SKYFALL, Johnny Kavanagh

No place to hide

Maeve's Point of View

I'd been staying at Niamh's since Monday.
Five days.

I told myself it was temporary.
That I'd go home tomorrow.
Or maybe the next day.
Or the one after that.
But every time I even thought about stepping foot back in that house, my stomach twisted itself into a knot so tight it made my chest ache.

Because something bad was coming.
I could feel it in my bones.
And the sick part was – I didn't even know if it was worse to stay away or go back and wait for it.

So I hid.

Niamh didn't push.
She let me claim her bed, steal her oversized jumpers, exist on nothing but tea, toast, and episodes of One tree hill.
She let me pretend, for a little while, that the world outside her bedroom didn't exist. That I wasn't one wrong step away from watching everything fall apart again.

Her parents barely noticed.

Mrs. O'Neill was polite in that detached, middle-class-mother kind of way – asked if I wanted a lift to school, left extra bread out at breakfast, occasionally poked her head in the room to ask if we needed anything and didn't wait for the answer.
Mr. O'Neill worked late most nights and when he was home, he barely looked up from the telly.

It wasn't cruelty.
It wasn't kindness either.
It was apathy.

Pierce wasn't thrilled.

He didn't like having me around.
Not because he gave a shit about me, but because my presence disrupted his little kingdom.
Niamh's room was her world, her escape, and when I was there, it meant she wasn't orbiting around him.

He muttered a few comments the first night – something about strays and how the house wasn't a hostel. Niamh shut him down so fast his head spun.

After that, he kept his distance.

We passed each other in the hallway a few times.
He gave me that look – the one that said he could ruin my life if he felt like it.
The one I'd seen him give to Feely and Gibsie and Johnny when they pissed him off on the pitch.

I didn't flinch.
Didn't give him the satisfaction.

Niamh made it clear that if he tried anything, I'd tell Johnny.
And Pierce, for all his bravado, knew better than to start a war he couldn't win.

So, the house mostly ignored me.
Which suited me fine.

Except at school, I couldn't hide. Not properly. Not from him.

Johnny.
The problem I wasn't brave enough to admit I wanted.

He never cornered me.
Never demanded I talk about it.
Not once.
And maybe that made it worse, because he didn't have to say a word for me to feel him everywhere.

He always showed up.

Every morning this week, there was a cup of tea waiting for me on my desk before homeroom started.
Strong, the way I liked it.
No one said a thing.
Not Gibsie, not Niamh, not even Feely – though Gibsie winked at me once and got a pencil thrown at his head for it.

At lunch, Johnny would find me.
No matter where I went, no matter how quickly I slipped out of class, he always managed to catch me somewhere – near the lockers, outside the back pitch, in the stupid gap between the science block and the gym.
Never cornering.
Never making a scene.

Just showing up.

"Alright, Sunshine." He'd say softly, like it wasn't the most dangerous thing he could call me.