by Sienna Blake
“So it means something when it comes to sexual maturity?”
“…yes.”
“A hundred years ago women were being married off at thirteen and fourteen. Wasn’t anything wrong with it then. Why now?”
I spluttered, my reasonings feeling like butterflies I was trying to catch.
“Selkie, you’ve got years ahead of you to be a woman. Enjoy being a kid for now.”
“I’m not a kid!” she yelled in my face. “It’s because I don’t have big boobs like Ava, isn’t it? I’m not sexy enough.”
Her words killed me. I hated that I lived in a world where a fourteen-year-old girl could think these things. What happened to being a child?
“Jesus, selkie, it’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Then why?”
“It’s illegal.” I swallowed down bile. “You’re only fourteen. It is wrong for any adult to touch you in that way. You need to save it for when you’re older. For when you’ve found someone you love.”
“But I love you, Diarmuid. I want my first time to be with you.”
Dear God, help me.
The thought of a man touching her made me want to commit murder. If it had been any other man who she was offering herself to, I’d fucking kill him. But it was me she was offering her immature body to. Right now, I wanted to hurt myself.
A small kernel of me wanted to be that special one. Because I knew I’d be gentler with her than any pimple-faced, selfish teenage boy. I’d be gentler with her than any other man on this fucking planet. I’d take my time, show her how to make love. I’d be the most generous, kindest lover. It would be a fucking honour to accept the gift of her virginity.
Except not now.
She was fourteen, for fuck’s sake.
Her face twisted, her nose and her cheeks red. “You told me you love me.”
“I do. Like…like a best friend.”
She let out a wail that cut through my heart. “But you brought me here so we could be alone. You broke up with Ava.”
“What? Why do you say that?”
“Y-your pictures. They’re gone.”
I glanced over to the mantle. Of course she noticed. Dear, sweet perceptive Saoirse. I let out a sigh. I had to tell her. Even though it would break her little heart. I had to tell her now.
44
____________
Saoirse
“Saoirse, there’s been a big misunderstanding.”
I heard Diarmuid’s words but I barely registered them. My body was shattering, my heart bleeding into my chest cavity with every beat, making it hard to breathe.
Diarmuid’s eyes were filled with pain. “The photos are gone because Ava packed them. We’re… We’re leaving.”
Leaving.
That single word cracked through my liquid pain like a knife of ice. My lungs froze over that cold knife so that I couldn’t breathe.
“She’s pregnant,” he continued, his voice growing softer. “We’re going to move near her family. And…get married.”
No.
No no no.
This was not supposed to happen this way. He couldn’t marry her. Not her. He was mine. The only one that was mine.
“No.” My arms flailed, beating out at him, the source of my pain. “You can’t marry her.”
He grabbed my arms in a light hold. “Saoirse, stop.”
“You don’t love her,” I screamed.
“I’m going to have a baby with her. I have to do the right thing.”
Of course he did. He wouldn’t be Diarmuid otherwise.
My heart ached. Despite myself, a part of me understood why he was doing this. He was a good man. He was too good. He had morals that held stronger than the walls of Charles Fort. That was why I’d fallen in love with him. Now his very morals were taking him away from me.
“You promised you’d always be here,” I cried, trying to release myself from his grasp. I wanted to run away. Far away where his words couldn’t hurt me. “You promised me.”
“I’m sorry, Saoirse,” he said, his words cracking with pain. “I’m so sorry. My family comes first.”
“I thought I was your family.”
He said nothing.
“Some people are born into family. We get to choose ours. We make our own, forged out of our hearts and weaved together by the strings of our souls. And that is stronger than blood.”
“So, you and me…” I sniffed, “we’re soul family?”
He smiled. “Yeah. We are.”
He lied.
He lied about everything.
I ripped my arms out of his grasp. He let go of me.
I turned and ran, banging out the door.
Diarmuid didn’t follow me.
He just let me leave.
He didn’t care at all.
I trudged home, my heart filled with pain, the backs of my eyes stinging.
Diarmuid didn’t want me.
I was just a girl to him.
A kid.
That’s all he thought of me as.
That’s all I’d ever be to him.
It didn’t matter that I understood him like no one else did. It didn’t matter that he got me. That’s all I was to him.
Not a woman.
Not an adult.
A fucking girl.
I didn’t want to be a girl anymore. I wanted to be a woman. A woman who could make her own decisions and who had power over her own life. I wanted to shed my childish body, to rip away every last piece of ignorance and innocence. It was these things that gave other people the power to hurt me.
“Hey, Saoirse,” a male voice called out, too young sounding to be Diarmuid’s.
I glanced up from the footpath I was staring at as I walked. It was Kian, waving at me, jogging up to me.
He frowned as he neared. “You crying or somethin’?”
He would do.
Mind made up, I faced him. “You wanna fuck me?”
His mouth dropped open. “I—w-wha?”
He’d been hinting at it for months, asking me if I’d come over to his house when his parents were away. Now that I was offering it to him on a plate, he was acting like a dumbstruck idiot.
