by Chloe Walsh
Even at four years old, I'd known this girl was different.
I could feel the kindness radiating out of her. I'd felt it as she stood in my corner for eight long years, defending me to her own detriment.
She knew the difference between right and wrong and was prepared to step in for anyone weaker than her.
She was a keeper.
We had drifted apart since going to separate secondary schools, but one look at her and I knew she was still the same old Claire.
"We can't all be beanpoles," I shot back good-naturedly, knowing her words were not meant to hurt me.
"God, I'm so glad you're here." She shook her head and smiled down at me. She did this adorable happy dance and then threw her arms around me once more. "I can't believe your parents finally did the right thing by you."
"Yeah," I replied, uncomfortable again. "Eventually."
"Shan, it won't be like that here," Claire's tone was serious now, eyes full of unspoken emotion. "All that shit you've suffered? It's in the past." She sighed again and I knew she was holding her tongue, refraining from saying everything she wanted to.
Claire knew.
She was there in primary school.
She witnessed how it was for me back then.
For some unknown reason, I was glad she hadn't seen how much worse it had gotten.
It was a humiliation I didn’t want to feel anymore.
"I'm here for you," she continued to say, "and Lizzie, too – if she ever decides to drag her ass out of bed and actually come to school."
Smiling brightly, I banished my demons to the back of my mind and said, "Here's to a fresh start."
"Yes, girl!" Claire said with keen enthusiasm, fist bumping me in the process. "A fresh start with the sunny side up."
The first half of the day went better than I could have ever anticipated. Claire introduced me to her friends, and while I couldn’t remember the names of most of the people I had met, I was incredibly grateful to be included and, I dared say, accepted.
Inclusion wasn’t something I was used to, and I found myself working hard to keep up with the constant flow of conversation and friendly questions aimed at me.
Spending as much time as I did in my own company made it difficult for me to integrate back into normal teenage society. Having people other than Joey and his friends that were willing to sit with me, talk to me, and walk with me at school was a mind-blowing experience.
When my other primary school friend, Lizzie Young, eventually showed up to school halfway through the third class of the morning, blaming a dentist appointment for her absence, we immediately fell back into the familiar friendship we always had.
Lizzie rolled into school in a boy's school trousers and runners, uncaring of what anyone had to say about her appearance. She honestly didn’t seem to care what people thought. She dressed according to her mood and projected vibes the same way. She could show up tomorrow in a skirt and with a full face of makeup. She did what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it, unaware and uncaring of anyone else's opinion.
She oozed a lazy sort of confidence with her long, dark blonde, swishing ponytail and makeup-free face, emphasizing those big, blue eyes of hers.
I also noted all through our classes that Lizzie received plenty of male attention regardless of the baggy trousers and messy hair she was sporting, proving the point that you don’t need to strip down and paint your face to attract the opposite sex.
A genuine smile and a nice personality went a long way.
Lizzie was a lot like Claire in many ways, but starkly different in others.
Like Claire, Lizzie was blonde and leggy.
They were both tall for their age and both sickeningly beautiful.
But where Claire was outgoing and, at times, a little overly excited, Lizzie was laidback and slightly introverted.
Claire was mostly unfiltered and Lizzie took her time to make a decision on something.
Claire was pristine at all times with a full face of makeup and a perfectly coordinated outfit for any given occasion, while Lizzie's style was unpredictable.
Meanwhile, I was the tiny brunette who buddied up with the best-looking girls in class.
Sigh…
"Are you okay, Shan?" Lizzie asked after big break.
We were walking towards our next class, English in the south wing, when I stopped mid-stride, causing a pile-up of students.
"Oh crap," I muttered, suddenly realizing my blunder. "I left my phone in the bathroom."
Claire, who was on my left, turned and frowned. "Go and get it, we'll wait for you."
"The bathroom in the science building," I replied with a groan. Tommen was ridiculously large, with several classes taking place in different buildings around the vast property. "I have to get it back," I added, feeling anxious at the thought of someone finding my phone and invading my privacy. The mobile phone itself wasn’t worth anything, it was one of the cheapest prepays on the market and didn’t even have a camera, but it was mine. It was filled with private text messages and I needed it back. "Dammit."
"Don’t panic," Lizzie interjected. "We'll walk you over."
"No." I held a hand up and shook my head. "I don’t want to make you both late for class, too. I'll go and get it." I was new. It was my first day. I doubted the teacher would go hard on me for being late to class. Claire and Lizzie on the other hand weren't new and didn’t have any excuse for not being in their seats on time.
I could do this.
I didn’t – or at least I shouldn't – need a babysitter to walk me across the school.
Claire frowned, her uncertainty evident. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "I remember the way."
"I don’t know, Shan." Lizzie chewed on her bottom lip. "Maybe one of us should go with you." Shrugging, she added, "You know, just in case…"
The second bell rang loudly, signaling the start of class.
