Not with the root of all my anxiety sitting next to me.
And the words of that song tormenting me.
If only he knew how true those lyrics were, I thought to myself.
If only…
58
Where's my head at?
Johnny
I just asked her about her period.
What the actual fuck was wrong with me?
Were you even supposed to ask a girl about her period?
I had no fucking clue.
Christ, I needed to get the doctors to scan my brain as well as my balls because there was something loose rattling around up there.
Shannon was sitting right next to me, her smell was in my nose, her arm was touching mine, and I could hardly form a coherent sentence.
Seriously, this wasn’t normal.
I'd spent my entire life on display, like a bleeding show pony, and nothing ever fazed me.
But she did.
This girl right here did.
Maybe I'd left it so long that I had grown back my virginity, because I certainly felt like I had reverted back to virginal status.
No self-respecting lad of my age, with my kind of life experience, trembled over a girl.
Fucking trembled.
And yet, here I was, trying to get my body to calm the hell down so I could at least pretend that I was half normal and not scare her back into the shell she liked to hide inside.
The questions my mouth was spurting were beyond embarrassing, but I couldn’t seem to get a handle on myself.
She had make up on.
A full face of bleeding makeup that made me want to cry.
She was gorgeous without putting a thing on her face, but knowing she was wearing it around all my teammates made me uneasy.
I knew they were looking at her.
In the last half an hour alone, I'd had to give Luke the death glare so he would stop fucking staring at her from his perch across the row.
It was so out of order that I found myself shifting around in my seat just so I could block her from his – and everyone else's – view.
Thank Christ for Mrs. Moore, who had been roped into assisting Coach in chaperoning the trip.
Tommen's guidance counsellor was batshit crazy, but she had a whole host of games and team bonding exercises planned for the three-and-a-half-hour bus ride.
She even had a bag of fucking Easter eggs and little laminated award charts as prizes.
She did this every damn time she joined us on an away game, and usually I just ignored the woman until she gave up and left me alone.
I always sat alone so she couldn’t pair me up with the person beside me and make me do those bleeding feelings exercises – and god forbid reflection time – she loved so much.
But today?
Today I found myself participating in the boring as fuck quizzes and charades games, not to mention, I-bleeding-Spy.
I knew Gibsie, Hughie, and Feely were laughing their asses off at me from the back of the bus – they knew I never joined in on these games – but I didn’t give a shite because playing these games meant Shannon had to talk to me.
Every time I won, the girl next to me smiled.
Every time I handed her another Easter egg or stupid little award, she crept further out of that shell she was hiding in.
That was worth the slagging I was going to reap from my team.
She was worth it all.
59
Hushed whispers and true colors
Shannon
Sitting on a bus with Johnny Kavanagh was unexpectedly brilliant.
When Mrs. Moore, our kooky guidance counsellor, called for everyone's attention and started passing out quizzes and games for us to play, I had expected Johnny to ignore her – because, let's face it, he was a bloody rugby star.
But that's not what he did.
No, Johnny played.
Because we were sitting together, we were teamed up for the games and tasks, and managed to work together in a strange sort of harmony, completing our games and activities with ease.
The games we were given were dumb and childish, but after about an hour, I felt myself completely relax with him.
It also didn’t hurt that my partner seemed to be this freakish genius who, when every pair was given a Rubik’s Cube to solve, completed ours with ease in under ten minutes.
It was seriously impressive, considering no other person on the bus had solved their cube.
Every single quiz we were given, or competitive task against the other couples, we won.
Well, Johnny won.
But he was my teammate so that meant I won, too.
I had never won so many pointless competitions in my life – or Easter eggs.
I'd never won anything before today, actually.
We had a stack of twelve chocolate eggs on the floor because the boy seemed to just shine and excel at everything he put his mind to.
Twelve eggs.
Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean were going to be thrilled.
Johnny was so much fun to be with, and I became so immersed in playing with him, that I didn’t have time to worry.
Both curious and intrigued, I studied him during our reflection sessions – which was an actual thing Mrs. Moore liked to do – absorbing every little detail, taking note of the elected variety of songs he listened to, and the way he timed his food intakes, and how many times he thrummed his finger on his thigh– which was constantly.
He appeared cool, calm, and composed, but if you looked beneath the surface you could see that he was like a caged animal inside this bus.
Johnny was too big for the seat, too stunted inside the tiny rows, too broad to be truly comfortable, and he rebelled by sprawling himself out at any given opportunity, regardless of whether he touched me or not.
I was sure he was doing this because he needed to stretch out his long legs.
During our first reflection session, forty minutes into the trip, Johnny reached into his bag and withdrew an expensive looking shaker bottle, the contents of which he downed within seconds.
During the next session, he checked his watch and ate a banana.
The one after that, he did another time check and devoured a protein bar.
I was far too aware of him but it was impossible not to be.
When the bus driver pulled over at some filling-station two hours into the journey, the rest of the team and students hurried off to use the bathroom and buy supplies, but Johnny didn’t get off the bus.
"Do you want to go into the shop?" he asked, offering to move for me.
I shook my head. "No, that's okay, I'm not hungry."
And I have no money.
"You sure?" he asked, lowering himself back onto his seat, legs brushing against mine in the process. "I can get you something if you –"
"No, no, I don’t need anything," I quickly cut him off. "Thanks for offering."
"If you're sure?"
"I am."
Johnny then proceeded to reach into his never-ending bag of supplies and retrieve an airtight container and fork.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as he pulled off the lid, revealing a selection of steamed vegetables, four plain, skinless chicken breasts, and a couple of sachets of cracked black pepper.
"Are you going to get that heated up?" I heard myself ask, my mouth inquiring without my brain's permission.
"Why?" He turned to smirk at me. "Do you have a microwave in your bag?"
"No, but they might have one in the shop," I stated, forcing myself not to look away. "It'll taste better if it's warm."
"Nah, I'm used to it," he replied and then shoveled a forkful into his mouth. "Besides, I'm eating for fuel, not taste."
"That sounds dreadful," I blurted out.
Johnny smirked between bites. "It is what it is."
"Do you want to go sit with them for lunch?" I pointed out the window to where a bunch of Johnny's teammates were sitting around a picnic table outside the shop, munching and chatting. "I don’t mind," I added, not wanting him to feel like he had to stay here with me when his friends were all together over there.
"I'm happy here," he quickly dismissed.
"Are you really never allowed to eat normal food?" I couldn’t stop myself from asking, remembering what he told me that day at the pub. "I know you're in training –" I scrunched my nose up at the thought before adding, "But do you seriously never get to have a day off from it?"