can’t afford to have one of my own, obviously. It’s just that with me being the sociable sort, I much prefer to have a roommate.

The space I share with Fletch consists of four plain white walls, two unmade beds, and a single fridge that’s always empty aside from beer. It reeks of feet, sex, and dirty laundry.

Life’s too short to worry about the latter. I let my ma arrange to have it collected and dropped off once a week. My excuse is that I need to focus on my studies. And given that I’m her favorite, my wish is her command.

On the other hand, Brittany stays in a five-bedroomed property in New Haven. Her loaded parents insisted they bought it as an investment, but we all know it’s to save their precious daughter from having to board on campus and mix with the hoi polloi.

To go or not to go.

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