“Do you think everybody’s redeemable in some way?” Sam asked as I tended to my flowers. He must’ve been bored because he’d decided to come up and join me. It was a Sunday, late evening, and I hadn’t seen Dylan all week. Not since our couch fumble.

I wondered if his dad grounded him for getting suspended; he didn’t seem the type. Maybe he regretted kissing me and was keeping his distance until he figured out a way to let me down easily.

Such was the way my mind worked when it began fretting about things.

“Redeemable?” I asked, only half paying attention.

Sam let out an impatient sigh. “You’ve been in your own little world all week. What’s up with you?”

I’d been hesitant to tell him about Dylan, mostly out of pettiness. I could tell Sam had some sort of secret, something he wasn’t telling me. I wasn’t going to confide in him if he wouldn’t confide in me.

“If I’m in my own little world, you’re in your own little universe,” I replied.

Sam tilted his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been just as distracted as I have, and what’s all this about people being redeemable? Who exactly are you talking about?”

Sam looked away, something akin to shame on his face. He took a long moment to consider his answer, then finally he blurted, “Shane kissed me.”

I blinked at him. “He what?”

He turned away again, his expression conflicted. “He kissed me. You were right. He is gay.”

More blinking. I was stunned, couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Couldn’t believe both Sam and I had our first kisses within the same week. And now I understood his question. He wanted to know if Shane could be redeemed.

I considered how to phrase my question. “So . . . um, how did it happen?”

“He cornered me on the way home from school one day. You were gone to visit your gran, so I was on my own. I was so scared, thinking he was going to hit me or something, but then he just . . . grabbed me and kissed me.”

My mouth fell open. My Freudian theory turned out to be true, and I hadn’t really believed in it myself.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “So now I have to deal with the fact that my bully has a crush on me.”

“Quite the pickle,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip. A silence fell between us before I ventured, “How was it?”

Sam squinted at me. “The kiss? Horrible. Completely and positively gross.”

I chuckled. “That good, huh?”

He sighed again. If he wasn’t careful people might mistake him for a dejected eighteenth-century damsel waiting for a husband. “What is it about bastards we can’t resist?”

I shrugged, no answers forthcoming. I’d never fancied a bastard. Quite the opposite. I fancied Dylan O’Dea, who talked about things most people our age never gave a second thought, and told me I was beautiful inside and out.

Almost as though my thoughts conjured him, he appeared on the roof with Conor by his side.

“Looks like we have company.” Sam knocked back a gulp of his Coke.

I caught Dylan’s eye. His smile was so radiant, all my worries from the last week evaporated. He hadn’t stayed away by choice. Indifference wasn’t something boys felt when they smiled at girls like Dylan O’Dea was smiling at me.

I hoped.

“Thought we’d find you up here,” he said, coming to sit on the edge of my allotment. Conor sat, too, saying hello to Sam.

“No Amy today?” Sam asked, and Dylan shook his head.

“She’s visiting her cousins in Wexford.”

“A pity. I’m becoming fond of her snark.”

“She tells it to you straight, that’s for sure,” Conor agreed.

“So, what are you two handsome fellas up to this evening?” Sam asked, fluttering his eyelashes flirtatiously.

“Thought we’d gatecrash whatever you two are doing,” Dylan replied, looking at me. “This is the first I’ve been out since I got suspended.”

So, his dad was the grounding type. I swallowed my relief, while memories I’d been replaying all week flooded my head.

“Freedom looks good on you,” I muttered under my breath and Dylan’s eyes crinkled in another smile.

“Well, once Ev’s finished up here we’re gonna work on a sugar high, then binge-watch Desperate Housewives,” said Sam.

“But you’re both very welcome to join us,” I added quickly.

Sam cut me a look, questioning why I was being overly friendly. I mean, I was. But I wanted Dylan to stay. I feared Yvonne walking in on us the other day scared him off. My aunt knew something was up, perceptive as she was, and proceeded to interrogate Dylan over burnt pizza and 7up.

Funnily enough, she didn’t say much to me after he left, only that she knew I was a clever girl and didn’t need to be warned about being ‘careful’. Somehow it came out sounding like a warning anyway.

“Need any help?” Dylan asked and scooted closer to me, his voice soft.

“Nah, I’m almost done here,” I replied, just as softly.

What I really wanted to say was, you can help me by kissing me again.

