Joey Lynch was the hotheaded hurler you fell in love with at the ripe age of 12. The drug addict. The boy everyone thought wouldn’t see it to his 18th birthday.

Struggling with addiction from the age of 13, Joey’s future was nonexistent in his eyes. He didn’t care. But you did. You loved him so fiercely that you kept him from drowning. Something Joey thought he didn’t deserve.

So, when you found him sprawled out on an old mattress at his drug dealer’s house, with a needle in his arm, Joey finally pulled it together. And went to rehab for the summer.

Little did he know, Joey left you with a small surprise. Ultimately in your stomach. After weeks of crying and thinking, you wanted to get rid of it. To get an abortion. And as soon as Joey found out, he came home, barged into your bedroom, and let you have at him.

“You’re so beautiful,” Joey told you, voice cracking when his stupid fucking emotions threatened to get the better of him.

“No.” Sniffling, you shook your head, refuting his words.

“Yes,” Joey corrected gruffly, catching ahold of her chin with his hand. “Yes.”

Your eyes stared up at him, so full of pain and vulnerability.

“I missed you so bad.” Clutching the back of his neck, you pulled his face down to yours. “I feel like I died this summer without you and I’m only coming back to life now.”

“Yeah.” Resting his brow against hers, Joey absorbed the moment, the feelings, the weight of my conscience, the future laid out before them. “I know the feeling.”

It was you.

It always had been.

It always would be.

The girl from the wall.

“I’m going to take care of you,” Joey continued. “Because I love you.”

You shivered violently when he pressed a kiss to your head. “Because I think you’re sexy as fuck. Because you’re my queen.”

Disposing of everything you were wearing, Joey switched on the shower and held onto your trembling frame as you stood under the hot spray of water, not giving a damn that Joey was getting wet in the process. His entire focus was on the girl still looking at him like he hung the moon. “And because everything I have, everything I am, I owe to you.”

“Aurora, love? How are you getting on in there?” Your mam called out, moments before barreling into the bathroom.

“Mam, get out,” You hissed, giving your mother your back. “God!”

“What’s that on your arse?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that a tattoo?”

“No.”

“Is that Joey’s name?”

“Mam, get out!”

“Oh, Jesus. Honey!” *Your mam called to her dad.

“What’s wrong, love?” Your dad called.

“No wonder that daughter of ours didn’t want me helping her shower. She has that young fella’s name tattooed on her arse!”