by Chloe Walsh
It was a soft, innocent, almost featherlike peck on the lips, but it was everything in this moment, and it meant everything to me because it was from him. Because for the very first time he kissed me first.
"I won't," Johnny whispered, brows touching, lips gliding against mine as he spoke. "I'll always be careful with you, Shannon like the river." Exhaling a shaky breath, he tucked my hair behind my ears and cupped my face in his hands. "I promise."
"I'll be careful with you, too," I told him, trembling from head to toe.
He smiled. "That's good to know, because I've got a feeling you could do some serious damage to my –"
"I'm not sure where he is now, he was right behind me, but if he could just have a minute with her… never mind," a familiar voice said. "I've found him."
"Shite," Johnny mumbled. Releasing my face, he leaned back in his chair and offered a half-hearted salute with his hand. "Hi, Da."
"Glad to see that you're listening ears are as absent as always, son," Mr. Kavanagh replied in a mild tone. "Shannon." He gave me a sad smile. "It's lovely to see you again, although the circumstances aren’t ideal."
"Hi, Mr. Kavanagh," I whispered, feeling my walls rise up at a rapid pace. I wasn’t sure if it was the sight of Johnny's mild-mannered father that caused this reaction or the furious look on my mother's face as she stood in the doorway beside him.
"Well," Mam strangled out, clearly upset. "I think he's had more than a minute."
"Mam –" I began to protest, but Mr. Kavanagh interrupted me.
"Understood." He looked at Johnny and inclined his head. "Let's go, son."
"What?" I stared in horror at my mother. "Why?"
"Because I said so," Mam replied, tone shaky.
"No." I shook my head and looked to Johnny. "No, you don't have to go anywhere."
"Yes, he does, Shannon," Mr. Kavanagh interjected. "Come on, Johnny."
Johnny looked how I felt, completely torn, as he looked from his father to me. Several long moments passed in tense silence before Johnny finally nodded in defeat. My heart sank as I watched him retrieve his crutches and climb unsteadily to his feet. "I'll be back, Shannon."
"I would prefer it if you didn’t," Mam was quick to say. "Come back, that is. At least for a while. We're going through a deeply personal issue, it's a family matter, and I really don’t feel like it's appropriate for you to be here."
My jaw fell open. "Mam!"
"Oh no?" Johnny shot back, not masking the anger in his voice. "Well, I would prefer if you shoved your feelings up the highest part of your –"
"Jonathon!" Mr. Kavanagh barked. "Time to go."
"You've done enough damage to this family already," Mam snapped, trembling. "Whether you realize it or not, so don’t show your face around here again. You're not welcome."
"Mrs. Lynch," Mr. Kavanagh interjected calmly. "I think we all need to calm down–"
"Keep your son away from my daughter," Mam snapped. "She's sixteen years old and I don’t want her messing around with him. She's in here because of him! Because he wouldn't stay away. So, keep him away. Do you understand me? Keep that boy away from my daughter!"
"What are you talking about?" I strangled out, feeling my heart gallop to the point where I felt dizzy. "He hasn't done anything wrong."
"I'm coming back to see your daughter," Johnny growled, eyes locked on my mother. "I played by your rules once before and look where it got her. So, you can rest assured that I won't be doing that again."
"Johnny, let's go," Mr. Kavanagh barked. "Now."
"Jesus Christ, Da!"
"Now!"
Tearing his heated gaze off my mother, Johnny turned to look at me. Ignoring our parents, he closed the space between us, cupped the back of my head with one hand and leaned down. "I'll be back," he whispered before pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead. Straightening up, he looked down at me and winked. "I promise."
Wide-eyed, I stared up at him and whispered, "I'll be waiting."
Johnny turned back to my mother and hissed, "I'm watching you."
"Come on." Mr. Kavanagh sighed wearily and placed a hand on the back of Johnny's neck. "Get out of the room before I take your crutch and beat you with it."
"Nice choice of words, Da," Johnny groaned, allowing his father to lead him out of the room. "Real fucking tactful."