I almost rolled my eyes. “You wanna or what?”
“I, er, yeah.”
“Let’s go, then.”
I grabbed Kian’s arm and pulled him along behind me until we got to my apartment, ignoring him as he gabbed away behind me.
“Oh, shut up, will ya?” I said.
I let go of his hand and unlocked the door, praying my ma wasn’t home. Even if she was, she wouldn’t care if I went into my room with Kian.
I opened the door, listening for the sounds of life inside. Great, she wasn’t home.
I tugged Kian in behind me and made a beeline for my room, my nerves jangling away in my belly.
There wasn’t much space to stand in my bedroom. When he closed the door behind him, we were only less than a metre apart. Kian just stared at me, his eyes wide.
I let out a sigh, then pulled my school uniform off so I was just standing there in my bra and cotton panties. Still, he just blinked at me.
Diarmuid wouldn’t be standing there like a lump if he was the one I was undressing for. He would know what to do, what to say, how to touch me. A slice of pain went through me as I thought of him, which I ignored.
“So? You gonna undress?” I asked.
Kian sprang into action, pulling his shirt off his head and dropping it on the floor beside him. His pale, skinny torso, ribs visible, was so different from Diarmuid’s thick, muscled body decorated with ink. While Diarmuid had curls of hair on his chest, Kian had none.
Hesitation coiled inside me. I slammed that down and stepped up to Kian.
“Er, not to sound ungrateful or anything,” he said, as I fumbled with his pants and briefs and pushed them down his skinny milk-white thighs, “but, like, what’s made you want to…to, er…you know?”
I stared at his dick, a slender protrusion, erec
t and waving slightly at me. Was I really doing this?
Yes, I was fucking doing this. No more being an ignorant girl. I would become a woman. Then maybe Diarmuid would want me.
“I’m tired of being a virgin.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, shit, and you want me to pop your cherry?”
I swallowed down a sob as I pushed down my panties, revealing the light patch of hair between my slim hips. Perhaps, once I was a woman, my hips would grow.
“Wait to date. Wait to be with someone. Wait…for someone special. You deserve to be with someone special, selkie.”
My heart cracked further. The voice that screamed don’t do this grew louder, sounding so much like Diarmuid’s.
I slammed a mental door on that voice. Diarmuid lied to me. He was leaving me. He had no right to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.
“It’s not a big deal,” I lied.
Kian reached out for my bra and I slapped his hand away.
“But I wanna see your tits.”
“No.”
If only I had big boobs like Ava. Then maybe Diarmuid would have said yes.
I lay a towel down on the bed and climbed on top of it. Kian climbed over me, our knees knocking as he tumbled in between my legs.
“Shit,” he said, “I don’t have a condom.”
Fuck. I was wavering. If I made him go get one I’d change my mind once he was gone. I grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving.
“It’s fine, just…don’t come in me.”
He nodded and stuck his hand down between my legs, fumbling with himself. I felt him nudging at me down there.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It would all be over soon. I’d be a woman.
He pushed in and pain ripped me in half. I let out a cry, muffled by the fact that I was biting down hard on my bottom lip. I tasted the copper of blood and felt the sting of tears.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he breathed against my hair.
My hands fisted the sheets as he thrust between my legs, his breath panting over me, smelling of cigarettes. Pain tore through me. Tears stung the backs of my eyes.
This was not how this was supposed to happen.
It was supposed to be Diarmuid above me, with his sweet mint breath and his gentle hands. With his woodsy clean-smelling body, so warm and so safe.
“Kian, stop.”
He didn’t.
I pushed at his chest.
His eyes opened and he looked down at me. “What?”
“You’re hurting me.” I shoved his chest again.
“Hang on, I’m almost finished.”
He pumped into me harder, the stinging pain feeling like it was tearing me open. This time I hit him.
“Stop, Kian.”
Then he was gone. Slamming against the wall, disappearing behind a wide back I’d recognise anywhere.
“Motherfucker, she said stop.” Diarmuid’s voice boomed through the tiny room.
Breath whooshed out of me.
Diarmuid came for me.
He came for me.
Diarmuid drew back his fist and swung. I heard the crack as it collided with Kian’s face. Kian let out a long wail.
I sat up. “Diarmuid, stop.”
Diarmuid let go of Kian, his hand yawing open like rusty hinges.
“I’ll tell. I’ll tell on you.” Kian whimpered as he snatched his clothes and tumbled back out the open door, naked, the lower half of his face covered in blood.
“Sure, tell the Garda I punched you. I’ll tell them you were raping a minor,” Diarmuid bellowed.
“She wanted it.”
“She said stop, you fucking asshole,” Diarmuid yelled. “Now get the fuck out and don’t you ever come near her again.”
Kian ran out, the front door slamming behind him.
Diarmuid turned and cursed under his breath. “Jesus Christ, Saoirse.”
I wrapped my arms around my body, pulling my knees to my chest, my heart and that place between my legs throbbing.
Oh God. What had I done?
I burned. From shame. From gut-tearing regret. From the place I’d been ripped open by the wrong man.
