SKYFALL, Johnny Kavanagh

The house always wins

Maeve's Point of View

The week at that house felt like a lifetime.

Days blurred into nights, and time lost its meaning.

The house where Marie lay in bed for the first three days, staring at the ceiling, silent and empty, speaking only to Teddy.
The house where Joey didn't come back for three days, where his absence felt louder than his presence ever had.
The house where Shannon barely left our room, where the only proof of her existence was the occasional hollow clatter of plates I left food outside our door.
The house where I existed in a constant state of fury and exhaustion, forcing myself to move, to take care of things, because someone had to.

And it sure as hell wasn't going to be Marie.

By Saturday, she was back at work, even though Shannon had begged her to stay.
I didn't beg.
I didn't waste my breath.

I just stood there, watching her tie her apron, stuffing her bruised wrists into the sleeves of a jumper, ignoring her daughter's pleas, ignoring everything like she always did.

Marie wasn't cruel.
She wasn't kind, either.
She wasn't anything.

Not to us, at least.
She was weak.
Not just in body, but in mind.

She had folded herself so neatly into the shape of Teddy's wife that she didn't even remember what she used to be before him.

And I hated her for it.

For choosing him.
For choosing silence.
For choosing survival in the slowest, most painful way.

I hated the way she pitied herself but did nothing.
I hated the way she expected us to survive something she wasn't even trying to escape.
I hated the way she had ruined us all by staying.

Because we were ruined.

Me.
Shannon.
Joey.

Especially Joey.
He came back eventually.
Of course he did.

But something was different.
He moved through the house like a shadow, quiet and distant, barely speaking, barely reacting.

It reminded me of Darren.
Of the way he used to look at us before he left.
That blank, guilty stare.

Like he was already gone.
And now Joey had it too.
I hated that I understood it.
That I felt it.

Because he wasn't the only one who wanted to disappear.

And maybe that's why I didn't fight him when he told me to go to bed after he had to pull Teddy off of me and Shannon – again.

Maybe that's why I didn't argue when I saw the bruises blooming around Shannon's throat, or the ones that painted my arms like a goddamn roadmap of every place he had touched me.

Because I was tired.
Because I was drowning.
Because it was never going to stop.

Not really.

The cycle would keep spinning.

Marie would keep forgiving.
Teddy would keep drinking.
Joey would keep leaving.
Shannon would keep crying.
And I would keep existing.

And that?

That was the worst part.

I didn't want to exist in that house anymore.
I didn't want to exist at all.
So I did what I had to do.

I reached inside my drawer.

Three pills.

A bit more, but just enough.
Just enough to take the edge off.
Just enough to make the walls feel a little less suffocating.
Just enough to make the weight of my own fucking existence a little easier to carry.