As the weeks rolled by, it soon became clear that Riley was the one who ran the roost. When he cried, either myself, Niall or mum rushed to his side to see what was wrong with him. When he made strange noises, Niall and I would go into panic mode, convinced something was wrong with him.
Yes. Parenthood had made us paranoid about every little thing. Sleepless nights had made us grumpy about every little thing. Riley Adam Gallagher was the tiny human being with huge lung capacity that our lives revolved around.
And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
He had learnt to smile by now; a huge cheesy grin that made his entire face light up whenever something pleased him. It didn’t take much; Tommy talking to him about exchange rates was enough to break Riley into a fit of giggles.
“We’re out of formula,” I said to Niall, tipping the last of the powder into one of Riley’s bottles. He gurgled in his dad’s arms, his eyes bright. It was scary how alike they were; Riley’s hair was almost black like Niall’s, his face the same shape. Apparently, the only thing off me had had inherited were the dark eyes and the fondness of food.
“I’ll get some after work,” Niall yawned, taking the bottle from my hand and putting it in Riley’s mouth. He guzzled greedily, his tiny fists rising to meet the sides of the plastic. I had never really thought about babies as sweet; they’d always been a sort of non-entity to me.
But I was absolutely smitten with my son.
Don’t get me wrong; he could be a nightmare in the middle of the night, when he was screaming to be let out of his cot, desperate for a feed. But most of the time he was perfectly content.
“It’s fine,” I sighed, flopping down in the seat next to Niall’s, “I’ll go to the shop; take Riley out in the pram.”
Niall nodded, taking the half finished bottle from Riley and winding him. Since when had he become such a natural at this? It was as though the fairies had taken away my Niall and replaced him with Super Dad.
At least he finally had his cast off; it made going down for bottles during the night much easier and Evie-friendly.
“Evie?” Tommy was standing in the doorway, his hand behind his back, and looking very guilty about something. Oh God, I hope he hadn’t flooded the bathroom again.
“Yeah?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow.
“Can I use your hairdryer?”
I stared at him, trying to work out whether or not he was being legit. He then proceeded to hold up the burnt out, broken handle of my previously functioning hairdryer, his face sheepish.
“Tommy!” I groaned, leaning back in my seat.
“How was I supposed to know that it would set fire to the glue!” he exclaimed, throwing the mangled carcass of my hairdryer at me. “I thought flammable was just a fancy word for flames!”
It was sometimes hard to remember how old Tommy really was. It didn’t matter if he could recite all the stares in North America. It didn’t matter that his math skills were eons better than mine.
But at the end of the day, my wee brother was still just that: wee.
Niall chuckled, stroking Riley’s mop of hair lightly. I sighed, taking the remains of the hairdryer from Tommy and letting it dangle from my fingers. Well, that would never fly again.
“Why did you ask after you’d blown it up?” Niall asked.
Tommy shrugged, starting to move down the hallway.
“Because I wanted to know before I hid it from her…”
I shook my head in disbelief as I listened to Tommy skip back into his bedroom, pulling the door shut. My life had descended into full blown, full scale madness since we’d brought Riley home from Gretna. We had arrived on the doorstep, tired and weary, with the baby in our arms.
And the only thing my mum had said?
“You could have at least told me you’d had the baby! Honestly, Evie; I’m your mother!”
Yeah, well…at least she hadn’t completely flown off the handle like Sian had done. Mind you; she was pretty chuffed to be the Godmother, even though she had moaned about Riley the whole way home, insisting that there was no way in hell she was ever having a child and that Adam could just completely forget about sex all together.
That probably lasted until we reached the service stations at Kinross, when they made a break for the toilets as soon as the car stopped.
But life was pretty good right now. Tiring, but good. Life with Riley was exciting, and full of new experiences, as well as the fact that he seemed to be the seal on a very unsteady truce with Niall and his dad.
As I wheeled him down the pavement in his pram, he grinned up at the sky, his dark eyes bright as the colours of sunlight danced around him. He reached upwards to catch the shapes the shadows made, giggling.
