Tiernan A Dark Irish Mafia Romance - Jane Henry Page 0,6

lobby. I bend and reach for it, and my head feels like it’s going to literally fall right off my shoulders. I swallow hard.

I don’t cry. I haven’t cried in years. I bloody won’t now.

Something inside me wants to question how I got here, who I am.

I used to be a good girl.

I hail a taxi and gratefully slide into the back. The door shuts with a bang.

It’s then that I begin to tremble. Christ, I need a fix. I need a fucking fix. Now that I’m more awake, withdrawal symptoms hit me so hard I feel faint.

I don’t realize I’m rocking on the seat until the taxi driver gives me a concerned look in the rearview mirror.

“Y’alright?” he asks warily, real concern in his eyes. He looks like he could be someone’s grandfather, and for one weak, brief moment in time, I wish he were mine. There’s a bit of kindness in his eyes I don’t see often, and I need a little kindness right now.

“I’m fine,” I say. Even my voice is shaking now.

The edge of my phone peeks out of my bag where I shoved it in, and a pang hits my chest.

I wish I could call a friend. I could call my roommate, but I can’t bother her. Not again. She’s got class and work of her own.

I just wish I had someone to pick me up. Someone I could confide in. Long ago, I had friends, and honestly, a good friend, too.

One really good friend. But I fucked that up.

My hands tremble as I shove my phone further in my bag, and I watch outside the window as we move steadily past the luxurious apartment buildings to head further into the city where I live.

I miss Ballyhock. I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose as the car stumbles over the broken pavement. The streets here are neglected so badly that people break rims and curse them out.

For one moment, I imagine myself back in Ballyhock.

I can see the rollicking waves of the Irish Sea stretched out before me, the fathomless blue-green mesmerizing. When I was little, I’d imagine myself a mermaid that lived beneath the depths. The color of the sea and whimsical white foam made me feel as if it were magical. I’d sink beneath the depths, my sleek body swimming below the surface to my castle below. I was a queen down there. I’d wear a tiara and command my army of sea folk to do my bidding.

As I grew older, my fantasies changed, and I discarded the childish imaginations of my youth. So why do I go there now? I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to block the pain that skates across my forehead. It feels as if my head might burst at any moment. With effort, I bring myself back to my memories, the pleasant ones I tuck away like a chest filled with soft, cozy blankets I draw out when I’m in need of comfort.

In my memory, my old mate Fiona grins, stretched out on a towel as the waves lap at the shore. She wears large sunglasses, her flaming red hair fanning out around her like fire. She’s chattering on about something. It doesn’t matter what. Could be the twat of a French teacher we have, the new shoes her sister Sheena bought her, or her childhood crush, Lachlan.

The jarring crash as we hit a particularly large pothole yanks me out of my memories. My thoughts are jumbled and confused, floating through my mind like snowflakes.

Lachlan’s Fiona’s husband now. Do they have a child? Does she hate me? Do they live by the mansion in Ballyhock?

Why are some places to live so much nicer than others?

Why do some people get all the luck in life and others nothing but shite and misery?

Who have I become?

I clutch my stomach as it churns again, and the cabbie glances at me in the mirror.

“You going to be sick, luv?”

I shake my head, because if I open my mouth to respond I just may make a liar out of myself.

He pulls up in front of the old house I share with five others, and he frowns at me.

“You need something? Can I help you get in?”

Do I really look that bad?

I shake my head. “No, thank you.”

I open my bag to pay him when I realize my wallet’s gone. Sickening dread pools in my stomach. No.

Did the bastard I spent the night with clean me out? My