Seriously, laying a kiss as amazing as that on a girl and then leaving her hanging for a full week was just plain rude.

“Hey, maybe one of you can help me with a question,” Sam said to Dylan and Conor.

“I love questions,” Conor commented dryly.

“Well,” Sam went on, unfazed, “I was wondering whether you think everyone is redeemable?”

“Everyone in the whole entire world?” Dylan asked incredulous. “Definitely not.”

“Okay.” Sam gave him his full attention. “Why?”

“You have serial killers, paedophiles, rapists, all of whom continually reoffend, even when people try to help them rehabilitate.”

“All right, I’ll give you the serial killer and the rapists, but what about people who are just sort of arseholes? Do you think they can ever become less . . . arsehole-y?”

I chuckled at Dylan’s perplexed expression. He was quiet a moment, thinking on it, then said, “I suppose under the right conditions, if they actually wanted to change, then yes, they could be redeemed.”

“Huh,” Sam said, mulling it over.

“A lot of people have their reasons for being who they are. Some are just too far gone,” Dylan went on. “Take my dad as an example. He’s always been a worrier, probably since the day he was born. It’s just how he is. He’ll never change, no matter if all the evils in the world were suddenly eradicated. He’d still worry that the sun might shine too brightly, or that the moon could fall from the sky.”

“Some people take pleasure in fretting,” I added.

“Exactly,” Dylan agreed. “In my opinion, we’ve all got an inherent negativity bias, something inside of us that makes us fixate on the bad rather than appreciate the good. It’s certainly a problem for me.”

“Isn’t that just an Irish thing though? A weird by-product of a conquered people?” Conor suggested. “We’re programmed to fixate on dark clouds. And my dad is Kenyan, so I’m double screwed,” he joked.

Dylan considered him a moment, thinking on it. “Remember in The Matrix, when Agent Smith tells Morpheus the first matrix was a utopia, and it fell apart because the humans couldn’t accept it? We define our existence through misery and suffering. He said the perfect world was a dream we kept trying to wake up from, too good to be real. I think that’s all of us, no matter what country we’re born into.”

I frowned at him now. “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree. I don’t define my existence through misery, I define it through the people I love.”

Dylan’s attention landed on me, his expression contemplative, and I thought he wanted to say something but then Sam asked, “What’s a negativity bias?”

Dylan glanced at him, and if I wasn’t mistaken he appeared somewhat relieved for the distraction. He pushed up his shirtsleeve to the elbow, revealing an attractive forearm. It was an unconscious action, but it transfixed me. I found everything about his body interesting, from the tiny freckle above his upper lip, to the small stress line between his eyebrows. I felt like some Victorian-era gentlemen, who got a stiffy from the sight of a bare ankle.

“Okay, so imagine something bad happened, and then right after it, something good. You’d still be upset by the bad thing, even though the good thing came right after,” Dylan explained.

Sam’s expression was thoughtful, and he went quiet. Finally he said, “This one time, Mrs Gogarty gave me a right rollicking when I failed the French exam, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how mean she was even though it was my birthday the next day and everyone was giving me presents.”

“What an adorable example, Sam,” I said on a chuckle.

He shot me the side-eye and stuck out his tongue.

“For most people it’s fine, they can get over their pessimistic thoughts eventually. But some of us, well, we can get trapped for days in negative thinking. It can be quite damaging to your mental health,” Dylan continued.

“Do you know what? We always talk about the most unusual things when you’re around,” Sam told him.

Dylan gave a wry smile. “I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”

Sam was right though. Dylan had this way of making you think about things that might never normally cross your mind. I knew he thought he depressed people, but I found him captivating. I liked getting his take on things, which was why I wanted to ask him what he thought about Shane kissing Sam. I was worried Sam might get carried away with whole forbidden nature of it all. Shane was good-looking, but he was still a bully, and he was a very, very angry and troubled individual. Combine that with a bad case of self-deception and an inability to accept his sexuality, you had a recipe for disaster, with Sam in the eye of the storm.

I nudged my friend with my elbow. “Can I tell Dylan and Conor about what you just told me?”

Sam gaped at me. “What? No!”

“Okay, now I’m curious,” Conor said. “What did he tell you?”

“I want to get their opinions. And they won’t tell anyone, right?” I looked from Dylan and then to Conor.

“Cross my heart,” Conor assured.

“I need a little more information before I can make that promise,” Dylan countered with a smirk.