Summer was well and truly upon us. My exams were over; I’d managed to take them sporting a huge bump, but I’d done them nevertheless, and the results weren’t due until August.
More than enough time to enjoy Riley before making any decisions about the future.
The holidays had begun, and kids who were playing on the green seemed more than happy to play their football in the early evening sun, while mum’s sat on the garden walls chatting away to each other. It seemed as though the estate had suddenly taken happy pills, and they were having a full on effect.
“Are we going to go get you more formula, Riley?” I asked him cheerily. That was another thing with Riley; he never answered back. Okay; so he was a baby. But at least he didn’t completely disregard what I was saying to him.
He just…looked completely bemused and smiled away at me.
But at least it was better than him laughing at my ideas like Niall did! Honestly; you make one wrong assumption and suddenly you’re a laughing stock! That was how much love and respect was held for me these days. My son would probably grow up completely uncaring towards his dear old mum.
That was a painful thought.
They were digging up the pavement at the crossroads, and normally I would’ve just walked along the side of the road. But ever the responsible parent, I decided to just cut along by the canal, braving the steps back up to the bridge.
Besides; it was a nice day and a long way from night time. Whatever youths that congregated there were probably still asleep, becoming night dwellers when they decided to do contribute their rinse-and-repeat style of living.
Bottles lined the water edge, reminders of whatever booze up had occurred the night before. They made colours glisten on the stone bank of the canal, glimmering green and brown lights gleaming brightly. The sun danced on the waters’ surface, creating flickers of animation underneath the stonework of the bridge. It was suddenly darker and colder as Riley and I made our way underneath the pass, the echoing sound of my feet against the path managing to drown out the noise of cars crossing above our heads.
The sound of someone throwing something into the canal ahead made my head jerk upwards, focusing in on the hooded figure further along the path. They were tall, their movements erratic as they swayed along the path. A drunk, no doubt; thrown out of the pub after a long afternoon of drinking. Unpleasant, but not exactly a threat.
So I kept walking, talking quietly to Riley to distract myself from the sudden unease I felt in the pit of my stomach. The person stopped a couple of feet away, before screaming to the heavens, his jumper riding up and flashing me a tattoo that was etched across his back.
I froze.
The name “Leyla” was scrawled across the drunk’s skin, the letters swirling and large.
Denny had had an ex who had died, whose name was Leyla Samuels.
Swallowing, I started to edge back down the path, willing Riley not to make a sound. We would find some other way to get to the shop. There was no way that I was going to pass Denny with Riley here.
At that moment, Riley managed to crick his neck from looking around too fast, wailing loudly as he stared at me in confusion.
Slowly, painfully slowly, Denny turned, his face dark beneath his hood. His eyes were dangerously bright in contrast, and his smirk was plastered across his lips, completely and utterly unwavering.
I mouthed wordlessly, gripping tightly onto the handle of the pram, completely unable to soothe my crying child. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way that I had managed to stumble across Denny.
Alone.
With no witnesses.
He staggered towards me. I should have run in the opposite direction, but the path was only marginally wider than Riley’s pushchair, which would mean completely leaving myself vulnerable to him.
I had learnt a long time ago to never turn my back on Denny, no matter how scared I was.
“Is this the babby, Evie?” he asked, peering into the pram. Riley suddenly stopped crying, his eyes going huge as he took in Denny. His resemblance to Niall was uncanny, and a lump rose in my throat as I realised that I wasn’t the only one here who had noticed.
“He’s got yoor eyes,” Denny remarked, touching Riley’s cheek. I bit my tongue and tightened my grip on the pram further as I tried not to slap his hand away from my baby. I would try not to provoke him. If anything, it might save Riley from getting hurt.
Denny looked up at me, staring me in the eye as he took a step towards me.
“Yoo turned intae a mute, Evie?” he demanded in a low voice. He lunged at me, fastening a hand in my hair as he dragged me away from the pram. Struggling against him, I didn’t take my eyes from Riley, whose eyes were darting around frantically as he tried to work out what had just happened.
