to any of us,” he says, looking out the window.
“Oh, I’m … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be
nosey.”
“It’s not important.”
“And you’ve got a good relationship?” I try
probing.
“He’s a good man. He takes care of my mom
and all my brothers and sisters. If it weren’t for
him, I don’t know what would have happened to
all of us. My mom sure could not have carried on
all by herself for much longer.”
“What about your dad?”
“He took off when I was fifteen.”
“Don’t you ever see him?”
“No. The day he left us he was dead to me.”
I try asking a bit more before he closes up for
good.
“Did he abandon you?”
“He left a wife and six kids alone without a
dime and without looking back.”
Now I understand. I understand everything and
the revelation of it is like a slap in the face. It’s as
if the five fingers were imprinted on my cheek and
I can feel it burning.
“Is something wrong?” Patrick asks me after a
few moments of silence.
“I’m just tired. It was a long day and I’d like to
lie down for a bit.”
“Sure, I’ll go with you.”
“No,” I block him right away. “There’s no need
and you have to get back to work. I think you’re
already late,” I say, looking at the clock.
“They can do without me for a few minutes.”
He tries to take my hand but I won’t let him.
He sighs in frustration and rests his head on the
steering wheel. “Won’t you tell me what’s really
going on, Erin?”
“It’s that everything is all wrong, Patrick.
You’re not right for me.” And as I say it a piece of
my heart turns black.
He lifts his head up, searching for my eyes.
“What the fuck?”
“You don’t have to do it, you don’t have to take
someone else’s place. You don’t have any
obligation towards me, you’re not the one who got
me pregnant and it’s not your responsibility,” I say,
closing the conversation as quickly as possible.
“You don’t have to occupy a space that isn’t yours,
or take care of someone that was abandoned by
someone else.”
“Erin…”
He tries again to take my hand, but I cross my
arms over my chest like a little girl having a
temper tantrum.
“Why are you saying these things? Is that what
you seriously think? That I want to be with you so
I can assume some kind of super hero status? I’m
not a hero and I’m not a person who has been
given the gifts of sentiment, compassion or pity. If
I want to stay, it’s because I want to.”
“Only because you want to? What are you, five
years old?”
“What do you want from me?” he yells. “What
the fuck do you expect me to do?” he continues in
a rage.
And that’s when I understand that this is all
wrong. That he is wrong. I can’t accept the
consequences of this relationship. Because I’m not
alone anymore, there are two of us and this baby
deserves the best.
If he can’t have a father who is able to give and
receive love without feeling an obligation to do so,
then it’s up to me to do my best to give him
everything I can on my own.
“I don’t expect anything. I never asked you for
anything! You’re the one who came to me, who
said all those things to confuse me and take
advantage of my vulnerability. You’re … you’re
exactly what I would have expected from you and
what everyone already knows about you, Patrick:
you’re an asshole, a bastard who’s incapable of
loving, with an iceberg in place of a heart.”
His expression changes and his eyes turn a dark
and intense black like a black hole I would not
want to get sucked into.
I open the car door and get out, trying to calm
down and regain control of myself because I can
feel I’m falling apart and there’s nothing I can do
I open the pub door and make a beeline for the
stairs, hoping to avoid any questions of anyone
who may see me crying desperately for having lost
something yet again. But I’m not that lucky. Aaron
notices me and blocks me on the way up.
“What did that asshole do?”
I shake my head, telling him that it’s nothing
and that he shouldn’t insist, that he should just let
it go.
“Come on, I’ll take you upstairs,” he says. And
even if I don’t want him or the others to know, I
find myself once again on my couch crying on
someone’s shoulder as I vent my feelings.
“I’m pregnant,” I say between sobs.
“That bastard knocked you up?” he yells,
enraged and jumping to his feet.
“No, it wasn’t Patrick. It was Nate, my ex–
boyfriend,” I conclude in a broken whisper of a
voice.
I tell Aaron everything. Starting with my
discovery of the betrayal, to the pregnancy and my
fancy ideas about Patrick.
Aaron doesn’t interrupt me but lets me talk and
sob until I’m calm and I lay down on the couch,
still shaken up. Without my realizing it, Liam and
Jay are also in the apartment, sitting at a table in
front of me.
“What?”
“Everything’s fine, Erin.”
