Craving 13 - Johnny Kavanagh

⚠️ This chapter contains spoilers for Releasing 10

TARA

Whoever said Christmas gatherings were peaceful clearly hadn't met my family.

The tension had been simmering all afternoon, just waiting for a crack to break through. And now it had.

"You weren't here," Darragh snarled, his voice low and dangerous, grey eyes flashing with something darker—hurt, rage, grief all tangled together until they were nearly black. "You weren't fucking here, Conrad. You were off swanning around Switzerland, weren't ya? For nearly four years, I was an only child, do ya hear me? I was alone."

Conrad, sitting tensely in the armchair by the fireplace, didn't flinch—though his jaw tightened visibly. My sister sat beside him, dabbing at the bruising around his eye with a cold cloth, her movements soft and careful, as if tending a wounded animal.

He exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on his brother. "Darragh..."

"No!" Darragh exploded, taking a threatening step forward. I reacted on instinct, planting both hands on his chest to stop him, muscles taut under his shirt. Erin latched onto his arm, fingers digging in, trying to anchor him before he swung again.

"You don't get to say sorry, not when you're four fucking years late," he spat, voice cracked and wild, jabbing a finger toward his brother. "Tara might've forgiven ya for legging it. But me? I haven't."

Ouch.

"Darragh, please," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "It's Christmas." Even as I said it, I knew it was useless.

He scoffed bitterly, a sound with no trace of humour. "Christmas? What's Christmas mean when one of us can just disappear and pretend we don't exist for four bloody years?" He yanked his arm from Erin's grasp, stepping back like the heat in the room had burned him. His hair was a mess—sticking up in tufts from his fingers running through it over and over, a nervous habit he hadn't shaken since he was a teenager.

Conrad's face crumpled slightly "I know, Dar," he said, voice hoarse. "I messed up. I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Connie Sorry doesn't bring back those four years. Four years of just... being here." He gestured violently around the room—the glowing fairy lights strung haphazardly across the ceiling, the half-devoured box of Quality Street on the coffee table, the slightly lopsided Christmas tree leaning precariously in the corner like it had given up too.

"You're sharp as a tack when it comes to Shannon," he snapped, jabbing a finger at my sister, "but when it's the rest of us? You're as blind as a fucking mole."

"Darragh—"

My best friend spun around, eyes wild. "No! Don't sit there and fucking pretend you don't think I killed Mam, Da!"

Cian's face went pale. "That's not true!" he said sharply, a note of panic rising. "I love you, son!"

Darragh's lip trembled, tears finally gathering in his eyes. "Mam loved me," he said, his voice cracking down the middle. He roughly swiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand. "Mam called me her little miracle. Do ya think I don't know what you did? That you went behind her back and asked the doctor if carrying me might make the cancer worse? Do ya think I didn't hear you tell her you'd rather be childless than lose her?" His voice broke completely now. "She was my mother too, for fuck's sake. I loved her too."

That was it. Erin moved without hesitation, pulling him into her arms. For a moment, he resisted, fists clenched, chest heaving—but then he collapsed into her, like something inside him had given way. His body shook with the force of his sobs, raw and unfiltered, as she cradled his head and murmured quiet, soothing words in his ear, her own eyes wet with unshed tears.