Where The Wild Roses Grow

the 90s

The first time he saw her was in the early summer of 1996. He remembered it was a hot day because he recalled watching the air radiate from the concrete in tiny waves through the tiny window as they waited for the plane to be pushed back from the gate. He preferred sitting at the window because it made him feel more in control of the situation, even though that didn't make sense. But if the plane were to crash, he liked to be the first to know.

He couldn't for the life of him remember the name or the location of the airport. It must have been in Germany. He spent a lot of his days on planes going in and out of Germany. They were headed out to Eastern Europe for concerts, maybe. But shit, he did remember her. Dressed in tight leather pants, heeled sandals and a furry black cropped and short sleeved jumper. If he closed his eyes and thought hard, he could still feel the texture of that top. Her long blonde hair came cascading down a beautiful round and pale face. He recalled thinking how she resembled a porcelain doll. He would later learn how much she hated that comparison. It would never stop him from using it. She hardly wore any make-up expect for bright red lipstick. She had incredibly perfect, full lips. He remembered those full lips.

Eyes, blue as the sky on the hottest and brightest of European summer days, wandered and eventually rested on Paddy. That was when he realized that he wouldn't stand a chance if he wanted one. Paddy's eyes landed on her too. Of course they did, it was impossible not to stare.

Jimmy watched how his brother straightened his back in his seat before smoothly offering her the empty one next to him. Sometimes he missed the days when his little brother was just that, instead of the type of boy that girls like her would undoubtedly end up with. He could already see the headlines: 'Heartthrob Paddy Kelly breaks teen hearts all around the world with beautiful new girlfriend'. He thought that she was probably of the same age as Paddy too and later found out the hard way that she was two years younger than him. It made her barely seventeen at the time.

A groan escaped him and it didn't go by unnoticed.

'Who would have thought Matt had it in him to produce such beauty, right?' his brother Joey, who sat on his right, said to him. He winked as he did. Matt was one of their security guards and she was his daughter. And to be fair, Jimmy hadn't cared in the slightest when Matt told them that his daughter would join them on tour for the summer. The official story was that she was hired as Sean's nanny but Jimmy knew she had quite a successful career in classical ballet. He also thought their tour crew had expanded enough over the past couple of years and Sean had been fine without a nanny so far. They were a big family, they could manage. He knew Matt regretted barely seeing his daughter and Jimmy considered him a good friend, so he hadn't said anything.

He wondered if he would have if he had known that she looked like that. He wondered if he should have. Because he was absolutely not ready for her to break his heart over his handsome younger brother with all his smooth talk and his Irish roots.

/

She had them too, the Irish roots. Her mother was Irish. She separated from her father, born and raised in Germany, when she was only a baby. She had never known them together. Didn't know what it was like to grow up in a house where the chores were evenly divided. Her mother had done them all herself. And if she spent some time with her dad, she had watched him do them all. Her father was one of the most wanted security guards in Germany, her mother worked as a curator at a museum in the city centre of Dublin. They had always remained friends but they rarely saw each other and when they did she always noticed a sadness hanging over the both of them. As if they regretted the way life had turned out for them separately. She had a carefree childhood though and both her parents had been her biggest supporters regarding her ballet career. And she knew that if it had turned out not quite as successful, it wouldn't have been different. It was good to have that kind of security. It made her work even harder and it resulted in her successfully completing a scholar ship at the Royal Ballet in London. She had lived there, away from her mother, for a year now and had just landed her first big role in a Christmas rendition of Swan Lake.