Aoife’s expression changed so subtly that, if I hadn’t been staring directly at her, I probably would’ve missed it entirely.
The smart-arse grin that had been sitting comfortably on her face for the last twenty minutes disappeared. She lowered the crisp packet onto her lap and folded her arms loosely across her chest, her eyes never leaving mine.
“The questions you should be asking,” she said carefully, choosing each word like she was testing its weight before letting it leave her mouth, “are the same questions people should’ve been asking a very long time ago.”
I frowned.
“What questions?”
Aoife didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she held my gaze, and there was something deeply unsettling about the look in her eyes. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t pity. It was the expression of somebody standing beside a cliff edge, watching someone else walk towards it.
“The ones nobody wanted the answers to,” she said quietly. “The ones people ignored because the truth would’ve been too ugly to look at.”
A muscle jumped in my jaw.
“Molloy.”
She inhaled slowly. “Since the twenty-fourth of April, two thousand.”
The date hit me harder than it should have and my stomach tightened instantly.
I stared at her.
“The night Caoimhe Young died?”
Aoife’s eyes closed briefly, and when she opened them again, there wasn’t a trace of humour left in her face.
“No, Joey. The problem is that everybody thinks that’s where the story starts.”
A cold feeling crawled slowly down my spine.
“What does that mean?”
For the first time in my life, Aoife Molloy looked genuinely reluctant to speak.
“It means people spent years looking at the wrong tragedy.”
My chest tightened.
“What tragedy should they have been looking at?”
She stared at me for several seconds before looking away.
Towards the football pitch.
Towards the trees.
Towards anywhere except me.
When she finally spoke again, her voice sounded tired.
“The one that didn’t end with a funeral.”
