by Chloe Walsh
"You are so wrong about him–"
"Just hear me out on this, okay?" he interrupted again. "I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm just trying to make you aware." His tone of voice was soft and gentle but his words were patronizing and made me feel sick. "You're sixteen," he continued. "You've been through hell, and suddenly there's a young-fella knocking around, saying all the right things, making you feel wanted and alive. I get that, Shannon, I do. We've all been there. But you need to take a step back, think about what you're doing, and why you're feeling the way you are before you jump over a ledge you can't come back from. I don't want you doing anything that you're going to regret later on."
"You don't get it," I whispered.
"I get it. Everyone in the history of the world gets it. You think you're in love. You're convinced this boy will be the boy that saves you. But it's not real. It's all hormones and growing pains." Darren sighed wearily. "Your emotions are heightened when you're a teenager, and yours are especially because of what you've been through."
"I can't believe these words are actually coming out of your mouth," I hissed, feeling like I was being attacked. "You of all people."
"It's trauma bonding," he continued. "Maybe not completely, but you're definitely attaching yourself to him."
"Because I love him," I snapped, losing my cool. Blinking wildly when I realized what I had said, I debated taking it back before steeling my resolve. "I love him," I repeated, firmer this time. "And that has nothing to do with trauma or my family and everything to do with him!"
"You're a baby, Shannon," Darren sighed, belittling me once more. "You don't even know what love means yet."
"Are you finished?" I deadpanned, feeling the hot sting of tears. "Because you can go now."
Darren stood in the doorway for a solid minute longer, looking at me like he wanted to say something, but didn't. Eventually, he shook his head and turned to leave. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."
12
I'm Alone
Shannon
I had been home from the hospital less than a week and already the cracks were starting to show in our newly formed family unit. Mam was withdrawn and when she wasn't at work, she spent most of her time locked away in her bedroom or sitting like a zombie at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and staring off into nothing. This wasn't anything new to us, but without Joey around to compensate, the household was falling into a state of anarchy.
It didn't seem to matter what Darren said or did; Ollie and Tadhg weren't impressed and constantly challenged him. Even little Sean was resisting our new setup. He hadn't spoken a word to anyone since Dad left. I knew Darren was trying, and a part of me felt bad for my oldest brother, but a bigger part of me held infallible allegiance towards Joey.
Joey hadn't come home in days and with his noticeable absence from our younger brothers' daily routine, something they had been used to, came confusion and rebellion. I had a feeling Darren was regretting ever coming home. He was snowballing under the pressure of the role he had taken on, drowning in the bills and debts our parents had recklessly amassed, and smothering in the responsibility of caring for younger siblings and a weak mother.
On top of the meetings with solicitors, sessions with counselors, and house visits from social services and the Gardaí, the boys still had training sessions and matches most evenings. They had routines to uphold and even with Nanny helping out, it was a lot for one person to manage.
The pressure was immense and without Joey around to smooth everything over like he usually did, and steer Darren in the right direction, cracks were showing and tempers were rising.
The only good part about the whole mess was that our father was still missing. The bad part was that I knew in my heart that my mother was pining for him. She was pining for the man who made our lives a misery. That gave me little hope for a long-term future without him in it.
Without a phone or Joey, I had no way of contacting the outside world. Four months ago, that wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest. Four months ago, I would have been grateful to curl up under my duvet and hide from the big, bad world. But that was before Tommen. That was before Johnny.
Something was happening to me, I realized, something was shifting deep inside of my mind, and for the first time in my life, I felt restless. I felt like I wanted to pull on the chains shackling me to this house and break free. I had no idea where the notion had come from, but it was there, it was real, and it was encouraging me to dust myself off and fight back. To be brave and turn this life around for myself.
Not even the warnings from the Gardaí, encouraging me to stay at home while they searched for my father, or the constant whispering in my ear from Mam and Darren, could dissuade the yearning I had inside of my heart to break free.
I found it strange that now, with more bruises on my body than ever before, I wanted to push the boundaries, but that's what was happening.
"Have you heard from Joey?" Tadhg's voice cut through my thoughts, bringing me back to the present.
I swung around to find him leaning against the bathroom wall, his arms folded across his chest, watching me.
"No," I replied, turning back to face the mirror I had been staring into before he distracted me. "I haven't." Using my free hand, I ran my fingers through my hair, flinching when pain ricocheted through my scalp. "I haven't seen him since the hospital. You know this."
"And you're not worried?" he pushed, tone hardening. "Or do you not give a fuck like the rest of them?"
"You know I care, Tadhg." Forcing my hand to steady, I reached up with the scissors I was holding and tried again. "I give a lot of fucks."
"Why isn't he coming home, Shan?"
I wanted to scream because she's here, but I held it back and forced out, "I don't know, Tadhg," instead.
"What are you doing?" he asked then, sounding distracted.
Setting down the scissors on the sink, I turned around and gave him my attention. "I'm trying to fix my hair."
He arched a sardonic brow. "By hacking it off?"
