Page 57 of Playing Dirty
"I have to, but I don't know what to say. I never know if I'm right to be annoyed or just being selfish." I turn the phone over in my hands. "Family's meant to be hard sometimes, isn't it? Helping people move, picking up the pieces when someone's struggling. You show up. Isn't that half the problem these days,everyone's so individualistic we’ve abandoned our sense of community and family?"
"Fair point." He tilts his head, considering. "But that's not what this is, is it? There's a difference between being there for your parents as they age and helping your family, versus being your parents' marriage counselor since you were, what, ten?"
“Yeah.” I nod slowly. "They both used to vent to me constantly. I knew things about their marriage at twelve that I still wish I didn't know."
He shakes his head. "Nobody's asking you to cut them off or tell them to go to hell. But you're allowed to breathe, Margot."
"You sound exactly like Sabrina."
"Well, she seemed smart enough to me," he says, and I let out a small laugh.
"So what would you say?" I bite my lip, staring down at the glowing screen.
"Tell him the truth. That you love them, but they need a professional or a friend to talk to, because you can't be the buffer for their marriage anymore."
"Okay. Here goes." I exhale a long breath and start typing before I can talk myself out of it.
Margot:Dad, I love you and I will always be here for you, and I'm so sorry you're both hurting. But I think this would be better to talk through with a friend or a therapist. I'm in the weeds a bit over here, and I can't be in the middle of it right now.
I hand him the phone before I can start editing it into oblivion. "What do you think?"
He scans the screen, his expression warming into a smile. "Perfect. A lot nicer than I would've been."
I take the phone back and hit send before I can second-guess a single word of it. Thewhooshsound feels enormous.
"I feel like a monster," I admit.
"Do they ever support you? Emotionally, I mean." He asks it gently.
I sit with the question, searching for the last time I asked either of them for help, or leaned on anyone at all, really. Nothing surfaces.
"Mm. Fair point,” I say. “Still, it doesn't mean they deserve to be punished for it."
"Damn,” He huffs a laugh. “That Catholic guilt really did a number on you, huh?"
I snort. "That and being the oldest. It's a whole mess in my head at this point."
The streetlights have come on while we talked, and the crowd along the pavement is turning into a proper Friday night. He pushes off the wall and turns to face me.
"Well. Since you just pulled off a pretty big thing, and since I suspect you're about to spend the next several hours stressing about it, how about we keep the distraction going? You game?"
I glance down at my phone. It's barely midday back home, which means Dad is at his desk pretending he didn't see it, so I won't hear anything for hours anyway. And Cillian's got me pegged, as usual, because staying in means exactly one thing: me tossing and turning in a hotel bed, replaying the text and marinating in guilt until sunrise.
"Okay." I slip the phone into my bag. "Lead the way."
15
Margot
Riding the high from the rage room, Cillian leads me through a tangle of back streets in the older part of Dublin. We're well past the main tourist drag now, but the area still feels like something out of a film to my American eyes.
We'd grabbed a quick bite earlier, a toastie from a tiny café around the corner that was so good I'm half considering moving here for it.
"So are you going to tell me where we're going?" I ask as we navigate the uneven cobblestones. "You're being very cryptic."
"Well, I have to maintain a certain air of mystery to keep you interested, don't I?" He looks down at me, dimples flashing.
In truth, he doesn't need to exert any effort to keep me interested.
