“That’s his sister,” Neil told me. “Isn’t she beautiful?” His eyes were as transparent as his soul. He was always as open as a book with me, my family, everyone. It didn’t take long at all for him to win her over, he knew how to do it, I have to admit. He was sweet, attentive, affectionate. He wasn’t interested in other women, there was only one he wanted, for himself, forever. He had clear ideas right away.

“One day, I’m going to marry her,” he told me after less than a month. He was 18 at the time. He almost made it.

And me? I was just his big brother that she saw as a friend, someone you could pass a bit of time with. One of many, in a group. And that’s what I’ve always been. It’s useless to say that’s how this situation has affected my life. I’ve never been a bastard with women, it’s just that I’ve never found the right one. Sweet, nice, sometimes in love, but I never was, even though I tried. No one was like her. I never said anything, Neil was my brother and they were happy; she loved him and he would have given anything for her, even his life. And he did.

Then one day something in my equilibrium and my self control just broke down. We had just signed the contract for the second album after the first one was successful in Ireland. People started to recognize us in the streets, asking for autographs, following us to concerts. There were sponsors, tours in Europe, money, fame, everything we always dreamed of. For us guys who grew up on Pearse Street, from simple families who had never seen anything similar, it was overwhelming and we didn’t want to mess it up. But the tour would have taken Neil away from Rain for eight long months and he wouldn’t have been able to resist being with her. He lived for her. Rain had her job, she had just started student teaching at the school. She adored the children in her class and they venerated her. She never would have left them to follow us.

“I’m gonna marry her, Liam, by God, I am! And I’m gonna bring her with me, I can’t leave her here, you understand me?”

And I could understand, more than he realized.

I found her in tears in the garden behind the house. The door was open as always in our house. I went to go find her after Neil told me she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry him. He was desperate, he wanted to give up everything and stay behind for her. But without Neil, we were nothing. He was the soul of the group. He was the one who wrote our songs.

I decided to try and talk to her, to try and find a way out of the situation, because our dream was on the line. Rain was sitting on the old rusted swing in the garden, swinging silently, crying. I walked up to her without saying a word while the words from ‘My Chemical Romance’ blasting full volume on the kitchen stereo were breaking my heart to bits.

We sat there in silence for about a half an hour until she finally looked up at me and I realized in that moment that I would have lost it.

Forever.

Well, when you go/Don’t ever think I’ll make you try to stay/And maybe when you get back/I’ll be off to find another way.

“Neil wants us to get married,” she told me, “before leaving for the European tour. A month, Liam, that gives me a month. I can’t do it, not this soon and not for that reason.”

“Have you told him what you think?”

“I love him, you know,” she answered with tolerance, shrugging her shoulders.

When you go would you even turn to say/I don’t love you like I did yesterday?

I shut my eyes tightly, and grabbed the chains on the swing with such force I could feel the rusted metal cutting into my hands.

“I’m happy for your success, you all deserve it. But I can’t turn my life upside down for this. I don’t want to wait for him to come back to the hotel room at night after hundreds of women have fawned over him.”

“You know he’s not like that. Neil loves you, he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

“Yeah—”

“—You don’t have to if you don’t feel it, Rain. He’ll understand.”

“And you?”

“Me, what?”

“I’m asking you what you think.”

Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading/So sick and tired of all the needless beating/But baby when they knock you down and out/It’s where you ought to stay.

I jumped to my feet to get as far away from her perfume as I could because it was clouding my thoughts, it would have made me swing her way, fall apart, ruin everything.

“What do I have to do with this?” I said, turning my back to her.

I heard her stand up and come towards me. I heard her breath quicken as she got closer. I heard my own heartbeat going crazy and the blood rushing to my temples.

She put her hand on my back to force me to turn around and face her. I couldn’t avoid it, I couldn’t refuse that contact.

Just one time, I told myself.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds before taking a big breath and opened them again, only to get lost in hers. I implored her, with my eyes, with the tears and the words that did not come out, but that I yelled with my whole heart. Then, I caressed her face and she rested her cheek in my palm. I felt the cold tears falling through my fingers, I felt my heart stop a few seconds and I knew I had to do it.

Just this once.

I pulled her to me with the other arm as tight as I could, to transmit everything I could in that hug, all of the words I wasn’t able to say.

She let me hold her and console her, until I pulled back and I dove into her eyes without hesitating.

“Don’t do it,” I simply told her.

And a second after that, her hands were in my hair and mine in hers. Our lips were searching for each other, exploring and tasting one another for the first time. A sweet flavor like her disarming fragility, and bitter, because I knew it would be the only kiss that I would have ever stolen from her.

I don’t love you like I loved you yesterday.

“Please, I beg you not to do it,” I repeated, when she had already gone and all that I was left with was the taste of her tears on my lips and the pain of losing the only woman I would ever love in my heart.