“Oh, don’t be difficult,” I chided, unable to help smiling back at him.

He raised his hands. “Fine. I won’t tell a soul. These lips will go to their grave sealed.”

Great, now I was thinking about his lips.

Sam gave a beleaguered groan. “Okay, you can tell them, but you both seriously need to promise not to tell anyone, especially Amy. She won’t be able to keep her mouth shut, and if this gets out I’m dead.”

I thought he was being a tad overdramatic there, but whatever. I looked from Conor to Dylan. “Shane Huntley kissed him the other day.”

“Piss off,” Conor scoffed, disbelieving.

“Doesn’t shock me,” Dylan said.

“Well, it shocks me,” Conor disagreed. “Shane’s just so . . . not gay.” A pause as a thought crossed his face. “He’s the anti-gay.”

I laughed softly at his fervency, while Sam eyed Dylan curiously. “Why doesn’t it shock you?”

“Oh, come on,” Dylan scoffed. “He’s the very embodiment of a self-hating gay. A prime example of growing up in this place. Anger, violence, and overt masculinity are revered, while anything even remotely effeminate in a man is considered repugnant. It’s pretty standard in lower socio-economic groups.”

“Sometimes you talk like a professor studying the Villas instead of someone who actually lives here,” Sam said, and he was dead right. It felt like Dylan had already mentally removed himself from this place. He’d made up his mind to leave a long time ago, and nothing would stop him from going. I felt a faint pang of missing him, and he wasn’t even gone yet.

“It’s easier to live here that way,” he replied, and Sam studied him with narrowed eyes.

Like me, Sam was pretty accepting of his place in life. He didn’t have any wild or lofty aspirations. He just wanted to a job, a roof over his head, and somebody to love him.

“My mam says this was the fifth-last place God made. It’s bad, but it’s not the worst,” said Sam.

“That’s a good way of putting it,” Conor agreed.

“Anyway, I think you should be careful where Shane’s concerned. He’s not right in the head,” Dylan warned.

“Who would be right in the head when they were raised by a mother like his, though?” Sam questioned.

Was he defending him?

“Well, like I said, some people are dicks because someone else made them that way,” Dylan told him, almost apologetically. He seemed to see the hope in Sam and wanted to let him down gently. I tried to deal with the fact that Sam obviously wanted Shane to be redeemable. I mean, it made sense. This was the first bit of romantic attention he’d received from another boy, and I used the term ‘romantic’ very loosely. He wanted it to be real. I could only imagine the star-crossed lovers narrative going on in his head right now.

Down on the street, there was a loud ruckus as a bunch of people got off the bus coming into town. They were all young, all dressed to the nines for their Saturday night out. A pair of sparkly high heels caught my eye, twinkling in the fading daylight. Dylan let out a low grunt of displeasure when he saw them.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning at his sudden annoyance.

He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“No, you’re obviously bothered about something. Tell us.”

He blew out a breath. “They just irritate me.”

“Who? The people who got off the bus?”

“Look, I know it’s irrational,” he huffed. “But I just can’t stand people who come into the city to get drunk.”

“They can be pretty irritating,” Sam agreed. “Most weekends I get woken up at three in the morning by people making noise on their way home from the nightclub down the street. Pisses my dad right off, too.”

Dylan’s jaw moved in a way that told me he was agitated. “It’s all fun and games for them to come in here and mess around. Have fun. Be loud. Act like fools because they’re anonymous in the city. They don’t realise that some of us actually have to live here,” he fumed, a deep frown marring his forehead. “We don’t get to go home to our big suburban houses and sleep off the hangover. Our lives are a constant hangover. Our homes aren’t houses, they’re shelves. Worse than shelves, they’re units, containers. They slot us in, making sure we take up as little space as possible. Making sure it costs them as little as possible, with cheap materials, and dodgy wiring, and pyrite, and mould and radon. We have no gardens to sit in, nothing pleasant to look at. Just concrete and dust and noise and dreams so big that one day we might crack in half from trying to hold them all in.”

I had to catch my breath when he finally finished talking, because my heart was racing. I wasn’t sure what it was about what he said, but I felt angry, too. I felt angry just from listening to him. It was like he gave voice to things I never even realised agitated me. But they did. I knew it by the way my chest burned.

We did live in containers.

Cheap, dirty, and grey.

And we didn’t have gardens.

