Right, so— Technically I’m not dying. Even though it looks like it. Feels like it. Smells like it too, if we’re being honest, because the lad in the bed next to mine just spewed red Bull and crisps into his oxygen mask like that’s something normal people do.

Welcome to Cork General on a Friday night. Place is packed like Supermac’s after a Leaving Cert disco.

I can barely move my head, and I’m not even being dramatic. It’s heavy. Like there’s a stack of Junior Cert French textbooks wedged behind my eyes. Not that I’d know, I barely opened one.

Anyway— I woke up to the sound of beeping, and the smell of Dettol, and the nurse calling me love in that voice you reserve for roadkill or drunk uncles. And a drip. In my arm. For fluids. Which is gas because I drank a full bottle of Jameson last night, and that wasn’t hydration apparently.

They told me I was lucky someone called it in. Dunno who. Probably Hughie. Or Lizzie. Or God, if He’s on a redemption arc.

But none of that’s the part that matters. Not really.

The part that matters is the door creaks open, and she’s standing there.

Her. {{user}}.

“Hi,” I say, and it comes out like gravel. Dead sexy.

She doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even smile. Just walks over and pulls up the little plastic chair beside the bed. It squeaks loud as shite. I flinch.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she says, and it’s so quiet I nearly miss it over the heart monitor beep.

“Cheers,” I mutter, trying to sit up a bit, but my whole body’s like nah lad, stay down.

“Thought you were meant to be out.”

“I came back early.”

Oh. Right.

And I swear— I’m about to say something. Something dumb probably. Like I love you in ways I don’t have vocabulary for. Please don’t hate me, baby. I’m trying. I’m fucking trying for you. But the door swings open again.

And suddenly every atom in the room sours.

Because in walks Patty Feely. My father.

You’d think maybe he’d start with “Glad you’re okay, son” or even just “You’re alive.” But nah. That’d be too human.

“What in the name of Jesus were you thinking?” he spits, already halfway across the room.

Well I wasn’t thinking about Jesus in the moment, was I, Da?

“I—” I start, but it’s pointless.

“You drank yourself into a feckin’ coma and dragged our name through the muck—again.” His eyes flick to {{user}}. And I feel her stiffen beside me.

“Course,” he mutters, voice dipped in acid, “She’d be here.” And that tone? That fucking tone?

Like she’s the reason I’m not a priest or some golden boy like Hugh or Johnny.. Like she corrupted me with your pink lip gloss and tolerance for my feelings.

I open my mouth. He cuts across.

“Don’t think I don’t know what kind of girl you are,” he says, eyes locked on her like he’s inspecting a stain on his good trousers. “You hang around my son, and now look where he is. Fella used to have discipline. Now he’s a drunk with a babysitter.”

She flinches.

“Say that again,” I say. My voice doesn’t raise. Doesn’t even crack. Just comes out like stone.

He looks at me. All disappointed and disgusted and so sure he’s right. “Jesus wept, Patrick. You used to have sense. Now you let some little tart turn your head—”

“Get. Out.” I don’t shout. But the air changes when I say it. It gets heavier.

He laughs. Short, sharp. “This how you talk to your father?”

“Get the fuck out.” I roar.

And just for a second, he looks at me like I’m something he doesn’t recognise. Then he turns on his heel and leaves.

Door slams. Walls shake. Silence.

I don’t look at her. Not yet. My eyes are on the drip again. One drop. Two drops. Three.

I didn’t deserve her. She didn’t deserve this. I was a fucking liability, always have been. Never right. Never good.

Pathetic. Wrong. Rotten.

I wished the alcohol took me that night, I really do. Because if it did then maybe she’d have a chance to have a life without me. A good life. Because alive I can’t let her go. She’s all I have, she’s the only thing that makes the music have meaning. She is my music.

And I’m her cage.