“Ah said,” Denny bellowed in my ear, “have yoo gone mute?” His words bounced around my brain, and it was with a heavy heart that I whimpered. He pushed my head against the brick wall of the bridge, his nostrils flaring furiously.
“No!” I shouted, shaking against him. “I’m not mute!” His eyes – if it was at all possible – suddenly got even brighter, as though he had just been waiting for me to say something back.
“There’s ma Evie,” he hissed proudly, pressing up against me. “Ma Evie. She used tae have a spark…” He ran his fingers over my cheek bone, “she used tae have a bit of fire…” He slapped me quickly across the face.
“She used tae have a bit o’ fuckin’ respect!” he yelled. Riley screamed, his cries cutting through me almost painfully. But when I tried to move, to comfort him, I was forced back up against the wall, Denny’s forearm across the front of my throat.
I looked up at him, with wide fear filled eyes. What the hell was he going to do to us?
“D’you think your wee babby likes swimmin’, Evie?” Denny asked quietly.
I went numb, staring at him in disbelief. I knew he was sick. I knew he was warped. But I didn’t think he was nearly as bad as to throw a child into the canal.
“No,” I whispered. “Please, Denny.”
He smacked me across the cheek again, so hard that my head smacked against the wall with the impact. He could beat me all he wanted; he could obliterate my face and my body and…everything else.
I just had to make sure that Riley Adam Gallagher would be okay.
“Don’t beg,” he barked. His face suddenly softened, as the bipolar-ness of Denny started to make an appearance.
“Ah don’t want tae do it, Evie,” he mumbled, lacing his fingers through mine. “But am hurtin’. It’s no’ right, y’see…You’re no’ meant tae have that tosser’s babby.” He glanced over his shoulder at the pram, whose resident was now making a startling amount of noise.
“See…ah wanted us tae have a babby one day. Wouldn’t that o’ been nice? Me, you an’ our wee babby.”
The thought of having his baby made me want to retch. The thought of having anything of his inside me made me want to heave up the contents of my stomach. The thought of being close to him again, after being on the receiving end of the kindness that came with Niall, made me want to crawl to a bush and throw up my organs.
And yet I nodded.
“Yeah,” I choked. “Nice.”
It was bloody obvious that I wasn’t telling the truth, and I was started to regret not being more enthusiastic about it. But whether he was too drunk to notice, or he was so desperate to believe that one day I would come back to him, he nodded with me, a bog standard smile tugging at his lips.
“Aye?” he murmured excitedly. “Y’want that?”
I shook, forcing my back against the wall to try and create as much space as I could between us. I couldn’t tell him yes, but I was too frightened to tell him no. I could safely say that Denny had turned me into a complete and utter coward.
Unsure of what to make of my silence, he took a step away, turning to face the water. I swallowed, rubbing the back of my head gingerly, and wincing as I felt blood.
“Yoor lad was rude tae me, Evie,” he said quietly, gazing over the canal. “He was very, very rude.”
I fished about in my pocket for my mobile, completely desperate. Suddenly, it didn’t matter at all at being seen as too “weak” to fight my own battles, as it would have done before. I knew that, if I didn’t phone someone to let them know what was happening, I could be faced with the grim reality of having to be put through of one of Denny’s wee games.
“W-Was he?” I stammered, tapping the keys of my phone quickly in an almost illegible text to Niall.
“Aye,” Denny mused, stretching. Various joints cracked, the sound echoing around the vast space beneath the bridge. “He laughed at me, Evie.”
“So he did,” I breathed, sagging slightly as the text sent. Denny made a sharp movement, almost as though he was about to turn around, only for him to kick a couple of stones into the bleak, dirty water.
What if Niall didn’t get the message? Or his phone was turned off for going to work? Or what if he hadn’t bothered to charge it again after it had lost battery? What if I was placing all my hopes on a rescue that would never come?
“Ah don’t like it when people are rude tae me, Evie,” he muttered. I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“No,” I said quietly. “It’s not nice.”