Hell, I had to go so far as creating my own on this dank, rust-infested roof to sate my need to be around nature. To see green things and colour. And there was the constant fight against mould and various other hazards of living in a badly constructed building.

“But this is what you get when you’re at the bottom,” Conor pointed out. “You have to work your way up. Nobody gets given anything for free in life.”

“That’s not true. The rich get everything for free, and they’re the ones who need it least,” Dylan countered. “With their tax cuts and expense accounts, and complimentary tickets to go see Bon Jovi play some ridiculously giant arena.”

“Okay, you have a point,” Conor acceded.

“And they don’t appreciate any of it,” Dylan grunted. “I tell you what, if I ever make any kind of money, I’ll be grateful for every penny, and I won’t keep it all to myself like a selfish bastard either.”

“People always say that,” Sam said. “But then they win the lotto, and poof, they think they’re Mariah and could give a shit about the people who were there for them before the money came along. You see stories about it in magazines all the time.”

“Well, I won’t be like that. Just you wait.”

I eyed him, feeling speculative. “How can you be so sure you’ll make it rich? More people fail than succeed.”

And more specifically, how did he plan on doing it? I swear I could sit for hours asking him questions, picking his captivatingly interesting brain.

Dylan shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’m just determined.”

“And if you succeed, will you be happy then? Or will you be like your dad, worrying that the sun is shining too brightly, or that the moon might fall from the sky?” I asked in challenge.

Dylan seemed surprised that I was able to quote him so exactly. But when he spoke, I listened, soaked up every word. He studied me for a long time, and I couldn’t tell if he was irritated by my question or if it gained me a new level of respect from him.

I decided it was the latter when his expression warmed as he replied, “Honestly? I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try.”

A short silence fell, and I stared at Dylan. I couldn’t tell how long I was locked in his gaze when Sam spoke. “Okay, let’s talk about something a little cheerier, eh? Name three of your favourite things. Ev, you go first.”

I grinned at Sam. I loved how he always found a way to brighten the mood. “Hmm, let me see,” I said, pondering it as I scratched my chin. I lifted a finger. “Little old dogs with fat bellies who waddle when they walk up to you on the street.” I lifted a second finger. “Babies laughing at their own farts.” I lifted a third. “And the smell of jasmine first thing in the morning.”

“Babies laugh at their own farts?” Conor asked, perplexed.

I nodded. “Yes, it’s both hilarious and adorable.”

“My little brother Mark used to do it all the time,” said Sam. “Okay, Conor, it’s your turn now. Go!”

Conor scoffed. “That’s easy. My three favourite things are meat feast pizzas, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and the way Yvonne looks when she smiles at me.” He appeared a little embarrassed by the last bit.

I shook my head at him. “I can’t believe you’re still crushing on my aunt.”

“After he saw her in her PJs last week his crush reached stratospheric levels,” Dylan told us.

“You’re one to talk,” Sam commented. “I bet one of your favourite things is the way Ev looks when she smiles at you.”

Dylan cast me a glance, and I flushed when he replied, “It might be.”

“Sigh. He’s so romantic. Isn’t he romantic, Ev?”

“My God, Sam. You already sigh way too much, you don’t need to introduce the actual word into your repertoire,” I complained, trying not to blush.

“Oh hush, you love everything in my repertoire.”

I rolled my eyes. He was right. I did. There was something in my DNA that programmed me to adore him, even when he was irritating the crap out of me. I was still thinking about my best friend when Dylan spoke, but instead of addressing all of us, he directed his words to me.

“My other two favourite things are how your eyes look like sapphires in the sunlight, and the way you laugh when someone says something really funny.”

I looked at him then, and my heart caught in my throat. There was no inhibition in his eyes, no hesitation in talking to me so intimately with Conor and Sam beside us. My entire body grew hot as I looked away shyly, wishing we were alone, wishing I could kiss him.

“Anybody got a fan? ’Cause I’m swooning my arse off over here,” Sam thrilled, fanning himself with his hand. “They should hire you out for hen parties. Who needs a stripper when they could have you serenading them with flowery love talk?”

Yes, who indeed.

Something unfurled inside me, a fleshy, curly, tangled thing. It twined itself around my heart, my lungs and other organs, twisting tight until I felt like I couldn’t breathe too well.

And it sucked, because he’d never stay here. With me. Dylan was meant for more than this tiny city on the edge of a little island surrounded by the sea.

And just like a rock hurtling off that very edge, I fell for him hard.