"Oh Jesus," Mr. Kavanagh muttered, turning in the doorway. His face was a deep shade of red as he said, "My sincerest apologies for the tasteless remark," before closing the door behind them.
"What was that?" Mam asked, tone accusing, eyes narrowed on me.
"That was Johnny," I replied, daring her back with my eyes. "What was that?" I asked her right back. "What the hell, Mam? He came to see me and you ran him off."
"He had no business being here."
"What?" I gaped at her. "He's my friend!"
"And is your friend planning on making a habit of kissing you?" she demanded. "In front of your mother?"
God, I hoped so. I shrugged noncommittally.
"He's too old for you."
"He's seventeen," I shot back defiantly. "I'm sixteen."
"I don’t like this, Shannon," she muttered, looking concerned. "Him. I don’t like him. There's something about him. He's too…he's too…"
"He's too what, Mam?"
"Much for you," she filled in. "He's too old and too experienced and definitely too arrogant."
"Well, he's not your choice," I told her. "He's mine."
"Does he know?" Mam whispered, eyeing me with extreme wariness. "About our family?"
"He knows everything," I confirmed quietly, feeling a tsunami of misplaced guilt rise up in me. Logic told me I didn't need to feel bad, but my heart was confused. My heart called me a traitor. "I had to tell him," I choked out, explaining myself. "He saw the marks."
"Jesus, Shannon," Mam strangled out. "No." She shook her head. "No, no, no, this isn't right."
"Look where I am." My cheeks burned. "I couldn't keep lying to him."
"Not that!" Mam snapped. "I mean you and him." She shook her head again. "No, you're vulnerable and he's taking advantage of a bad situation."
"What?" I gaped at her. "I can't believe you just said that."
"Are you sleeping with him?"
"What?"
"Are you having sex with that boy?"
"Oh my god! You're so unbelievably disconnected." I bit back a scream. "Darren was right. You need help."
"He hurt you, Shannon," Mam choked out. "He knocked you out – put you in the hospital."
"Accidentally," I spat. "Unlike the man who you left in our lives, who likes to hurt us on purpose." I gestured wildly to myself. "I'm in the hospital again, Mam. Are you going to blame this on Johnny, too?"
Mam flinched. "If he had left you alone in the first place then your father wouldn't have had a reason to –"
"Don't!" I warned, voice cracking. "Don't you dare blame me for what he did to me."
"I'm not," she sobbed, crying again. "I'm sorry…I'm just terrified for you." Hurrying towards me, she sank down on the bed beside me. "Your father knows about him. What if he tries to find you through him? What if he sees you with him and it makes things worse?"
"He already knows where we live, Mam," I said with a weary sigh. "If Dad wants to get me, he will."
"Shannon…" Mam sobbed loudly. "Don't say that."
"It's the truth," I replied, feeling emotionally drained. "If he wants to hurt us, he doesn't need to go through my friends to do it. All he has to do is knock on the door and you'll welcome him in with open arms."
"No," she sniffled. "I won't do that again."
"We'll see."
"I knew this would happen," she whispered, reaching for my hand.
"You knew what would happen?" I asked, snatching my hand away.
"I saw the way he looked at you that day. At the school when I came to pick you up?" She exhaled a broken sob. "I knew he was going to be trouble."
"He's not trouble," I urged.
"He's a good person, Mam – a great one. He's training to be a professional rugby player, for god's sake. He already plays for his country. He's smart and driven and kind. He's so kind, Mam. He doesn't take drugs or mess around like everyone else his age. He's not the monster you've invented in your head."
"Do you think I don’t know what it's like; to turn the head of a boy like that?" she asked. "Your father was all of those things. He wasn't a bad man when I first knew him. He was wonderful. He was a star in his own right with the hurling. Everyone wanted to know him. He was adored, you know. Ballylaggin's golden boy."
"It's not the same thing," I strangled out, feeling my body grow hot and panicky. "None of this is the same."
"It's all the same," she shot back brokenly. "And look at me now, Shannon." She waved a hand aimlessly around the room. "Look where boys like that get girls like us. One mistake is all it takes. One slip up and your life is over. You'll be saddled down with more responsibility than you can cope with and he'll blame you for everything. He'll blame you for taking his future from him. For changing the course of his life. For making him a father when he's still a boy. Repeat my mistakes, Shannon, and that boy will blame you and resent you and break you until there's nothing of you left to hurt."