"I'm not hacking it off, Tadhg."
"Then what are you doing?" he repeated, tone challenging.
I released a heavy sigh. "I'm bald."
"How'd you figure that?" His brows furrowed. "Your hair looks the same as always to me."
Walking over to the toilet, I closed the lid and sat down. "Come here."
"Why?"
"So I can show you."
Looking rather hesitant, Tadhg walked over to me. "Fine. Show me."
"Here." I lowered my head. "See the side part?"
I felt his fingers brush against my scalp before stilling. "There's a chunk gone," he deadpanned, yanking his hand away. "The size of a fist."
"I know." Swallowing deeply, I battled down my emotions and cupped the side of my head. "I was trying to bring some hair from the other side of my parting over to cover it up, but it's all uneven at the ends."
He was silent for a long time before asking, "Do you have a comb?"
I nodded. "On the sink."
Without a word, Tadhg walked over to the sink and grabbed both the comb and scissors.
"Whoa," I spluttered, eyeing the scissors warily. "Wh-what are you doing?"
"Fixing it," he growled. "Do you want my help or not?"
I debated the dangers of letting my eleven-year-old brother loose with scissors on my hair for the briefest of moments before shrugging in resignation. "Go for it." Whatever he did couldn't look worse than walking around with all of my hair tossed over one side. "I'm trusting you."
Tadhg's response to that was a clipped 'Hmm', but his fingers were achingly gentle as he worked. "Do you think she'll take him back?" he asked after a long stretch of silence. "When the dust settles?"
Yes. "No."
"Liar," was all he replied.
Twenty minutes later and I was staring in the mirror and admiring his handy work.
"I moved it over," he explained, still scowling, as he stood behind me and stared a
t the mirror. "And then I just evened out the ends on both sides so you don't look stupid."
Instead of my elbow length hair parting down the middle of my scalp like it always had, it now parted on the right, with the extra hair concealing the bald patch from where my father had torn clumps of my hair off.
"Thanks," I squeezed out, feeling a huge swell of emotion surge up inside of me. I turned around to face him. "I owe you one."
Tadhg shifted around, looking uncomfortable. "Yeah, well, if you want to do me a favor then find my brother."
My heart cracked. "He'll come back, Tadhg." Tears filled my eyes as I said, "Joey would never leave us."
"We're alone," he whispered, dropping his gaze to his feet.
"No." I shook my head and moved towards him. "We're not."
"Don’t you get it yet?" he spat, backing away from me. "Haven't you figured it out by now? We are all alone." He shook his head and glared at me. "All of us. On our own. By ourselves. And that's that."
"Tadhg, that's not true –"
"No one fucking cares, Shannon," he told me, voice flat and void of all emotion. "Not about us. If they did, they would have come by now. And Joey doesn't care, either," he cried before storming away.
13
Cashing In On Favors
Johnny
Days had passed without a word from Shannon and I was going out of my mind with worry.
Between that and being banned from training and the gym, I was at a complete loss. Seriously, I had no fucking clue what to do with myself. I attended my physio and OT sessions, but without the distraction of my usual jam-packed schedule, my mood was worsening.
I also received a huge-ass bollocking, via phone, from my coaches at The Academy for putting my body at risk the way I had. What had seemed like a good idea at the time had come back to bite me in the ass. My doctors and coaches didn’t trust me anymore, and I knew that it would be a very long time before they would again.
It was depressing.
The one upside to my downtime, and I begrudgingly admitted this, was that my body seemed to be thriving with the rest, recuperating at a much more rapid pace than I had anticipated. I could move more freely now, and the bruising and swelling in my balls and groin that had plagued me since Halloween was slowly beginning to fade. It also didn’t hurt to take a piss anymore. I still wasn’t taking any chances on the whole pulling my dick thing, but the morning hard-on I sported on a daily basis didn’t cause me the discomfort it once had.
None of that consoled me because my entire focus was on Shannon.
Because of my father and his anal attitude towards upholding the law, I hadn't been able to see her. Apparently, Shannon's brother, Darren, had called my parents, making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that I wasn't to return to the hospital.
I understood that my father dealt with this kind of thing on a daily basis, he was used to watching dysfunction unfold around him, but I wasn't. This was personal for me – she was personal for me – and being kept in the dark was driving me insane.
My mother, the turncoat, was on my father's side, but she had her own agenda. She didn't want me going anywhere near Mrs. Lynch. Her back was up over the whole suspension threat and she didn't want me going next to nor near a woman like that – her words, not mine.
Because of my inability to get myself from A to B since my surgery, I couldn't get there without my parents' help, leaving me pissed off and car-less.
Betrayed and sulking, I remained in bed for most of the week, ignoring my mother every time she popped her head around the door to check on me – which happened to be every twenty bleeding minutes – and mulling in my bad mood.
I was smothering inside my house. Fucking losing my mind with the restlessness inside of my body. I wasn’t used to sitting still and doing nothing. I was cranky and on edge, driven deeper into my own head with every passing day and no word from Shannon.