“Why are you all here?” I try to sit up but Jay
makes a gesture, encouraging me to stay as I am.
“We’re here for you.”
“For me?”
“I already knew, Erin,” Liam confesses. “Rain
told me. Please don’t be upset with her about it.
She was just worried about you.”
Well, I should have known it. Rain isn’t very
good at keeping things secret.
“You don’t have to worry about anything,” Jay
continues. “Everything’s going to be alright. And
whatever you decide, you have to know that we
are here and you can count on us. We’re always on
your side.”
I don’t understand what I did to deserve so
much support and encouragement. My lip starts to
shake, a sure sign of an incoming crisis, when
Aaron caresses my cheek and gives me a sweet
smile that opens the door to my tears.
“You’ll stay here as long as you want. And we’ll
all help you. We won’t let you go anywhere and
especially you won’t be alone.”
I nod, overwhelmed.
“But I do think you should seriously consider
the idea of calling your family. You need them.”
“It’s just … I’m not brave enough.”
“You can do it,” he says, squeezing my hand.
“And now, let us get you a cup of tea and pamper
you a bit, okay? It seems like you need it.”
“What about the pub?” I ask,
alarmed.
“Patrick is downstairs,” he says, breaking our
eye contact for a moment. “And the guys. Rain
will be here soon and as soon as she is, she’ll come
up and take our place. We don’t want you to be
alone.”
I nod again, unable to find my pride and try to
refuse their help and make a show of some kind, a
pretence that I can make it on my own. Because
the truth is, I can’t. I do need help. I’m just an
immature young woman with no experience who
let herself get knocked up by an idiot and who was
about to fall in love with a bastard who specializes
in confusing your ideas and fogging up your mind,
but won’t ever be able to give anything to anyone.
The only person Patrick loves is Patrick.
Patrick
The guys have been up there for forty minutes and
seventeen seconds. They’re still pissed with me
about what happened in London and ruining the
offer that was proposed to us.
They left me here at the counter, begging me
not to show my face upstairs and to calm down
because let’s face it, I’m a concentration of rage
that’s ready to explode and take down everything
with me.
How the hell could she say those things to me?
After I was close to her, after I offered her my
help. Accusing me of having taken advantage of
her! If she only knew that every kiss I gave her my
legs were shaking, my lips, even my heart! I knew
it! Christ, I always knew it! Look what happens if
you lower your guard five minutes.
“Patrick.”
Shit, that’s all that was missing was her. Now
everybody’s here, all accounted for. All the people
who hate Patrick?
Check.
I turn without really looking at her and jut out
my chin, which means, ‘I hear you’.
“Are they still up there?”
“Of course. They’re trying to figure out a way
to get rid of me.”
Rain takes a few deep breaths before sitting on a
stool in front of me.
“Patrick Doyle, I love you, you know. You’re
like a brother to me, but let me tell you something.
You’re a boy who hasn’t ever fully grown up, you
are irresponsible and counterproductive. You’re a
disaster in every way. You’re arrogant and have a
devil-may-care philosophy about a lot of things
and you’re quite arrogant.”
Okay, I’m not shocked by her words, but they
do bother me because she is my family and I
thought she saw something more in me.
“Do you know why I allowed you to get close
to her even though I know you so well? Because I
saw something in you. A spark that was in your
eyes the night you went out there and gave Nate
what he had coming to him. And I saw another one
when you went with her to go get her things. And
another one still when you were playing with the
band and you had an expression on your face of
someone who would drop to his knees and beg the
woman he loves to be his forever. You see, I
thought that with her you would finally cool off a
bit, that you would confess to yourself that you’re
better than what you want yourself to believe. And
instead, it seems I was wrong, because here you
are being what you always are, making the same
mistakes and you don’t let anybody get close to
you and love you.”
“You know full well what I am, Rain. I never
kept it a secret. This is it,” I say, spreading out my
arms. “All I am is this piece of shit, there’s nothing
else there, and I’ve got nothing to hide, no deep
feelings or anything else, okay? Get it into your
head!”
I finish up my little discourse by raising my
voice a few decibels.
“You’ve disappointed me, Patrick,” she says,
starting to shake. “I did expect better of you,” she
concludes on the verge of tears as she gets up and
heads upstairs.