He snorted bitterly.
“Somethin’ like that,” Denny breathed.
My heart leapt as I heard the sound of footfalls coming down the path. At last. Someone- anyone who could stop something bad from happening.
It was a jogger. He bounced along on the balls of his feet, glancing at me, then Denny and finally Riley, speeding up slightly as he passed.
What the hell was that? My hope had been completely cut short by his inability to notice something was wrong. But then I realised, with a heavy heart, what this must look like to a stranger.
To him, we were probably just another couple; having a leisurely walk under the bridge with the baby in tow, stopping to talk about something. He would have known nothing about what was happening. Nothing about the complete and utter sociopath that he was running past.
Lucky him.
Abruptly, the silence was cut by the sound of my phone buzzing, and with wide eyes and a completely frantic heart, I realised that it was Niall. Why did he have to phone? What part of, “I need help at canal now,” did he not get?
At least he got the message.
Because Denny certainly got it.
He whipped around, wrenching the phone from my hands and hurling it straight into the wall opposite, glaring at me. His chest rose and fell heavily with laboured breaths, and there was a manic glint in his eyes that showed just how angry he was.
“Yoo’re no’ playin’ fair, Evie,” he snarled, taking a hold of my hair again. Whining in the back of my throat as several hair parted from my scalp, I looked him in the eye, trembling.
This was it.
I was actually going to die.
A punch to the stomach made my knees buckle out from underneath me, so that the only thing holding me up was a fistful of my hair. I cried out in pain as the blows kept coming, over and over again until I could hardly breathe from the agony. Screw childbirth; everything suddenly burned. Pieces of skin I didn’t even know existed were suddenly bruised and tender.
And they kept raining down on me, as though someone had stuck Denny on repeat just to watch him batter me.
It was suddenly as though the past had come back to haunt me; the taste of blood in my mouth was familiar, and the dizzy haze that had overcome my head had happened before now.
As he brought his knee down on my ribs, his hands around my throat, he spat, “Say goodbye tae your babby, Evie McKenzie; he’s goin’ for his swimmin’ lessons…”
Feebly, I tried to kick him off, but he was too heavy, and I was too far gone.
“Riley,” I rasped, not really getting the fact that he wasn’t moving anywhere until someone did it for him. Everything began to swim in and out of focus as Denny slowly got to his feet, walking as if he was in slow motion towards the discarded pram.
I desperately tried to scream, calling out weakly for someone to save him, all the while trying to stop my eyes from drooping shut.
It was as though the next few minutes were made up of still frames.
Loud, frantic still frames.
I blinked, and saw Denny approach the water’s edge with Riley in his arms.
I blinked, and saw someone walk towards Denny, his voice loud but inaudible.
I blinked, and saw the same person wrestle the baby from Denny’s arms.
I blinked, and saw Denny stumble backwards.
I blinked, and saw a different person grab Denny by the wrist.
I blinked, and-
“Evie…”
The voice chased itself around my head, the effort to tune in on it far too great for me. I grumbled in response, my whole body numb as I tried to desperately concentrate on whoever was talking to me.
“Evie, darlin’; stay alive.”
A distant splash made me jerk.
Riley.
“Can’t,” I croaked simply.
Then everything went black.
And it all stopped hurting.
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So...who hates me right now? I'm pretty hacked off...I forgot to put my author's note on before posting this!! Well...who wants a happy ending?
*looks around* no-one? Okey dokes!!
Well, this chapter has been planned since I watched Harry Brown, and I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen between Denny and Evie...just thought I'd share that. And the picture of the side is the canal underpass that the wee...altercation took place...cheery times, I know :)
Well...now that Denny's...completely flipped his lid...any Denny lovers out there?
I'll just...toddle off before someone cyber...hits me. Sorry for all the above violence...I think watching re-runs of Dragon's Den inadvertently made me a bit violent :S Maybe it was watching Fleeto on Saturday at the Fringe...Aye, I'll just go with that...
thanks for reading!!
:)