SKYFALL, Johnny Kavanagh

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Maeve's Point of View

Niamh's bedroom was a world of its own. A sanctuary.
The kind of space untouched by the outside, like it had been built to keep out the worst parts of life.
Warm, safe, impossibly soft.

The string lights draped above her bed cast a golden glow over the walls, the air was thick with vanilla and coconut from her candles, and the faint hum of music from her stereo softened the silence.

But even here, wrapped in her blanket, with my best friend sitting cross-legged beside me, I still felt like I was waiting for the floor to drop out from under me.

I took a slow breath, pressing my fingernails into my palm, before I let it all out.
I told her everything.

The week at home.
The suffocating weight of Marie's absence, of Shannon's silence.
Of Joey slipping further and further away, like sand slipping through my fingers no matter how tightly I tried to hold on.

I told her how exhaustion had settled deep in my bones, how I had felt like I was moving through fog, drowning in the sheer weight of it all.
How the only way I knew to deal with it was to take a handful of pills and pray for sleep.

I told her about Marie's miscarriage.

How it didn't feel like a tragedy – how it felt like just one more thing on top of everything else.
Another weight pressing down on a house already caving in on itself.

I told her how I had stood in the middle of it all, surrounded by grief and disappointment, and felt absolutely nothing.

And then I told her about Johnny.

The kiss.

The way it had shaken something loose inside of me, something terrifying and inevitable.
The way he looked at me – like I was something he wanted to understand, something he could understand.
The way I ran.

I told her about the rumours, about Bella, about how Johnny had stepped in like it was his fight to fight.
How he had shut Bella down in front of everyone, furious on my behalf.
How he wouldn't let me pretend it didn't hurt.
How he had looked at me, demanding I admit that I cared about him.

How I didn't.
Not out loud.

When I finished, I expected her to say something.
Expected her to shake her head, call me a gobshite, tell me I was an idiot for pushing him away.

But she didn't.

She just exhaled slowly and leaned back on her elbows. "Yeah. I get it."

I frowned. "You get it?"

She nodded, staring up at the ceiling. "I do."

I stared at her. "You're supposed to be telling me I'm making the biggest mistake of my life."

She let out a small laugh. "Maeve, how could I say that when I've been doing the same thing since I was eleven?"

It took me a second to catch on. "Patrick? That's different."

"Is it? You push Johnny away because it's safer." She turned her head to look at me, eyes sharp. "Because if you let him in, he might leave. I push Patrick away because if I let him in, he might get hurt."

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Pierce would lose his mind if I dated one of his teammates. You know what he's like."

I did.

Pierce wasn't just cruel – he was dangerous.
Mean in a way that didn't fade with time, violent in a way that didn't need a reason.
If Niamh got with Patrick, it wouldn't just piss him off.
It would set him off.