"I'm not you," I choked out. "And he's not Dad."
"Yet," she replied sadly. "Not yet."
"Stop talking."
Mam balked. "Wh-what?"
"You don't get to do this to me," I said, shaking. "You don't get to scare me away from the one good thing in my life."
"I'm not trying to scare you, Shannon. I'm trying to help you," she pleaded. "Trying to protect you."
"Yeah, from the wrong person."
"No." She shook her head. "From making the same mistakes as me."
"Well, you asked me earlier if there was a chance I'd ever forgive you?" Swallowing deeply, I clutched the edge of the mattress, looked my mother dead in the eyes, and whispered, "Drive him away and the answer will be never again."
10
Accusations
Johnny
"I am sorry, Johnny," my father said when he parked the car at the back of our house beside my Audi later that night. "I should have listened to you."
"I know, Da." Exhausted, I unfastened my seatbelt and swung the door open. He should have listened to me, but I couldn’t talk about it now. I was struggling with my feelings, desperately trying to hold the fuck onto my emotions and not lose it. It wasn’t easy though, and every time I thought about Shannon lying in that hospital, when I thought about those marks on her body, I slid closer to the edge.
I couldn’t get her out of my head, which, to be fair, was nothing new, but now it was different. I was confused, my feelings all fucked up and laced with nervous desperation. I didn’t want to leave her back there. If I had my way, I'd steal her away from that horrendous fucking family and keep her all to myself.
Helping me out of the passenger seat, Dad closed the door behind me and hooked an arm around my waist. I was glad of his help. My head was in pieces, my body weary and sore, and I didn’t think I had a whole pile of juice left in the tank. "I won't make that mistake again, son."
Grateful for the boost, I gave up on using my crutches and threw my right arm around his shoulders instead, leaning heavily against him. "I'm in bits, Da," I admitted through clenched teeth, feeling the red-hot burn in my thighs and lower abdomen. "My body's wrecked."
"Good lad," Dad coaxed as he tucked my crutches under one arm and guided me to the door. "That's it – mind the step, son."
"I've got it," I bit out, forcing down a scream as I struggled over the doorstep. "I'm good."
When we stepped into the kitchen, Mam was standing beside the cooker with her apron on and a wooden spoon in her hands. The minute she noticed us, she dropped her spoon into the pot of stew, her stirring forgotten, and hurried over to me. "Are you okay, love?" she asked, cupping my face in her hands, brown eyes warm and laced with maternal concern. "Are you sore? What about Shannon? Did you see her? Is it true? Did you get to talk to her –"
"Edel, love," Dad interjected with a small shake of his head. "Not tonight. The lad is dead on his feet."
Mam's expression caved. "Oh god." Her hands dropped to her sides as she stared up at me and Dad in horror. "It's true, isn’t it?"
"It's true, love," Dad confirmed grimly. "He was right all along."
Mam covered her mouth with her hands. "Her father?"
Dad nodded stiffly.
"Oh, John." Tears filled my mother's eyes. "That poor child."
"It's not just her, though, is it?" I snapped, bristling with agitation. "There's a fucking ocean of children in that house."
Mam flinched. "And you think…"
"I don’t know what I think anymore." Swallowing down a surge of anger at the complete fucking injustice that it was to be a teenager in this world, I swiped my crutches from my father and growled, "I have no bleeding clue." Brushing past them, I hobbled to the door. "I'm going to bed."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Mam called after me. "Johnny?"
"I need some space," I muttered, not looking back. "I need some time to process this…shitstorm."
"Johnny, love –"
"Edel, leave him be."
"But, John, he can't manage the stairs on his own –"
"Edel, let the boy be."
At a snail's pace, I made it down the hallway to the staircase, ignoring my parents as they argued between themselves. My breathing was labored from the sheer exertion it took to get my body to comply and move.
