She wanted a cherry slushie.

Didn’t say much else. Just stood at the foot of my bed this morning with a look on her face that said, You knocked me up, dickhead, buy me a cherry slushy at least. Which, honestly, fair. And to be fair to her, she did mask it by saying:

“I think I’m going to be sick if I don’t get one.”

So here we are.

Walking past Mr Dempsey’s Offie in the arse-end of town, the sky the colour of dishwater, and she’s sipping a too-bright drink turning her lips and tongue an artificial red and I’m holding her crisps. Her scarf. The hair tie she took off halfway here because it was giving her a headache. And I’d hold the moon in my mouth if she asked, so none of it really matters.

But she hasn’t looked at me once since we left her place. And that does matter.

“I looked it up last night,” she says, voice quiet and flat and so unlike her it actually hurts.

I slow down. “What?”

“Postnatal depression. Symptoms. Statistics. How it affects the child.”

Ah. Right.

“I mean,” she goes on, slushie straw squeaking against the lid, “we never really talked about it, but you remember what my mum was like after Harry, yeah?”

I nod.

How could I forget? She was ten when it happened. Told me how’d she cry day in and day out because her mum couldn’t get out of bed and her dad was working doubles so she’d take care of her newborn baby brother every day. She’d change his diapers, would boil his water and keep it in a thermos in his nursery along with the powder and feeding her mom porridge before she’d go to school.

Did I mention she was ten? A baby. Taking care of a baby. I know I lived it too but it hurt more with her because I was used to my pain. I’d never be used to hers.

I remember kneeling at the end of her bed, while she braided her hair before school, and snooping through her old diaries and finding a page from 05’ that had:

Don’t cry, Don’t cry, Don’t cry. Because Harry and Ma need you.

Written for 26 consecutive pages. 129 lines. And 1,008 fucking words.

I’d never hated anyone the way I hated in that moment. And it was an abstract hate because…there was no tangible thing to hate in that moment.

“I used to think she didn’t love me anymore,” she says, and this time she laughs. Except it isn’t a laugh, not really. “Isn’t that fucked?”

I stop walking.

She doesn’t. Just keeps going. Slushie in one hand, a whole life we didn’t plan in the other.

“{{user}}.”

She turns, slow, and finally looks at me.

Her eyes are rimmed red. She’s chewing her bottom lip raw. And I swear, there’s not a mark on my body that stings the way her silence does.

“I’m not her, I know,” she says quietly. “But what if I become her?”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t. But I know you.”

Her chin tips up. Defensive. Sharp. Always ready to bite when she feels small.

“I’m serious, Tadhg.”

“So am I.”

I step forward. Take the slushie from her hand before it spills—because it’s shaking now—and put it on the bench. Her knuckles are white. My heart’s in my fucking throat.

“You think I’m not scared?” I say, voice low. “You think I haven’t spent every night since that test wondering how the hell I’m supposed to be good enough for you—for them—but baby you gotta listen to me and trust us when I say, we have each other, you’re not gonna be like her because I’ll be here, every fucking minute and I won’t be like the own man because it’s you, and I won’t ever hurt you. I’ll always be the best man I can be for you. For the wee stowaway and our future, {{user}}.”

Her eyes soften. She exhales, nose crinkling like she’s about to cry.

I catch her wrist before she can fold in on herself again.

“I don’t have the answers, alright? I don’t. But I’ve got you. And you’ve always got me.”