"Shannon, I don’t want you to think that I don’t want you –"
"Please, don’t say anything," I begged, beyond mortified at this stage. "Please."
"Things are complicated for me right now–"
"Johnny, please just forget it ever happened."
He stared hard at me for an achingly long moment before nodding stiffly. "If that's what you want."
I sagged slightly. "It is."
His gaze flicked to my neck then, and his expression instantly darkened.
"I need to go inside now," I stated, fearful of him starting back up where he had left off.
"Right," he said with a small shake of his head. "Of course, yeah, and I'd better get going."
"Okay."
"I'll guess I'll see you tomorrow," Johnny said, and then he turned around and walked away from me.
Feeling bereft, I chewed on my lip as I watched him walk away. "Bye, Johnny."
"Bye, Shannon," he called back, casting a quick smile over his shoulder.
Oh, god.
With my heart knocking around restlessly in my chest, I closed the door and trudged back up the staircase.
I needed to lie down for a minute so I could process my thoughts.
Slipping back inside my tiny room, I walked straight to my single bed with the intention of faceplanting the mattress, only to stop short when my eyes landed on Johnny's jacket strewn on my bed.
Like the creeper I was, I sank down on the foot of my bed, reached for his jacket, and held it to my chest.
His smell was everywhere.
On his jacket.
On me.
Holding the drenched fabric, I inhaled deeply, taking in the familiar scent of his deodorant, and then mentally chastised myself for being such a freak.
What was I doing?
Why was I allowing myself to feel these emotions?
They were dangerous.
I had to stop.
He doesn’t want you.
No one does.
Feeling sick to my stomach with regret and anxiety, I pulled back the covers, climbed into my bed, and then curled into the smallest ball I could.
Everything hurt.
My body.
My brain.
My heart.
Breathing slowly, I attempted to rid my mind of every bad thought plaguing me.
Every embarrassing and soul-destroying memory of how ridiculously stupid I had behaved.
It didn’t last long.
Fifteen minutes into my silent mourning, the sound of the front door slamming filled my ears.
No less the three minutes later, my bedroom door flew inwards.
"Where's the dinner?"
Remaining perfectly still, I clutched the duvet as my body coiled tight with anxiety. "I forgot."
"Well get out of that fucking bed and come down stairs," Dad snarled from my doorway. "You've jobs to do around this house, girl, and that includes putting on the dinner. 'Tis about time you earned your keep."
"I feel sick," I croaked out.
It wasn’t a lie.
My stomach was cramping up.
"You'll feel a lot fucking sicker if you don’t get your useless hole out of that bed," my father warned. "Sick. Your mother's fucking sick and she's working to pay your bastard school fees, you ungrateful little cunt."
I knew he hadn't been drinking today, but my father sober was still terrifying to me.
"You have five minutes to get down those stairs, girl," he added. "Don’t make me come back up to ya."
He slammed my bedroom door closed, and while I listened to him thumping back down the stairs, I debated my options.
Stay where I was and take a beating, or do as he asked and risk one anyway?
There was no choice.
There never was.
Not for me anyway.
Throwing back the covers, I climbed out of bed and walked back down to hell.
"Are you still talking to me?" were the first words that came out of Claire's mouth when I answered her phone call later that night.
I was just finishing mopping the kitchen floor before bed, having cooked the dinner and washed all the dishes.
Balancing my phone between my ear and shoulder, I poured the water from the mop bucket down the kitchen sink and quickly tucked them away in the utility room.
"Considering I just answered your call, I'd say it's pretty obvious that I'm still talking to you," I replied in a hushed tone.
It was gone eleven at night, but my father was still in the living room watching some match on the television, and I knew better than to disturb him.
"I'm so sorry," Claire groaned down the line. "I didn’t mean to embarrass you today, I swear. I was just sick of listening to those two droning on about Johnny and wanted to put them in their place."
"Don’t worry about it." Grabbing Johnny's jacket out of the tumble drier, I flicked off the kitchen light and padded out. "I'm not mad," I added, my voice barely more than a whisper.
"Can you talk right now?" she questioned.
"Yeah," I whispered, creeping towards the staircase. "Just give me two secs."
"Okay," she replied.
Holding my phone to my chest, I tiptoed up the staircase, avoiding every creak with expert precision.
"Okay, I'm back," I told her in a more audible tone once I was safely inside my bedroom with the door locked.
"You're sure you’re not mad at me?"
I shook my head and flopped down on my bed. "I’m really not."
"Oh, thank god," Claire sighed loudly. "I've been a wreck all evening worrying about it. I won't be in class tomorrow and I was afraid you wouldn’t pick up when I called."
My heart sank. "You're not coming to school tomorrow?"
"I have that hockey blitz with the school," she explained. "But Lizzie will be there."
At least there’s that.
"Well, I'm not mad."
"You're sure?"
"I have good news," I said, deciding on changing the topic. Otherwise we would end up going back and forth all night. "I forgot to tell you last week, but I think you'll like it."
"Spill your beans, Lynch."
"Mam signed the forms. I turned them in the other week." Exhaling heavily, I said, "I'm allowed to go to Donegal with you after Easter."
I had to hold the phone away from my ear for a few moments while Claire squealed her excitement out of her system.
"This is the best news ever," she gushed. "You have no idea how happy you've just made me. I thought I was going to be trapped in a foreign county for two days with Lizzie and Pierce," she continued to say. "And you know how screwed up their relationship is."
"A foreign county," I snickered, then grunted when a sharp pain ricocheted through my side.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's just my stomach," I replied, stroking the curve of my belly. "It's been bothering me all day." Worrying my lip, I added, "I hope I'm not coming down with something."
"Then you better take some paracetamol and get the hell over it," Claire retorted chirpily. "Because we're going to Donegal, baby! Woo!"
"After Easter," I reminded her.
"So?" she shot back. "It's still the best news ever."
I laughed at her enthusiasm because, in all honesty, how could I not?
It was infectious.
"So, have you figured out how you're going to manage forty-eight hours in close quarters with Gerard?" I asked with a teasing lilt to my tone, thankful for the distraction from my life.
Claire groaned loudly. "He drives me crazy, Shan."
"He likes you," I told her. "And before you shut me down and tell me he likes everyone, I mean he really likes you, Claire. It's obvious when you guys are together that he's into you."
It really was.
At school, they watched each other's moves constantly.
He was always coming over to her, cracking jokes and making pointless conversation.
They behaved like an old married couple when they were together, with witty banter and quick retorts, and I couldn’t figure out why they weren't a couple already.
It seemed so inevitable.
"Having him carry on like that towards me is not a compliment," Claire grumbled when I called her out on it. Huffing, she added, "Any girl who walks past that boy turns his head."
"Yeah, but you haven't just turned his head, Claire," I told her. "I think you've turned his heart."
"You can't turn something that isn’t there, Shan," she replied, tone sad.
"I don’t believe that," I countered.
"That's because you don’t know him like I do," was all she replied.