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Saoirse

 

 

 

I stood at the end of a table of trays, the bottoms lined with white crystals.

The first batch was done. Perfected, actually. This meth was as pure as it could get.

But the surge of satisfaction of a job well done was hampered by a growing unease.

This drug had killed my mother. It had ruined her life well before she’d died. Now I was about to send more of it out into the world.

I was suddenly overcome with the urge to throw all the trays aside.

“I’m proud of you, baby girl.” My da grabbed my shoulder and squeezed.

Not even the warmth of his pride could fully overcome this sickening feeling I had.

“Thanks,” I said limply.

I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t.

During the manufacturing process I was able to switch off, pretend it was something else I was cooking, follow the process like an unemotional detached machine. But now…

My father spoke about distribution and his investors, things I had no desire to hear.

“…and check out the cool packaging I came up with.”

He pulled something from his back pocket, a flat, clear plastic sealable bag—a baggie—about the size of a playing card, and held it up to me, a logo branding one side in shimmering blue ink.

I snatched it out of his hand, the blood draining from my face.

There on the baggie was Diarmuid’s selkie tattoo.

“W-What? How?” I gripped the edge of the plastic, my hands shaking.

“I saw the drawing of the selkie you’d doodled on a bit of paper at home. I liked the design and thought it represented you and your product perfectly.”

Oh my God. I was going to be sick.

I was going to be fucking sick.

All of this meth was going to be distributed throughout Ireland carrying Diarmuid’s selkie tattoo that he’d gotten for me.

“D-do you have to use that design?”

My da frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”

Everything.

But he couldn’t know the reason. I couldn’t tell him.

“I just…feel weird having something I drew on your packaging.”

My da tucked his hand around the back of my neck and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Don’t worry, no one will be able to trace it back to you.”

Except somebody could.

What the hell was I going to do?

“You okay, baby girl?” my da asked.

I had to pretend everything was okay.

I forced a smile, trying to shove my panic down.

“Yeah fine. Just…tired.” I shoved the baggie into the back pocket of my jeans and grabbed my bag. “I’m ready to go home.”

“Yeah sure, baby girl. Just ten more minutes while I check on some stuff. Go raid the fridge.”

Fuck. I didn’t want to stay here, not for another second. I hated not having my own car. I still had a few more months where my licence was suspended. But I didn’t care. I needed a way to leave this place when I wanted to. Otherwise I was trapped.

“I’ll wait here,” I said. “But I need my own car, Da, if I’m going to keep working out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“Anything for my baby girl,” my da called out over his shoulder.

Only when I was alone did I press my face into my hands and squeeze my eyes shut. I had to tell Diarmuid. I had to tell him before he found out.

How could I tell him?

 

 

 

The next day I waited on a predetermined corner as Diarmuid’s truck pulled up. He jumped out and pressed me into the door of the truck, roping his fingers into my hair and kissing me as if it’d been years since he’d seen me. He kissed me as if I was everything.

As if I was perfect.

I wasn’t.

As if I wasn’t guilty.

I was.

I pushed him away and ducked my head aside. “Someone might see.”

“Let them see.”

He leaned in for another kiss, which I avoided.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

You’re going to realise how much of a liar I am. How bad I am. I’m going to lose you.

I opened my mouth to confess…

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lose that tender look in his hazel eyes. I couldn’t lose his kisses.

“Nothing,” I lied.

“Okay…” He opened the door for me, watching me warily.

I jumped into his truck and closed the door before he could ask me again. Before my horrible secret tumbled from my mouth. There had to be a way for me to tell Diarmuid and for me not to lose him. Maybe… Maybe he’d never find out?

Diarmuid walked around to the driver’s side. I realised I was half sitting on a stack of papers. I pulled out the stack of papers from underneath me. They looked like three or four thin brochures amongst papers.

I frowned when I caught my name on the salutation on the top paper. I flicked through them. They were all addressed to me.

“What’s this?” I demanded, turning to Diarmuid as soon as he slid into his seat.

A wave of guilt crossed his face. “I forgot I’d left them there. I was going to show you…”

“Show me what?”

“They’re brochures from various universities that are open for scholarship applications. If you applied, they’d be mad not to take you. You wouldn’t have to wait a whole year to start studying.” He started the truck and pulled us out of the parking lot onto the road.

I leafed through the papers and brochures, my eyes bulging. “This university’s in Canada. This one is in Australia.”

“All the universities in Ireland are closed for applications until next year. You said so yourself.”

My gaze snapped to his, a sudden realisation clawing at my chest making it hard to breathe. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

“What? No!” he protested.

Tears rimmed my eyes. I tried to blink away the sting, but it didn’t work. “You want me but you’re embarrassed about me. I’m a nuisance to you. It’d be better for you if I just went away.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Why are you sending me away?”

“I’m not sending you away. Saoirse, I just want you to know what else is out there. You don’t want to stay in Limerick your whole life, do you?”

That’s when I realised that Diarmuid didn’t see a future between us. Whatever it was that we were doing together in secret, it would one day end. And soon, if I did go to university overseas.

“I thought we…” My voice broke. I sucked in a breath, steeled myself and tried again. “I thought you and I had a connection.”

“We do.”

“Why are you trying to break it?”

“Even if we have a connection, you’re so young.”

“I fucking hate it when everyone says that.”

“It’s true. You might hate it but it’s true. I don’t want you saddled with an old man like me.”

“You’re not old.”

He snorted. “No, I’m not old. But I’m old enough to know better.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, my nerves twanging.

“What if…” I began. “What if this is the life that I want? To stay here in Limerick and be with…someone?” I didn’t have the nerve to say his name. I opened my eyes, searching his face for his reaction. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay in Limerick and be someone’s wife.”

His jaw ticked. “There is something wrong with it if the only reason you’re choosing that life is because you don’t know anything different. Jesus,” Diarmuid let out an exasperated sigh, “just look at the brochures, just think about it.”

“Why do you care whether I go to college or not?”

“Because,” he yelled, “you have more potential in your middle finger than all the teenagers I’ve mentored in my whole life. You have a chance to get out of here, to make something of yourself. I will not let you destroy it.”

I sank back into my seat, the air inside the truck reverberating at the fury in his voice, my heart silently breaking.

“How will you know for sure if you don’t see what else is out there? Don’t choose me—” he halted. “Don’t choose this life because you are ignorant of the other possibilities. You could do anything, Saoirse, be anyone.”

“Except be yours.” I whispered. “I’ll never really be yours.”