IRISH LOVESTORY - Stephanie

 

  copyright©2025

Stephanie

My black dress, once just another piece of fabric hanging in the closet, became the target of Jack’s unrestrained fury. Months of simmering tension erupted in violent hands, reducing it to shreds. Every quarrel, every petty pretext, was never about the surface issue—it was about power, about reminding me who would always have the last word. If I caught him in a lie, retaliation was inevitable. This time was no different. He made certain I understood.

When he was too drunk, too volatile, or simply too dangerous to reason with, I retreated into my small room—a fragile sanctuary carved from fear. He never objected. Let me vanish behind the door, he did, abandoning me to whatever fate awaited. But one night, I awoke to an unfamiliar glow spilling into the hall. Shadows flickered against the walls, and there he was, looming over me. Rifling through my phone, reading messages and calls as if he had the right to know everything. My heart thundered, yet I feigned sleep, lashes pressed tight, lips sealed by terror.

Jack’s violence became a storm with no horizon, a time bomb ticking louder each day. Explosions came closer, sharper, often sparked by figments of his imagination. I learned to move like glass on the edge of shattering—silent, careful—but no precautions could shield me. I craved every hour away from home. 

It was during this descent that Grace arrived at O’Briens. Young, rough around the edges, unrefined. In Ireland, people like her were often called Tinkers—a word used for the Traveller community, seen as rootless, living on the margins, dismissed as uncultured. Grace didn’t stand out in any particular way, except that unlike Jacinta, she wasn’t my superior. I oversaw her shifts, treated her with fairness, hoping to preserve some peace.

One afternoon, in a brief lull between tasks, Grace mentioned her closest friend: Stephanie—Jack’s first love. The name jolted me, sharp as a slap. Jack had spoken of her before, his words edged with a bitterness that hadn’t dulled over time. She had been the girl he dated in his youth, the one he had loved deeply, or so he claimed. But the story ended in betrayal. Stephanie left him for Stan, our mutual friend, the one who appeared throughout our lives like an unwanted shadow. Their union had carved a wound in Jack that never fully closed. The history between Jack and Stan lingered like poison: outward smiles when circumstances forced them together, but beneath every word, contempt simmered, heavy and unresolved. Hearing Grace say Stephanie’s name filled me with unease; I knew instantly how dangerous the echo of that past could be in our present.

At first, Stephanie was just a shadow, a ghost from long ago. I never imagined her name would resurface in my life with such weight.

The first spark came when Grace, changing in the staff locker room, crossed paths with me. I thought nothing of it at first—until I reached for my phone. I had left it tucked away in my locker, but when I picked it up, the screen was still glowing.

Something wasn’t right.

With a sinking feeling, I opened my contacts. Every number was gone. Wiped clean. Even Jack’s.

I couldn’t bring myself to believe Grace would actually do such a thing, yet the image of that lit screen stayed with me, nagging at me. At home, I told Jack what had happened. I didn’t mention it to Barry—part of me too embarrassed, part of me unsure—but from then on, I watched Grace more carefully.

Not long after, Jack began receiving messages on his phone. Regular ones. He confessed to me, almost casually, that it was Stephanie who had reached out.

“So now I see why Grace needed your number,” I said, voice edged with anger.

“She only wanted to ask something,” Jack shrugged. “Don’t mind her. She’s a fool. If she bothers you, I’ll talk to her.”

And just like that, the matter was dismissed. But it wasn’t. Stephanie had found her opening and clung to it. She wrote incessantly, called nightly. His phone buzzed at all hours. He carried it everywhere—even to the bathroom. A lock code barred my view. One night, he left it unattended. I snatched her number, resolved to confront her myself.

A secret war of words began, one I kept carefully hidden from Jack, knowing his fury would erupt if he discovered it. Stephanie’s messages dripped venom. She mocked me, labeled me an outsider, ridiculed my presence. When I pleaded with her to stop, she only sneered: he was grown, he could choose. And she was right. Still, I pressed on. She wielded insults with brazen, unapologetic skill, coveting a man who was no longer hers. Every stolen cigarette break at O’Briens became another skirmish. Each encounter left me raw, exhausted, tilting at shadows.

One day, in desperate rage, I phoned her. My words were sharp, but they did nothing. Jack, meanwhile, seemed amused—his ego fed by our conflict. I begged him to intervene, to silence her. He refused.

“Then tell her to leave you alone! Be firm!” I screamed.

“I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole,” he said flatly. “Once, she was pretty. Not anymore. You’ve nothing to worry about.” And that was it. His indifference cutting deeper than any confession.

When it became unbearable, I obtained his call records from the operator. Each page confirmed my dread: long, intimate conversations, repeated over weeks on end. I laid the evidence before him. He was startled at how I’d acquired it—his own carelessness had betrayed him. Yet even then, he chastised me for invading his privacy, never admitting the truth.

One evening, the weight of it all broke me. In the bathroom, I collapsed, sobbing. My chest heaved, my hands trembling, tears spilling freely, carrying the exhaustion, the fear, the relentless pressure I had held inside for so long. Each sob felt both cathartic and humiliating—as if I were exposing every fracture of myself, every vulnerability Jack could exploit.

Jack approached, cupping my face. For a moment, a flicker of compassion softened his gaze.
“You see…” he murmured, almost moved, “…when you cry like this, it shows me just how much you love me.”

In that instant, clarity seared through me. My tears, raw and unguarded, were no act of release—they were his triumph. My suffering, the evidence he demanded, the proof of his control. Shame and anger collided inside me, mingling with the flicker of self-preservation I had long ignored. From that day forward, I vowed: never again would I gift him the satisfaction of my tears.