The Hurricane (30 page)

“Please, baby. I’m sorry for coming here, but don’t cut me off like this,” Sylvia pleaded. “You’ve got no idea how hard it is to raise a child as a single parent. You don’t know what I’ve been through to put food on the table when you were growing up. I depend on the money you give me now for food. Please don’t abandon me now just because you’ve met someone new.”

It amazed me how mercurial she could be. In an instant, she could swing from being nasty to playing the aggrieved, impoverished single mother perfectly.

“Fuck off, Ma. You didn’t put food on the table when I was a kid. I did. You didn’t raise me. I raised myself with a little help from Danny and Kieran’s Ma. I’ve been the fucking single parent, not you. If you want money, sell your house. You don’t need a three-bedroom place to yourself. But whatever you’re gonna do, fuck off and do it so that I can get on with the rest of my fucking life.”

Even with my touch to ground him, Sylvia had pushed him pretty close to the edge. Her little play on the heartstrings was like Frank telling me that he was raping me for my own good. She’d played her last hand as far as O’Connell was concerned.

“Fine. If that’s the way you feel, perhaps we’ll talk again when you’ve calmed down,” Sylvia said stiffly as she got out of the booth.

“No, Ma. There won’t be any more talking. Go away and don’t come back.”

“You don’t mean that. Without you I don’t have anything to live for,” she pleaded.

“Bullshit! I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve threatened me with suicide. You do what you want, but that’s your choice, not mine. And if you think that some half-hearted attempt will work like last time, you’re wrong. I’ll have you institutionalised for psychiatric problems and put on suicide watch.”

Sylvia paled, and I wondered if that was exactly what she’d planned to do next. O’Connell had her flustered, and I guessed that didn’t happen often. She smoothed down her skirt that was far too short for someone her age, picked up her handbag, and with one more death stare at me walked out of the door.

“You okay?” Mike asked me. I nodded, and with a small sympathetic smile, he headed back to the kitchen. O’Connell looked around at the cafe’s noisy patrons and all but growled as peopled hurried to divert their attention back to their own meals and away from our drama. O’Connell turned toward me, and in an unusual display of vulnerability, rested his forehead on my shoulder wearily.

“How did you know she was here?” I asked.

“Tommy said she was sniffing round the gym when I was running, looking for you. I didn’t know that she knew where you worked, but I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

He was quiet for a moment, then resting his hands on my waist he looked me hard in the eyes.

“You didn’t run,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

“I promised, didn’t I?” I smiled.

A FEW DAYS HAD PASSED since the exams, and I was pretty sure that Nikki and the gang had been partying for every one of them. I’d managed to pick up a few extra shifts at Daisy’s with some of the other girls wanting to go home for the holidays. Christmas was only two weeks away and the extra money would pay for a bit of Christmas shopping. I’d also promised Nikki, after a fair amount of arm bending, that I’d go for a night out with the guys before they headed home. Walking home from my breakfast shift, I was feeling quite festive for once and looking forward to having someone to spend it with. By noon the cafe had become pretty quiet, so after treating me to a delicious jacket potato, which Mike assured me I didn’t need to pay for, as a customer had changed his mind about an order and it was going spare, sent me home half an hour early. Although we hadn’t actually had snow yet, the frost was brutal and the pavements were pretty treacherous, but I made it home without slipping and breaking anything. I collected my post at the entrance and hummed Christmas carols all the way up to my flat. Shutting the door behind me, I chucked the keys on my desk and decided to have a cup of tea before checking my bills and attacking my heater. Seven hours later, O’Connell walked in through my door to find me sat on my bed, the flat freezing cold and my full cup of stone-cold tea on the table beside me. I was shaking, having held the letter in my icy fingers for so long, but I couldn’t let it go.

“Shit!” he muttered, slamming the door behind him. He dumped his training bag and grabbed my face.

“What’s wrong, baby? What happened?” he asked urgently. I couldn’t let go of the letter, so I told him what was in it.

“Mrs. Wallis wrote to me,” I turned to look at him, “my old teacher.”

“I remember who she is, sunshine,” he encouraged.

“She said that her house was broken into. There was nothing in there with my address on it because she keeps that in her diary which she had with her.”

“But she thinks it might be Frank, doesn’t she, looking for evidence of where you’ve gone,” he guessed, seeing quickly where I was going with this. I nodded my head and swallowed.

“The thing is, she said that she filed away all of my university acceptance letters but forgot to destroy them when I left. If it was Frank, he could have my full name now and a shortlist of universities where I could be. How long do you think it would take him to find me with that?”

“So, change your name again and make it more difficult for him, but you’re not running.”

“I won’t run,” I whispered, “I promised you I wouldn’t. But changing my name will take time, and even then I don’t know if it will stop him from finding me.”

He gave me his most adorable grin as he offered me his solution. “Then use a different way to change your name and marry me.” The shock that had me clutching the letter, now made me drop it to the floor.

“Thank you, but I don’t want to get married just to change my name. It’s kind of you to offer, but I can’t,” I protested.

“Then don’t marry me to change your name. Marry me because there will never be another man in this world who loves you as much as I do. You’re my best friend, my missing piece, and the only person who can make my world amazing just by being in it. Marry me because I promise you a lifetime of love and laughter and happiness.” He carried on seamlessly, as though he’d thought about this and wanted to get it out before he forgot any of it.