"Go on," I urged, waving them off. "I'll be grand."
Turning on my heels, I hurried down the hallway to the entrance and then broke into a run when I reached the courtyard. It took a solid nine-minutes running at full speed in the lashing rain down a laneway that circled several sports training pitches to reach the science building – not an easy feat in heels.
By the time I reached the girls bathroom, I was breathless and sweating.
Thankfully, my phone was exactly where I had left it – on the sink next to the soap dispenser.
Sagging in relief, I swiped it off the sink, quickly checked the screen, sagged again when I saw the unperturbed locked screen, and then tucked it safely into the front pocket of my school bag.
If this had happened in my old school, a phone left unattended in a bathroom wouldn’t have survived fifteen seconds, let alone fifteen minutes.
You're walking shoulder to shoulder with the wealthy now, Shannon, I thought to myself. They don’t want your shitty phone.
Splashing some water on my face, I shouldered my bag onto my back, using both straps like the nerd I was. I hadn't been to my locker yet and I was carrying what felt like four stone in there. Both straps were entirely necessary in this situation.
When I stepped out of the science building and looked at the long, unappealing trek back to the main building where my class was, I bit back a moan.
I wasn’t running again.
I physically couldn’t.
All of my energy was zapped.
Forlorn, my gaze flickered between the unappealing, uphill laneway and to the training pitches.
There were three pitches in total on this side of the school.
Two smaller fields, neatly tended, that were empty, and one larger pitch that was currently being occupied by thirty or so boys and a teacher shouting orders at them.
Torn, I debated my options.
If I cut across the training fields, it would shave several minutes off my walk.
They wouldn’t even notice me.
I was small and quick.
&nb
sp; I was also tired and anxious.
Cutting across the pitches was the logical thing to do.
Sure, there was a steep, grassy bank on the far side of the pitch that separated the fields from the courtyard, but I could make it up that without any problem.
Checking my watch, a surge of dismay rose inside of me when I saw that I had already missed fifteen minutes of the forty-minute class.
Decision made, I climbed over the low wooden fence that separated the training grounds from the footpath and powerwalked towards my destination.
With my head down and my heart hammering violently against my ribcage, I hurried through the empty fields, hesitating only when I reached the largest of the training pitches – the one filled with boys.
Huge boys.
Dirty boys.
Angry looking boys.
Who were glaring at me.
Oh crap.
"What are you doing?"
"Get off the fucking pitch!"
"Jesus Christ!"
"Fucking girls."
"Move, will you!"
Panicked, I ignored the shouting and jeering as I hurried past them, obviously disturbing their training.
Mortification seeped through my body as I upped my pace, breaking into a clumsy jog.
The ground was wet and muddy from the rain, so I couldn’t move as quickly as I – or those boys – would have liked.
When I reached the edge of the pitch, I felt like crying in relief as I hobbled up the steep bank. However, my relief was only a momentary, fleeting feeling that was quickly replaced with a searing pain as something very hard and very heavy smashed into the back of my head, taking the air from my lungs and my feet from beneath me.
Moments later, I was freefalling backwards, tumbling down the muddy bank, the pain ricocheting through my head making it impossible for me to think clearly or break my own fall.
My last coherent thought before I hit the ground with a thud, and a thick cloud of darkness cloaked over me, was this; nothing changes.
I was wrong though.
Everything changed after that day.
Everything.
3
Flying balls
Boy Wonder Captivates The Coaching Staff At The Academy – Young Johnny Kavanagh, 17, a native of Blackrock, Dublin, currently residing in Ballylaggin County Cork, sailed through his medical evaluation to secure his position at the prestigious rugby academy in Cork. Nursing a chronic groin injury since the start of last season, the youth has been given the all clear from team doctors. The Tommen College secondary school student is set to win his fifteenth cap for The Academy this weekend, having been named as starting 13 for the esteemed youth team. The natural center has been drawing attention from coaches at International level, including clubs in the U.K and southern hemisphere. When asked to comment on the school boy's accelerated rise through the ranks, the Ireland's u20's head coach, Liam Delaney, had this to say; "We are excited about the level of caliber in the up and coming players throughout the country. The future looks bright for Irish rugby." When asked specifically about the Cork school boy, Delaney said, "We have been aware of Kavanagh since his playing days in Dublin and have been in close talks with his coaches and trainers for the last eighteen months. U18's coaches are impressed. We are keeping a keen eye on his progression and are impressed with the level of intelligence and maturity he naturally exudes on the pitch. He's certainly one to watch out for when he comes of age."
Johnny
I was exhausted.
Seriously, I was so tired I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open and my focus on point. My day from hell was turning into the week from hell, and that was a special feat considering it was Monday.
Falling straight back into school, not to mention training and the gym six nights a week, did that to a guy.