When I finally made it to the top of the stairs, having deserted my crutches three steps up, I felt faint. Digging deep into the storage tank of will inside of me, I steeled my spine and pushed on. It wasn’t until I was inside my bedroom, with my door closed behind me, that I let it out.
Staggering over to my bed, I sank down on the edge and dropped my head in my hands. Sookie, my Labrador, stirred from her perch at the foot of my bed and bounded towards me, closing the space between us, clearly thrilled to see me again.
"How's my baby, huh? Did Ma leave you in here? Good girl." Bone weary, I scratched her ears and neck, while my attention shifted to the newspaper lying open on my nightstand. Leaning over my dog, I grabbed the newspaper and flicked it over to the page it was open to.
The minute my eyes landed on Shannon's smiling, un-marked face as she snuggled into my side, I felt like I had been sucker punched in the chest.
"I fucked up, Sook." Wrapping an arm around my dog, I buried my face in her neck. Exhaling a pained growl, I blinked away the sting of tears as my mind frantically flicked through every bad memory I had of Shannon until I felt like I would explode. "I fucked up so bad, girl," I confessed, clenching my eyes shut as a harsh sob tore from my chest. "Christ."
A low knock sounded from my bedroom door. "Johnny, can I come in?"
"No," I bit out, tensing up. I was surprised that my mother was actually asking my permission for once in her life. "Just…just leave me be, Ma. Please."
There was a long pause and then the sound of footsteps retreating filled the silence, getting quieter and quieter, before spinning around growing in volume. My bedroom door flew inwards and Mam strode in. "I'm sorry, love, but I can't do that."
And they called me a bulldozer.
"I know you're mad at me," she said, closing the space and sitting down beside me. "And you have every right to feel that way. I'm mad at me, too." Reaching out, Mam ruffled Sookie's ears before rolling her out of the way and shifting closer to me. "But you've been through hell these past few days." Placing her hand on my shoulder, she added, "I need you to know that I am here. I need to be here for you."
"I know you're here, Ma," I muttered, focusing my gaze on the door of my ensuite bathroom. "Never thought you weren't."
"I talked to Dad about what happened to Shannon," she added gently, squeezing my shoulder. "I know you must be feeling confused right now."
I sighed heavily. "That's one wa
y of putting it."
"It's okay to feel off-balance over this."
"I don’t know how I'm feeling anymore," I mumbled, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Everything's just…railroading." Dropping my head, I inhaled several calming breaths, wondering how in the hell my life had taken on this fucked up route. "I feel like I'm drowning in their pain, Ma," I admitted hoarsely. I feel like I'm drowning in her.
"You're a smart boy, Johnny, but you're not emotionally equipped to deal with what you were exposed to tonight, and that's okay."
"There's nothing okay about any of this," I bit out through clenched teeth. "A grown man beats the living daylights out his daughter, fucking terrorizes her for years, puts her in a hospital bed, and just slips away into hiding?" I threw my hands up in frustration. "Do you think Shannon is emotionally equipped to deal with that? Because I honestly can't see how." I leaned my head back, more upset than I could handle. "I don’t get it, Ma," I hissed, feeling the anger rise up in me once more. "I don’t understand how a man could do that to his kid –" I clenched my jaw and inhaled through my nose, needing to keep my cool more than anything right now. "How anyone could do that to her."
"Sometimes people do horrendous and unexplainable things, love," Mam replied softly. "There's no sane way of understanding madness, love, so don't drive yourself crazy trying to."
"But I just –"
"Care about her?" Mam interjected gently. "We know, Johnny, pet."
"Months, Ma," I choked out, feeling anxious. "I've known Shannon for months, and knowing that every day of those months she was going home from school to that piece of –" I shook my head and took several deep, calming breaths before continuing, "I let her down. I'm just one more on a long list of people who let her down."
"You didn't let her down, Johnny. You didn't know."
"I knew something was wrong," I argued. "I knew that much!"
"Because you've always had a good sense of what was right and wrong," Mam replied. "That's what makes you special, love. You've always drummed to your own beat. Defended the underdog. You've never been one to fall into line or follow the crowd. Even when you were little, you walked your own line, Johnny."