There is no place I cannot go … My mind is
muddy but my heart is heavy. Does it show? I lose
the track that loses me, so here I go.
What do they all want from me? What are they
trying to find under the surface? I’m not hiding
anything. I am an absolute nothing and will remain
so. For all of my fucking life. I will not let myself
be taken for a fool anymore nor will I ever let a
woman try to get close to what she doesn’t know,
something that’s so deep inside of me, that is total
blackness and all it does is suck everything into
itself in an instant to then destroy it in a second.
Because I destroy every fucking thing.
Give me reason but don’t give me choice …
’Cause I’ll just make the same mistake again.
5
The last words of that depressed asshole James
Blunt push me over the edge and I turn my back to
the counter and throw the glass I was washing
against the wall. I throw it with all the force I have
5 Same Mistake, James Blunt, All the Lost Souls
in my body. It’s enough to almost dislocate my
shoulder.
The customers all turn to see what’s happening
and I come up with some stupid excuse to get
away from this disgusting pub, this stupid family
and from her and the hope that there could be
something more for me than this emptiness I bring
around with me.
I approach a table with three girls where the one
who was waiting for me the other night happened
to be when I ignored all the bells going off in my
head and I went to Erin instead of having some fun
with that one.
Two lines of chat, another round on the house,
and she’s already on my bike with her arms around
my waist.
I go to her place and I don’t even have my foot
in the door and I’m on her. I’m hungry and all I
want to do is lose myself and get that image of
Erin rubbing her rounded belly out of my fucking
head.
I kiss her, I bite her, I undress her of what little
she’s wearing before hitting the bedroom. I give
her a light push to lay her out before me and I
jump on her as if she were my prey, as if tasting
her would satiate me, would give me back what I
had and what I threw away for a pair of dark eyes.
She unbuttons my jeans and takes my top off
saying something about my tattoos but I can’t hear
her. I can’t feel her … her hands, her wet tongue
playing around just where it shouldn’t be.
I don’t feel anything except an echo of contempt
that I feel with myself right now. As I try to drown
a soul that is trying hard to stay afloat, that’s
begging for help and finally lets go of the hand of
who’s trying to pull him out of the water.
16
Erin
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, honey, I haven’t heard from yo
u in a
while. How are things?”
I finally have the courage to call my dad and tell
him what’s happening with me.
“How are your studies going? How’s Nate?”
I sigh and decide it’s better to just get right to it.
“Nate and I broke up.”
“What, how? When?”
“Nate’s got someone else, Dad.”
“What kind of … I’ll come back to Dublin right
away and we’ll get things worked out.”
“I’ve found a place to stay.”
“Another place? And how are you paying for it,
dear?”
“Well, for now I’m not paying rent. The guys at
the pub are letting me use the apartment above it.
I’m here for now.”
“You’re living in that place? ” he says
condescendingly.
“It’s not a bad place, Dad.”
“Do you need money? I can send a wire
transfer.”
“No, Dad, I don’t need money. I just…”
“Erin, you’re making me worry.”
“I just need you, Dad.”
“What’s happening, are you in trouble?”
What’s happening? I’m pregnant dad. Very
pregnant.
I rub my belly unconsciously as I try to find the
right words to tell my dad he’s going to be a
grandfather.
“I miss you.”
What a coward I am.
“I just miss my dad,” I say like a five-year-old
baby.
“Oh honey, I’ll try to leave tomorrow.”
I’m not strong enough to tell him on the phone
and I sure don’t know how I’m going to do it when
he’s standing in front of me. But the time has come
to tell everyone. I can’t hide it anymore.
~ ~ ~
I get my books and start studying for the upcoming
exam. It’s already late and I should be sleeping so I
can wake up relaxed and less tired than usual but
I’ve rested too much today and I’m not that tired
now. What’s more, I’m hungry. I’m craving
pancakes but they just make me think of Patrick.
I sigh and get back to my studies but every
excuse is good for a distraction. I am miles away
from these books, from what I’m trying to study.
They say all roads lead to Rome … all my roads
lead to him.
Then I get up off the couch and go to the
window that looks out over the street and his
motorcycle isn’t out there. I decide to go down,
maybe get a cup of tea with Rain who’s working
tonight, seeing as he’s not there.
I slip my shoes on and a zip-up sweatshirt that I