"Looks like you have a fan," Mrs. Kavanagh added, pointing to where Johnny was jogging up and down the footpath, scouring the ground and dikes for my missing shoe.
Crap, I hoped it hadn't floated away in the drain water.
Dad would hit the roof if I came home with another expense.
"He's done a terrible job of keeping you quiet." Mrs. Kavanagh added with a smile. "I saw you in the papers with him the other week. Beautiful picture, love. You two look absolutely stunning together."
Did she think…
"What? Oh no – No!" I blushed an ugly shade of beetroot red. "It's not like that."
"Oh no?" She smirked. "I thought maybe Johnny had gotten himself a little girlfriend while I was away."
"Um, no." I squirmed in discomfort. "We're just –"
"Friends?" Mrs. Kavanagh quipped, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "So I've heard."
Were we friends?
I wasn’t sure.
Maybe he was still trying to make amends.
I nodded and said, "Yeah, we're just friends."
"Ah, that's a shame," she replied after a long pause. "For a moment there, I thought you had managed to do the impossible."
"The impossible?"
"Distract him from rugby."
"Oh." I clasped my hands together, unsure of how to respond to that. "Well, I haven't," was all I came up with, followed with, "We're just friends."
When Mrs. Kavanagh spoke again, her brow was knitted in concern. "I love my son with all my heart, but sometimes, I wish he would remember to be seventeen and let go a little. Have fun. Fall in love. Break the rules. Be a teenager instead of a–"
"Machine?" I offered quietly.
"Yes, " his mother agreed, nodding eagerly. "His food intake, the training, the traveling, the sponsors, all of it… it's scary." She sighed again, brows creasing. "I just want him to let loose every once in a while. I know how that sounds coming from a mother, but he’s so controlled. Every part of his life is completely structured and planned. It’s overwhelming for me as his mother to watch it. I can’t imagine how it feels to be seventeen years old and live that way, day in, day out. But it's all rugby, rugby, and more rugby with Johnny. He eats, sleeps, and breathes the damn sport."
I opened my mouth to say something – anything – but Mrs. Kavanagh continued.
"He wakes up and trains. He goes to school and trains. He comes home and trains. And then he goes to bed and repeats the whole cycle all over again the next day."
"It sounds exhausting," I agreed, feeling a little uncomfortable at the sudden and in-depth insight I was being given into his life.
"It's certainly exhausting watching him." With a small sigh, she touched her forehead and said, "I just wish he could find an outlet for the frustration or anger or whatever it is that’s built up inside of him. I’m afraid that one of these days he’ll explode."
I had no idea what to say in response.
My brain was struggling to register all of the new information about Johnny.
"And I've just realized that I'm rambling," Mrs. Kavanagh said then, chuckling softly. "Sorry. My husband is always rising me about it."
"That's okay," I replied as a small shiver ran through my body. "I don’t mind."
And I didn’t.
I felt oddly at ease listening to her speak.
Johnny's mother was nice and friendly and the complete opposite to the type of parent I would be going home to.
"So, tell me how you and Johnny know each other?" she asked. "Are you in the same class? How did you make friends with each other?"
"Uh, no, I'm in third year," I replied, shifting in my seat.
"Really?" Mrs. Kavanagh's eyes widened. "I thought you were much older."
I beamed at the compliment – at least I was taking it as a compliment.
It wasn’t often someone mistook me for being older than what I was.
"I'm sixteen. I should be in fourth year," I explained, delighted with myself for coming across as older. "But I was held back in primary school."
"So was Johnny," Mrs. Kavanagh told me with warm smile.
"In sixth class," I replied with a small nod. "He wasn’t happy."
"No," she laughed. "He certainly wasn’t." Smiling, she added, "You must know each other well if he gave you the 'my parents ruined my life when they moved me to the sticks' story."
"Not that well," I found myself explaining, "Honestly, Johnny offering to drop me home is probably just another one of his ways of trying to make up for knocking me up on the pitch."
"Excuse me?" Mrs. Kavanagh spluttered, eyes bulging.
"It was an accident," I quickly interjected. "He didn’t mean for it to happen. If anyone's at fault then I am. I shouldn’t have gone there. I distracted him. But he took good care of me afterwards." I blew out a breath before adding, "He was very kind."
"And when did this accident happen?"
"Back in January," I explained, my hand automatically moving to cup the back of my head. "The doctors at the hospital said everything's okay, and the bump's long gone now, but Johnny's been trying to make it up to me since it happened."
"Has he now?"
"I think he still feels responsible for it happening," I said with a shrug. "We both know he didn’t mean for it happen. Neither of us did. It was a complete accident. But it's all sorted now."
"And so he should feel responsible!" Mrs. Kavanagh's face turned a deathly shade of white when she hissed, "I am going to castrate that little shit –"
"Oh my god, no!" I squealed.
Thinking back over my words, I suddenly realized how badly that must have sounded to Mrs. Kavanagh and, desperate to wipe the look of terror off her face, I quickly clarified, "Out. Johnny knocked me out. Not up."
Oh, dear god, let me die.
"Out," I emphasized for the dozenth time. "The bump was on my head."
"How did he hurt you?" his mother asked, looking troubled and yet massively relieved.
I sighed heavily. "With his balls."
"With his balls?" she repeated, looking horrified. "Johnny knocked you out with his balls?"
"Ball," I stressed, squirming in my seat. "Just the one ball –" I stopped speaking, knowing I was making a hash of things.
"Balls? Bumps? Knocking you up?" Mrs. Kavanagh expelled a heavy breath. "Shannon, love, please explain this to me before I have a stroke."
"I'm not pregnant or anything!" I blurted out, feeling the need to make that clear. "I have never been pregnant," I added for clarification. "Not by your son or anyone else."
"That's good to know," his mother replied, tone slightly less pitchy. "Now, tell me what happened."
"Oh, god…" I pressed my hands to my burning cheeks and inhaled a steadying breath before trying again, "I transferred to Tommen after Christmas break. It was my first day and I was late for a class so I cut across the pitch where they were having rugby practice. Johnny kicked the ball and it smacked me in the back of the head. I fell down the bank of the pitch and cracked my head off the ground. I must have hit a rock or something when I landed because I passed out. It's all still pretty fuzzy, but Johnny helped me to the office and waited with me until my mother got to the school. Mam took me to the hospital to get checked over." I blew out a shaky breath and added, "That's it."
Mrs. Kavanagh watched me for a long, uncomfortable moment, obviously taking my measure.
I guessed that she realized that I was telling her the truth because her voice was laced with concern when she finally asked, "And you were alright?"
"Yeah." I nodded, relieved to have cleared the disastrous miscommunication up. "It was just a moderate concussion."
"Oh, Jesus," she gasped. "Shannon, love, I am so sorry."
Reaching across the console, she snatched a designer looking handbag off the floor and clicked it open.
"Your hospital bills," she began to say, tone distracted as she rummaged in her bag. "Do you know how much they are – dammit, I've left my purse on the kitchen counter. I'll need your mother's phone number." She continued to rummage in her gorgeous, designer bag. "Why didn’t the school contact me?"
"What?" I gaped and shook my head. "No, no, Mrs. Kavanagh. It's fine. There was no bill. I have a medical card."