Should Have Known Better

Ch 1

"Eamon says girls don't like it if you kiss them down there." The words were coupled with an amused stare. 

Seannie tore his eyes from mine long enough to scar the room. Turning back, a lazy smirk had appeared. Without another word, he took my hand and lead me to the pub loo as he had done a hundred times before. There - like we always did- we proved Eamon wrong.  

When done, he held me, fingers brushing down my arm to soothe us both from our high. It felt more foreign than his lips between my thighs, though my body had moulded to it with that natural need. It was a need I excused myself with when any regrets followed in years to come. 

He kissed me that night, smirk reappearing, but with an edge of embarrassed nerves rather than with cockiness. 

He'd asked me on a date. 

Meet at the bus stop. Thursday night. 5pm. 

Thursday came & I stood alone, wrapped up in my cousin Paula's old coat, restless fingers finding torn tissues & sweet papers in the pockets. I stood until the last bus passed me by & Pa Sloane staggered from his front door to McGlinchy's pub on the corner. When I came home Mam told me my nose was red and my face blue. Three weeks later it was green as I threw up before school, heart hurting as my stomach churned with the life forming inside of it. 

Seannie's family were bad'uns - as my mam would say. His Da had the eyes that looked in all directions at once. They said his day was a' coming. It seemed it had come. After a scare from a family foe, Seannie's mother had fled in the night, bringing the kids with her. It was two days before our date, three days after Seannie had poured our daughter inside me. 

Eamon never heard from him again, nor did Wee Dave nor his Da - who Seannie had started working for down the builder's yard. 

As my stomach grew and Dervla Walker's taunts grew with it, my baby, nor its father could stay a secret for long. 

As soon as she could, Mam packed me off to Jane's. My sister was a newlywed with a toddler on her hip and another on the way. It wasn't an easy pregnancy for her, and with her husband at work all day, she needed all the help she could get. 

I moved to Rathdrum, a council development in the next town over. It was made up of endless streets, lined with grey houses with grey faces staring out the windows. 

I felt a right fool the day I arrived, getting off the bus with a torn schoolbag in one hand whilst the other clutched my swollen stomach. In hindsight, our Paula's coat was likely the cause of the stares as I lost myself between Rathdrum Drive and Rathdrum Walk. The coat was bright pink, individualised with peace signs and song lyrics in a black marker snatched from the English teacher's desk. My first impressions weren't good, but it didn't take long for some politician's concrete dream to feel like home. 

Little has changed over the years in Rathdrum. The shop still turns a blind eye to teenagers pitching together for their first pack of cigarettes, and the Saturday night piss stains still decorate the walls. It is still the hot spot for the latest gossip though, even if the gossipers have greyed and their baby's prams have turned to crutches and walking sticks. 

I bought my baby her first jar of food there, clueless as to how long it took for a child to be weaned off milk and onto a mashed concoction promised to taste of banana. I bought the bottles of vodka there too when it all got too much. When my first flat of my own felt like prison walls and a crying toddler felt like the devil himself. It was days like that where I'd curse Seannie, curse his smile and charm so strong that he didn't need words. I wasn't the only young single mum in Rathdrum, but there were days when I still felt like I was the only one in the world.