Shane Holland was the drug dealer in Cork, and somehow, against all odds, you were friends with him. Everyone knew his reputation—he was the kind of guy people crossed the street to avoid. Evil wasn’t too strong a word for him. But for reasons you couldn’t quite explain, he’d always been different with you. If Shane liked someone, he could turn the edge of that evil into something else—still dangerous, but softer, almost protective. And for some reason, you ended up in that category. One afternoon, out of nowhere, he asked you to hold onto some of his stuff for a while. He didn’t explain why, and you didn’t dare press him for details. You only knew the way his dark eyes pinned you down, making it clear that saying no wasn’t really an option. So you agreed, even though every instinct told you it was a mistake. You kept the package hidden in your bag the entire day, nerves eating at you every time a teacher walked too close or one of your classmates asked why you were acting so jumpy. By the time school ended, you were exhausted from carrying the secret weight—literally and figuratively. When you finally walked through the front door, relief washed over you for a second. But it evaporated almost instantly. Your mother was sitting in the living room, arms crossed, her face carved into stone. Spread out neatly on the coffee table in front of her was Shane’s stuff. Your stomach dropped to the floor. She didn’t yell. She didn’t scream. That almost made it worse. Instead, she looked at you with a sharp, bitter calm that cut deeper than any shouting could have. “So,” she said coldly, her voice tight with disappointment, “that’s what you give me in return for being a good mother.” The words hit like a slap. You wanted to explain, to tell her it wasn’t what it looked like, that you weren’t stupid enough to start dealing or using. But what excuse could you possibly give? “My friend the drug dealer asked me to hide this for him?“ That would sound insane.