By the following Monday, I was resigned to my bad mood.
After an intense physiotherapy session with Janice this morning, followed by a further two hours in the pool, I was depressed and agitated. On the flat of my back, with Sookie tucked at my side, I wasted the rest of the day tossing a rugby ball into the air and catching it, all the while contemplating the worst possible scenarios that had been relentlessly plaguing me.
What if Shannon's dad came back and he didn't get prosecuted?
What if my body didn't heal in time for the tour?
What if he came back and her mother took him back?
What if the coaches overlooked me for that Danny Miller kid from Galway?
What if she didn't come back to school next week?
What if this was it for me?
What if she was put into care and had to change schools?
What if I played my last game in Dublin?
What if she got hurt again?
What if, what if, what if…
"I should have kept her in this room with us, Sook," I muttered. "I should have kept her, period!"
My faithful Labrador's response was to nuzzle into my side and yodel softly.
"Yeah I know, baby." Exhaling heavily, I tossed the ball across the room and wrapped my arm around her. "I fucked up real bad."
"Johnny, something's come and Dad's had to go back to Dublin," Mam's voice filled the room moments before she arrived in my doorway. "Cillian called – you remember Cillian, don't you, love? Cillian Moore?"
One of the blood thirsty solicitors who worked under my father? "Yeah, I remember him." Hotshot little fucker.
"Well, there's been some issue with a client's bail hearing and your dad needs to be there to clear it up. Cillian was handling the case, but something's popped up and your father is on better terms with Judge Ó Leary."
I snorted loudly. "Glad to know where his priorities lie. As usual."
"Don’t be like that," Mam said with a sigh. "He spent half the night on the phone last night – again – calling around for your benefit."
Arching a brow, I leveled her with a stare. "And?"
"And nothing," Mam replied. "He's not at liberty to discuss anything he found out with us – if he even found anything out." She sighed again. "You know all of this, Johnny."
Not bothering to respond, I turned my glare to the ceiling above me.
"He left some paperwork in his study and I need to drop it up to him," Mam continued to say. "I'll only be a few hours – I'll definitely be back tonight, but just in case, I've called Gerard to come over and keep you company while I'm gone. He knows you're not to leave the house, love, so don't even try and coax him into doing the wrong thing or there will be consequences for the both of you."
My ears perked up at the sound of Gibsie's name, and instantly, I was plotting mutiny.
I cared about a grand total of two things in my life. Rugby and Shannon. And right now, both had been taken away from me without warning. I was losing control of the reins of my own life and it was making me crazy. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Stay in my bed and take my medicine like a good little boy with a broken dick? I think fucking not.
"Stay in bed," Mam added sternly. "Gerard can let himself in, so don't trouble yourself with the stairs, love. And I know you said you're not hungry, but there's a pot of soup on the stove and some fresh bread rolls on the table if you're feeling peckish later."
Yeah, my mother might not have gotten the pram she wanted with my discharge papers from the hospital, but she had gained more control over my life than she'd had in years and she was exercising that newfound power. I was out of commission and she was thrilled to have me under her maternal watch 24/7.
"Are you listening to me, Johnny?" Mam pushed. "Did you hear a word of what I just said?"
"I heard ya," I grumbled. "Gibsie's coming over to babysit me because I, apparently, can't be trusted to be left on my own for an hour." I rolled my eyes. "Even though I've taken care of myself for months on end without either one of my folks around."
Mam rolled her eyes right
back at me. "Don't be such a drama queen."
I gaped at her, resisting the urge to scream and prove her right.
"Enjoy your trip," I said instead.
Mam arched a brow. "Enjoy your strop."
Give me strength…
"Goodbye, Mother," I bit out.
Mam smirked. "Farewell, my bouncing, baby boy."
Jesus.
I waited until Mam had closed my bedroom door behind her before throwing the covers off myself.
Twenty minutes later, I was fresh from a shower and wrestling with a pair of jocks when my bedroom door flew inwards. "I'm so fucking bored," Gibsie announced, strolling into my room. "We're on our Easter break and how am I spending it? Locked up in my room, studying for an exam I'm not even sure I can spell, let alone take next year, and all because you decided to break your dick and leave me alone." Dropping his overnight bag on the floor, he flopped down on my bed and exhaled a dramatic sigh. "You're so selfish."
"Sorry for inconveniencing you," I grumbled as I balanced against the bathroom doorframe and tried to tuck myself in without causing harm. My stitches were healing nicely, but I was still sore and bruised. "I forgot it's all about you, Gibs –"
"Whoa, that's a lot of swollen dick!" Gibsie groaned, dropping a hand over his face. "You're all there, aren't ya, lad! Kind of wish I didn't come over now. Feeling kind of emasculated. And a little hard done by. Maybe I should learn to knock –"
"Stop talking," I muttered, settling the waistband on my hips. "You're being all fucked up again and I need you to be normal for an hour."
He arched a brow. "Only an hour?"