I started to cry, heart-wrenching sobs that tore through me. I thought I was all cried out. Apparently not.
I felt Diarmuid’s presence beside me, the bed shifting under his weight as he sat beside me, his warm hands pulling the sheets around my shoulder. “Shh. The bastard. Did he hurt you? I’ll fucking kill him.”
Diarmuid wrapped his arms around me, and everything grew still again. My globe was the space between his arms, the wind was his sweet voice whispering that it was all going to be okay.
I loved him.
I hated him.
But he was here now. And that was all that mattered.
Diarmuid’s mouth brushed against my forehead. “Jesus, why did you let him do that to you?”
“It should have been you,” I mumbled. “I should have given my virginity to you.”
He froze. His hands slid off me. I scrambled for him, reaching for him, desperate for him. He pushed my hands off him.
“Saoirse, no. It shouldn’t have been me, do you understand?” His beautiful face was etched in pain. “This is wrong, you and me.”
His words stabbed me in my heart. I felt every sharp point of each letter, every cut of each syllable.
“But you came back,” I cried. “You came back for me, which means you do love me. Somewhere deep inside you, you do.”
Diarmuid pulled out a small notebook from his back pocket.
My journal.
“I wanted to return this to you before I left. I found it in my bedroom. It must have fallen out of your bag. I didn’t read it. I would never breech your privacy that way.”
Before he left.
He was still leaving.
He didn’t love me. I was such an idiot.
I spun in my bed, gathering all the blankets around me. I wanted to bury myself into a deep, dark hole and never come out.
“Saoirse.”
I felt his hand on my shoulder. I hated the touch even as I wanted to lean into it. Because when he touched me, he was touching me like a child, a friend. Not a woman. Not as his.
“Don’t touch me.” I snatched my shoulder away, glaring at him from my huddle of blankets. “I hate you.”
Genuine pain tore across his beautiful face. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I hate you. I never want to see you again.”
His fingers reaching out for me dropped, making my guts wrench. “I don’t want to leave us like this.”
Leave.
He was still leaving. He didn’t come here to tell me he’d changed his mind. He came to return my journal and to say goodbye.
Fuck him.
“Leave. Go. See if I fucking care.”
I grabbed the closest thing—a pillow—and threw it at him. He batted it away as he backed out of my room.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated over and over, his voice cracking as he closed my bedroom door, severing the connection that we’d weaved together over the last year.
My heart was turned to a sack filled with sand. When Diarmuid came into my life he struck me like lightning, turning my heart to glass. And now he’d dropped it, shattering it all over the floor.
He was my home.
My world.
My safety.
And now he was gone.
Just like that, our unbreakable bond—and my hope in something good—snapped.
45
____________
Diarmuid
My heart felt like it took on the weight of the world after I walked away from Saoirse that day.
I could still see the image of that weedy pale boy on top of her. Could hear the echoes of her crying stop. Could feel her fragile, girlish body shaking in the sheets as I held her afterwards.
They would haunt me until my dying breath.
So would her last words to me, “I hate you. I never want to see you again.”
Knowing
she hated me, crushed me.
But another part of me welcomed it. Because I deserved her hate.
I’d failed her by not seeing her crush developing. By not being able to stop the consequences. By causing her to throw her virginity away.
It should have been with someone special.
With someone who deserved her.
Most of all, I failed her because I was leaving.
My arms felt like lead as I packed up our place in Dublin, Ava laughing on the phone to her ma in the background like the crackle of an out-of-tune radio.
I came across the leftover wrapping paper from Saoirse’s birthday and smiled at the memory of her face as she’d opened her gift. I thumbed the shirt that she’d worn that night she stayed over, still unwashed, still smelling faintly of her soap.
I found Saoirse’s end-of-year report card, an A+ in Science, which she’d given to me.
“This is thanks to you,” she’d said, pride shining in those emerald eyes.
I found the story she’d written in English class, entitled “Diarmuid and His Selkie”, inspired by the story I told her.
“This is for you,” she’d said shyly, her cheeks tinging pink.
I ran my fingers over her neat, slanted writing.
Ava would want me to throw all these reminders of Saoirse away. But how could I when Saoirse was weaved into my life.
I glanced up. Ava was too busy on the phone to pay me any attention. I folded the slips of paper and slid them into the bottom of the suitcase, hiding them among my things.
Finally, we were all packed and ready to go. The moving van had been loaded and was already on its way to Limerick.
I locked up the house for the last time and pushed the keys through the mailbox, turning slowly, expecting a certain blonde-haired figure to appear behind me.
But she didn’t.
My heart felt gouged out. My mind clawed onto scraps of the last time Saoirse and I had been happy together. Her squealing as I raced us down the aisle on the trolley. Her tiny hip bumping up against mine. Her laughter as I dumped foam on top of her sweet head.
I’d never see her again.
God, was I really doing this?
Was I really leaving without a trace?
“What the hell are you just standing there for?” Ava yelled from my truck. All my responsibilities slammed into me.