To be honest, I'd been running on empty since last summer, having returned from an international campaign with the u18's, where I was playing alongside the best in Europe, only to head right into an intense six-week conditioning camp in Dublin.
After that, I had a ten-day break before returning to school and resuming my commitments with my club and The Academy.
I was also hungry, which didn’t bode well for my temper.
I didn’t do well with long intervals between meals.
My lifestyle and intense training regime required me to eat at regular, allotted time frames.
Every two hours was ideal for my body when I was consuming a 4,500 calorie a day diet.
Leaving my stomach waiting longer than four hours, and I was a moody, pissy bitch.
It wasn’t like I was particularly looking forward to the mountain of fish and steamed vegetables waiting for me in my lunch box, but I was in a routine, dammit.
Fucking with my regimen was a surefire way of waking the hangry beast inside of me.
We'd been on the pitch less than half an hour and already I'd taken out three of my teammates and had taken a bollocking from our coach in the process.
In my defense, every tackle I made on them was a perfectly legal one, if not a little ruthless.
But that was my point, dammit.
I was too aggravated to take it back a notch on boys who weren't anywhere near my level of playing.
Boys was the appropriate word in this instance.
These were boys.
I played with men.
I often wondered what the point was in playing on the school team.
It didn’t do shite for me.
Club level was basic enough but school boy rugby was a fucking waste of my time.
Especially this school.
Today was the first day back after Christmas break, but the school team had been training since September.
Four months.
Four fucking months and we looked more disorganized than ever.
For the millionth time in the past six years, I found myself resenting my parents' move.
Had we stayed in Dublin, I would be playing on a quality team with quality players and making some actual goddamn progression.
But no, instead I was here, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, picking up the slack for a less than adept trainer and busting my bollocks to keep our side in sights of the qualifiers.
We won the league cup last year because we had a solid team with the ability to actually play decent fucking rugby.
With the absence of several players from last year's squad, who were now gone on to college, my agitation and concern for our chances this year was growing by the minute.
I wasn’t the only one who felt like this, either.
There were six or seven exceptional players left in this school who were good enough for the division we were playing in, and that was the problem.
We needed a bench of twenty-three decent players to excel in this league.
Not half a dozen.
My best friend for example, Gerard Gibson - or Gibsie for short, was a prime example of exceptional.
He was, without a shadow of doubt, the best flanker I'd played with or against in this level of rugby and could easily move up the ranks with a little commitment and effort.
Unlike me, though, rugby wasn’t Gibsie's life.
Giving up parties and girlfriends for a few years was a small price to pay for a professional career in the sport. If he laid off the drink and cigarettes, he'd be phenomenal.
Gibs wasn’t quite so convinced though, choosing to spend quality training time fucking his way through the female population of Ballylaggin with a relish, and drinking until his liver and pancreas cried out in protest instead.
I thought it was a dreadful waste.
Another overthrown pass from Patrick Feely, our newest number 12 and my partner in midfield, caused me to lose my ever-loving shite right there in the middle of the pitch.
Yanking out my mouthguard, I flung it at him, socking him straight in the jaw.
"See that?" I roared. "It's called hitting the fucking target."
"Sorry, Cap
," the center muttered, red-faced, addressing me by the on-pitch nickname I'd earned since becoming captain of the school team in fourth year and earning my first international cap the same year. "I'll do better."
I regretted my actions immediately.
Patrick was a decent lad and very good friend of mine.
Aside from Gibsie, Hughie Biggs and Patrick were my closest friends.
Gibs, Feely, and Hughie had already been in a tight circle at Scoil Eoin, an all-boys primary school, when I was injected into their class for the final year of primary.
Bonding over our shared love of rugby, we'd all remained good friends throughout secondary school, although we had paired off in the sense of best friends – with Hughie aligning himself with Patrick, and me with the gobshite himself.
Patrick was a quiet lad. He didn’t deserve my wrath, and the poor guy definitely didn’t deserve to have my spit-laced mouthguard launched at his head.
Dropping my head, I jogged over to him and clapped his shoulder, muttering my apologies.
See, this was exactly why I needed to be fed.
And maybe given an icepack for my dick.
Fill me up with enough meat and veg and I'd be a different person.
A tolerant person.
Polite even.
But my sole focus was currently on not passing out from hunger and pain, therefore I had no time for niceties.
We had a cup qualifier match later this week and unlike me, these lads had spent their free time being, well, teenagers.
Christmas break was a prime example.
I'd spent my time working like a maniac to get back to the pitch, having been out on injury, while these guys had spent their break eating and drinking the shite out of life.
I had no problem losing a match if we were genuinely the poorer side.
What I could not accept was losing due to lack of preparation and poor discipline.
School boys league or not.
That wasn’t fucking good enough in my book.
I was perturbed beyond all rationality when a girl strolled across the pitch - fucking strolled right through the training grounds.
Irritated, I glared at her, feeling a rage inside of me that bordered on manic.