Chasing River (Burying Water #3)(51)

I’ll never forget my first love. I was sixteen. Her name was Katie Byrne and she was a year younger than me. I’d known her and her family for years—they were members of the same small parish on the outskirts of Dundalk, and they lived about two minutes’ drive away, in a small cottage with tomato-red framing and a thatched roof—but I only really noticed her that September, after she and her family returned from a summer in Edinburgh. Her body was suddenly full of curves, her face missing the baby fat, and her innocent hazel doe eyes were soulful enough to entrap most any boy.

I wasn’t the only one to notice the changes. But she stayed unavailable to everyone, thanks to her father’s strict rules about dating.

Her father was my rugby coach.

That November, I was riding my bike home after school one afternoon when I found Katie standing beneath a tall tree, her arms stretched high in the air, crying over the kitten that dangled from a limb, mewling. I climbed the tree—not an easy feat—and rescued her pet, earning myself plenty of scratches and nearly falling on the way down. But I also earned Katie’s adoration, those doe eyes glued to me during mass the following Sunday.

I loved the way she looked at me, as if I could do no wrong. I would have rescued that mangy cat a hundred times over again if it meant she’d always look at me that way.

Her father’s rules hadn’t changed but something had for Katie, because she started seeking me out between classes and during lunch hour. We’d see each other in the library. I started walking her home from school. She’d hold my hand until we got closer to her house, in case either of her parents were home. It was months before she let me kiss her. The horny teenager that I was, I wanted more, but I held back, not wanting to risk chasing her away.

And then one day after class, biting her bottom lip nervously, her voice a low whisper, her pretty hazel gaze darting this way and that, making sure no one would hear her, she made plans to sneak out with me the coming Easter break.

I pulled up outside her house after dark in my father’s Astra, my belly full from the Sunday dinner feast, after Ma had gone to bed and Da was passed out in the recliner from drink. Therapy for his pain, he’d always say. I waited for twenty minutes before a slight body slipped out from a window at the side of the house and rushed toward my car. She hugged her black knit sweater tight around her body, her pale white legs stark in the night. I remember thinking she’d be cold in that flowery dress.

It turns out that Katie Byrne had developed strong feelings for me and, having just passed her sixteenth birthday, she’d suddenly been bitten by the rebellious bug, a fact I discovered not long after we pulled up to the O’Hanlan farm—a property long since abandoned and left derelict. A great place for young people to get together and have some fun without responsible prying eyes watching over them.

I made to open the car door but Katie grabbed my hand and asked me to stay, waving a flask of whiskey that she’d magically produced. We sat for a good half hour—her taking three shots for every one that I downed—and shared idle, slightly awkward conversation, then a few kisses.

Then she boldly climbed into the backseat. Of course I followed, quickly finding a new appreciation for her choice of clothing. When she slipped her knickers off, her fingers trembling, I didn’t balk. I was almost seventeen and quite happy to be rid of my virginity. I sure as hell didn’t need any mental preparation.

We joined the party after. Rowen and a bunch of kids from school, and even Aengus—visiting for the holiday—were already tucked away between the house and the barn, keeping warm with a fire and beer. Katie kept drinking until she was tipping the flask upside down to get a drop into her mouth, her eyes half-shuttered, her words incoherent. I didn’t know what to do with her.

Aengus is the one who helped me bring her back home, lifting her body through her bedroom window. He’s the one who ventured into the Byrne house to find a large bowl to set beside her in case she vomited. And, when I wouldn’t leave because I was afraid she’d choke to death, he’s the one who banged on the front door until her father answered, telling him he had just dropped off a drunk Katie—who he had found stumbling along the side of the road—and he was worried. I watched from the shadows, terrified that her father might figure out what I’d done with his daughter. The age of consent was seventeen, and Coach Byrne was the kind of father to not only kick me off the rugby team but also press charges.

Now, it wouldn’t be me they’d be blaming. It would be the twenty-one-year-old Delaney on their doorstep. Aengus would get into a boiling pot-full of trouble if the Byrnes decided to accuse him of something. The kind that could put him in prison.

Katie was admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and spent the rest of the break recovering. I spent the rest of the break waiting for a knock on the door, afraid she’d confess to what happened. Luckily, nothing came of it, her parents too mortified to say anything. She transferred to an all-girls secondary school after that, but I’d still see her in church on Sundays. That look in her eyes was gone. In fact, she wouldn’t even meet my gaze after that. I never did find out if it was embarrassment over her drunkenness, fear of her father’s wrath, anger that we’d ratted her out, or plain regret that she’d give something so valuable to me. The possibility of the last one bothered me most.

What I did know is that I would miss feeling like I could do no wrong.