“I want to be your husband, sunshine. I want to know that you are and always will be the other half of me for the rest of my life. I know that people will say we’re too young and that we have the rest of our lives, but people don’t know shit about who we are and what we’ve been through. Give me one good reason why you don’t think we should get married, and I’ll give you a million reasons why I know we should.”

He knew that he needed to stop if he ever wanted to hear my answer, but it was as if he was afraid to in case my answer was no.

“You are absolutely certifiable, you know that.” I smiled at him.

“I know,” he said, tucking one of my curls behind my ear.

“I love you, Em. I will always love you. Will you marry me?” he asked gently.

Leaning forward, I held his face reverently in my hands and kissed him softly. With tears running down my cheeks, I whispered, “yes, I’ll marry you.”

O’Connell launched himself at me, smothering me with sloppy kisses. I couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction. This strong, beautiful, crazy man adored me and wanted to be with me for the rest of my life. Should I have worried about what the world would think of our getting married so young and so quickly? Probably, but then most people had family and had never been truly alone like we had. Now we would be each other’s family, and I know that the caveman in O’Connell wanted me to share his name.

“How quickly do you think we can pull this together?”

“You don’t waste any time do you?” I laughed.

“You have the most beautiful laugh in the world. It makes me sad that you’ve spent more time since I’ve known you crying than laughing. I promise you that I’m gonna change that. I promise to put a smile on your face every day that we’re married. Even when I make you ‘kick me in the balls’ mad, I’ll make you smile again before you sleep. I know that I don’t deserve you, but I’ll work every day to try to be the man that you do deserve.”

“You’re going to make me cry again,” I admitted, choked up.

I couldn’t believe he didn’t think he deserved me, but then maybe the key to success in any relationship was to always be with someone you thought was better than you deserved. He kissed me again until I pointed out something fairly obvious.

“We don’t have any money to get married. If we want to do this soon, it will have to be a quick Registry Office wedding.”

Crawling onto the bed, he pushed me backwards and climbed over me to nuzzle the side of my neck, making me laugh again.

“I’m not marrying you in some quick Registry Office ceremony. I want to get married in church.”

“Then we’ll set a date for early in the New Year and get married in church.”

“Yeah, we’re not waiting till New Year either.”

“O’Connell, you can’t have everything,” I said exasperated.

“Watch me.” He grinned. “Just leave it to me. I’ll sort everything out.”

“What are we going to do about Frank?” I asked worriedly.

“Nothing,” he told me. “If its okay with you, I’ll move in here until we can afford a bigger place, and if that fucker comes after me or my wife, I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate him,” I warned. “He doesn’t fight fair like you do.”

“Baby, I only fight fair in the ring. If he has the balls to come, then let him come. You’re not alone anymore.”

I cuddled in close to my fiancé until I realised something.

“Um, O’Connell. Do you want to jump in the shower?” He laughed out loud.

“You’re not very subtle about telling me I stink.”

“It’s not that,” I lied, “I just don’t want you to catch cold because you’re sitting round my apartment in your sweaty training gear.”

“I ran home from training to get in a few extra miles, and it’s our apartment now.”

“Not until after the wedding it isn’t,” I told him. “I’m not living with you in sin.”

“Whatever, sunshine. I’m pretty sure I can get you to sin even without the living.” With that, he pushed my top up and kissed my belly, slowly working his way up to my breasts as he proceeded to show me just how sinful I could be.

O’CONNELL MIGHT NOT HAVE officially moved in, but I was barely alone for a moment anymore. Until we were sure that Frank hadn’t found me, one of the boys took me everywhere. It was like they’d organised some kind of rota, which was pretty spectacular for them as I was pretty sure they couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. I have absolutely no idea what O’Connell said to Danny, and forever more it would stay between them. I knew that Danny did a fair bit of cursing and door slamming for a couple of days, but I didn’t know whether that was because he wasn’t happy about the wedding or because O’Connell had told him about Frank. But nothing was said to me until O’Connell passed on the message that Danny wanted to see me in the gym on Saturday morning at nine am.

“What, why?” I asked in a panic.

I didn’t mind getting the talk about how irresponsible we were being, but I’d prefer to have O’Connell by my side when it happened. The gym was surprisingly busy when I got there, and O’Connell winked at me from across the room as he carried on with his hanging sit-ups.

“I’ve made you coffee,” Danny told me as I walked into the office.

“Are you mad at me?” I blurted out. I couldn’t care less what anyone else thought, but Danny mattered to me.

“Why the feck would you think that?” he asked, as he sat down in his chair and lit up a cigarette.

“Because you think we’re too young, and it’s too rushed,” I answered truthfully.

“Do you think that, sunshine?” he asked, carefully.

“No,” I replied without hesitation. “I love him. Time and age won’t change that.”

By now, Danny must have known the full story, so I didn’t pull any punches. “He doesn’t see me as a victim, he sees me as strong and empowered. In his eyes, he’s not good enough for me, when in reality I’m not good enough for him. I want to marry him because he’s the man I want to grow old with. Before him, I didn’t even have hope that I’d get to grow old. This shitty life takes away far more than it gives us, and if I’ve got a chance of happiness, I’m taking it.”