My father shook his head.
"Myself, Mark, Sean, and Justin headed up the mountain after you but we kept our distance in case you caught onto us. After an hour or so we reached Darcy's house and we could hear you arguing inside. Sean went to the back door and said it was over the parrot so we figured it was nothing serious."
Nothing serious, ha!
That fucking bird traumatised me.
"Go on, don't stop now," Darcy growled.
Justin took over. "We got shovels from your shed and got to work - you should put a lock on that by the way. The heavy snowfall made things easy. It didn't take long for us to block up the doors and windows. When we were finished we did have second thoughts, but we thought we'd just let it play out and see what would happen."
I was insanely mad, but them, they were fucking crazy.
I cannot believe this group of morons' thought, even for a second, that what they did was a good idea.
"You're a bunch of eejits, I hope you realise that."
Everyone hung their heads.
They knew.
"I hope you also realise that I almost suffocated trying to dig our way out through the fucking snow," Darcy snapped.
Everyone, but our brothers, gasped.
"Yeah," I chimed in. "The snow in the tunnel he made collapsed on him and I had to pull him out. You almost killed Darcy."
I was telling the truth, but I added a touch of drama to my voice to really get my point across and from the look on everyone's face, it worked.
"I'm so sorry," Darcy's mother cried.
Legit cried. Real tears.
I never saw Marie cry before so I did a lot of staring.
I even felt bad.
Just for minute though until I reminded myself what the group of eejits orchestrated.
"I honestly can't believe you trapped us in a house buy burying the exits, is that even legal?"
My father huffed. "Pretty sure it's not."
Interesting.
"What? You're going to have us arrested?" Sean asked me, his tone sarcastic.
I curled my lip in disgust. "It's no more than you bloody deserve.
Sean didn't reply, he only looked down.
Everyone seemed to favour looking down at their feet.
"What about the blackout? Did you cause that too?" Darcy growled.
Everyone shook their heads. "The village power only came back on yesterday. The mountain house and lodges should have power by Thursday - the council is working on it," Justin explained.
Burying us in together was bad enough, I may have smashed something just now if they messed with the power too.
"From this moment on I never hear of anyone mention mine and Darcy's name in a sentence together in a way that is suggestive to us being a couple or ever being a couple. I don't want anyone trying to play matchmaker, and above all, don't trap us anywhere together ever again. Got it?"
"Got it," everyone replied in unison.
I nodded my head then glanced to Darcy before looking back to everyone else.
"And for the last time there will never be a Neala and Darcy relationship. He doesn't want me... and I don't want him."
With that said I turned and walked out of the room, up the stairs and into my bedroom.
My heart was pounding against my chest and my stomach churned.
I hated myself.
I hated liars and I hated lying.
Yet I just told the biggest lie of all.
I was no better than the rest of my so-called family.
It seemed being a liar came natural me.
To all of us.
"Another, Darcy?" Bob, owner of O'Leary's Pub, asked me.
I looked up at Bob and nodded my head even though it was starting to spin.
Bob sighed and rested his elbows on the counter top in front of me and stared at me.
"What's the matter, kid?" he asked me.
I liked a girl a hell of a lot and I missed her like fucking crazy.
How could I word that without sounded like a bitch?
"I fucked shite up with a moth I was seeing and I'm a bit gutted about it," I said, and shook my head. "She's a good girl and I was a prick to her."
There, that'd do.
"You cheat on her?" Bob asked as he leaned back and picked up some beer glasses and wiped them out with a cloth.
I frowned at him. "No, I shagged her then told her I regretted it, when I really didn't."
I didn't want to mention that I didn't directly say those words to her, and that I said it to Justin and Sean instead but Bob would have picked up it was Neala I was talking about. Bob was a nice man, but he loved a bit of gossip and this bit of juice would be all over the village by the New Year if I let too much information slip.
"So tell her you didn't mean what you said," Bob said with a shoulder shrug.
If only things were that simple.
I grunted, "I did but she doesn't believe me."
"Rightly so," Bob nodded. "You hurt the lass and she is wary of trusting you again. That's understandable."