SKYFALL, Johnny Kavanagh

Catching up

Maeve's Point of View

"I'm surprised you came here. I thought we were on the outs again." Aoife said as she handed me a spoon for the ice-cream.

It was the weekend and since Teddy was still pretending to be human, I figured I could spend the night at Aoife's with her and Casey.
I wanted to clear the air.

"I'm still not calling the authorities." I explained. "I just needed the time to cool off."

Aoife sighed, dragging her spoon through the ice cream. "I still think you're making a mistake."

"Not an option." I shot back.

Casey, who had been quiet up until now, spoke. "It's an option you refuse to take."

I tensed. "Because it's a bad one."

"Says who?"

"Says logic, Casey." I snapped. "You both know how the system works. It doesn't protect kids like us – it chews us up and spits us out worse than before."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore. If I wanted to think about my problems, I would have stayed at the house." I scooped another bite of ice cream and changed the subject.

"Sure, I'll let everything go once you tell me why you didn't answer the phone for two weeks." Casey started,

I forced a smirk. "Maybe I just like being mysterious."

Casey wasn't amused. "No, you like avoiding people who care about you."

"Joey talked, didn't he?" I rolled my eyes. "I should have known he wouldn't keep it to himself."

Aoife and Casey shared a glance.

I sighed. "Alright, out with it. What exactly did he say?"

"That you weren't answering because you were too busy recovering from the last time that bastard put his hands on you." Casey said bluntly.

I tightened my grip on the spoon. "That's dramatic."

"Is it?" Aoife challenged.

"I had really bad period cramps?" I tried.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Casey groaned, tossing her spoon onto the table. "Are you actually trying to insult our intelligence?"

"It doesn't matter." I grabbed the ice cream and took another bite. "He's playing nice this week, anyway."

"Until he's not."

For a long moment, none of us spoke.

Then Casey sighed, running a hand through her hair. "You know we're not going to stop, right?"

"I figured."

"Good." Aoife said, stabbing her spoon back into the ice cream. "Because I'm not done with you yet."

I snorted despite myself. "How comforting."

She pointed her spoon at me. "You love me."

"Unfortunately." I rolled my eyes.

"Now, as promised, we'll talk about something else." Casey started. "Like the fact that you are friends with Johnny Kavanagh."

"I am going to kill Joey."

"He gave us so much information." Aoife laughed. "Did you like cuddling?"

"We weren't–" I started.

"Yeah, yeah. You just fell asleep on each other." She corrected. "I don't even remotely believe you."

"That's all that happened." I insisted.