Declan listens wordlessly to my tearful monologue. When I finish, my shoulders hunched and my breath coming in rapid puffs, he rubs my back thoughtfully, and I want to melt into him.
“I’ve made mistakes too,” he says eventually, so softly I can barely hear him. I expect him to leave it at that, but he continues, his eyes glued on the street in front of us. “I grew up with a younger brother, Malachy. When I was about thirteen, Mal was only five. My mum asked me to watch him one weekend, but I’d already agreed to play in this community football match. I’d had it planned for ages, but Mum had to go out of town to visit her sister at the last minute and Da was doing God knows what.
“So, I told Mum I’d look after Mal, and I also told my mates I’d be at the match. Thought I’d rigged the system. I’d leave Mal on the sidelines, he’d entertain himself, and I’d get to play. And it all went well, at the beginning at least. But once the match was over, I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere. At first, I was angry. It was just like Mal to wander off, but as the hours passed, I got more and more nervous. Eventually, we had to call in the Gardaí.”
I swallow hard, waiting for him to finish.
“They found him the next morning.” Declan’s face is drawn, his skin bleached of color. “He’d wandered onto a nearby farm at some point during the match. He must have been so excited, seeing allthe machinery. He loved trucks and tractors and all those things…” His voice breaks, and he shakes his head.
“He found an old dried-up well on the property. He must have leaned over too far and…the fall broke his neck.
“If I had just done what my Ma had asked, he would still be alive. But I was fecking selfish. I couldn’t bear to take a day off to do her a favor, to look after my little brother. My own family. It was all my fault that he died.”
He balls his hands into fists, and I delicately rest my hand on his shoulder.
“It’s why I decided to come here. Even after I moved away from Sligo, started university in Dublin, I couldn’t get away from what I’d done. I needed to get out of Ireland, as far away as possible. I figured Australia was about as far as you could go to get away.” He smiles, but it’s one of sadness, and it doesn’t reach his eyes.
I think of how similar we are, how we had nearly the same motivation for going on this trip. I look at him, really look for the first time. Ever since day one of the program, he was always Claire’s, nothing more than a guy for her to lust after. But there are so many different layers to him, so many things for us to connect over that Claire could never appreciate.
“Does Claire know?” I ask after a moment.
He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t think she’d look at me the same if she did. And it’s been difficult to talk to her after what happened to Tomas. It feels like she was so quick to move on, whereas I can’t stop thinking about him. She’s never been close to death beforeso she doesn’t know how to feel, and I can’t be the one to help her through that.”
I take a deep breath. I know what he means. I pause, considering. The words I’ve kept locked up for years strain to get out, the admission I’ve refused to share with anyone.
And then I decide. If Declan was brave enough to tell me his story, then I can at least return the favor.
“I had a…rough childhood,” I start, slowly. “My brother was the golden child. Jimmy was straight out of a teen movie from the nineties. He was handsome, got good grades, was the quarterback of the school’s football team. He could do no wrong. But that was in public. Behind closed doors he was someone else entirely. It was like he flipped a switch as soon as we were alone. Any time my parents left the house, he became someone else. A monster.
“He’d say horrible things to me. Tell me I was nothing, that I had no friends, that I didn’t deserve love. I don’t know where it came from, this apparent hatred he had for me. But what he said stuck.” I remember his words lodging like a knife between my ribs, worming their way through my flesh, until they infiltrated my bloodstream, becoming a part of me. “I became incredibly shy; I removed myself from all the public situations I could. I was an outcast in school. All because of him.”
I clock Declan’s shocked face, and a small part of me takes pride in the fact that I was able to bury that version of myself deeply enough that no one would ever suspect. But I look away, not wanting to see his reaction to what’s coming next.
“Apparently that wasn’t enough for him. When I was aboutthirteen, it started turning physical. Jimmy would sneak into my room at night, long after my parents were asleep. And he would do…things. And the entire time, he would whisper in my ear, ‘You are nothing, you are a disgrace.’”
I hear Declan inhale sharply.
“There was no way I could stop him,” I continue. “No way anyone would believe me. He was the perfect one, and I was the weird, nerdy little sister. They would have said I was desperate for attention. That it was a sick way for me to get back at him. I remember I asked my parents to put a lock on my bedroom door. I told them I’d been having nightmares. They laughed in my face.
“When I got to high school, it started happening more and more.” I squeeze my eyes shut as if to force out the memories. The sounds of his footsteps in the hallway outside my bedroom door, the way my muscles would lock up when I would hear him turn the doorknob. “I knew I had to do something. That if I didn’t find a way to end it, I wasn’t going to survive.
“And then, one night, I went to a birthday party. It was for a girl in my grade who had a massive crush on Jimmy. She had no interest in me whatsoever. It was just a way for her to get closer to him, by befriending his social disgrace of a sister. I hadn’t planned to go, but she must have mentioned something to him, and he brought it up to my parents, who were over the moon. Being invited to parties wasn’t a regular occurrence for me, if you hadn’t already guessed. They thought this was my chance to start being more ‘normal.’
“So, they forced me to go, and it was terrible. A group of us huddled in this girl’s basement. Everyone ignored me at first, untilsomeone pulled out a bottle they’d stolen from their parents’ liquor cabinet. Peach schnapps or something like that. Someone passed it to me, and I declined. And that’s when the fun started. All the comments Jimmy used to make to me were suddenly coming from those girls. And they were just as relentless as he was.
“The party was supposed to be a sleepover, but I couldn’t stand to be there a single minute more. Even the idea of going home, to risk a run-in with my brother during the night, was more appealing than staying and being their punching bag. So, I called my parents, asked them to pick me up. They were out, some fundraising gala or something, and Jimmy answered the phone. He agreed to get me.
“He picked me up with a big smile and a heartfelt apology to the girl and her parents.” God, I can still remember her swooning as he appeared in her front doorway. “But as soon as we got in the car, it started. His hand on my leg, steadily working its way up my thigh as he said disgusting things.”
Even now, I cringe as I hear his words in my head.You are pathetic; even those girls think so.The feel of his skin on mine.
“Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed the wheel. He only had one hand on it, and between that and the shock, it turned easily. We swerved directly into this big old oak tree. He would have been fine if it was just the collision. In fact, after the shock wore off, he started screaming, grabbing at me. Blood was rushing from his head, but he would have made it if…”
My mouth grows dry, and I struggle to swallow.
“The tree came down.” It was sick, I learned later, one that the owner planned to have cut down just a few days later. “It split fromthe force of the collision, and it crashed down on the car, directly onto the roof over the driver seat. He died instantly.”
I leave the story hanging between us, not daring to speak, to move, to breathe.
