"On whether or not you're calling me a bitch," I filled in.
"I wouldn’t dream of it," Johnny countered in a sarcastic tone. "Besides, if I did, you'd probably tell my Ma on me."
"You know I didn’t mean to do that," I protested. "I never meant to get you into trouble with anyone."
"Sure you did," Johnny pressed, shooting me a teasing wink. "Whenever you're near me, trouble quickly follows." He grinned, revealing the dimples in both of his cheeks. "If I didn’t know any better, I'd think that you enjoy getting me into the height of shite with authority."
I wasn’t na?ve enough not to recognize the fact that this conversation was blurring the line between banter and flirting.
At least that's how it felt for me.
Johnny probably didn’t even think about it like that.
It didn’t matter, though, because when he looked at me like that, all smiles and interested eyes, I couldn’t stop myself from playing along.
I forced down a blush and replied with, "That's not true."
"Oh no?" He shot me another teasing wink before adding, "Now who's the liar with her pants on fire?"
"That would still be you," I replied. "And I'm not wearing pink."
He frowned in confusion. "Huh?"
"Pink to make the boys wink," I clarified, feeling smug at tripping him up in this little game we seemed to be playing. "I'm wearing blue, not pink. No need to wink at me."
With a devilish grin etched on his face, Johnny leaned into my ear and whispered, "I reckon I can make those pretty cheeks of yours turn pink."
I turned scarlet. "Wh-what?"
"Too easy," he laughed, thoroughly delighted with himself.
Well aware that he had the upper hand but falling short on a decent comeback to an unfortunately accurate assessment, I resorted to sticking my tongue out at him.
Johnny's gaze dropped to my mouth, his eyes dancing with mischief when he said, "Keep poking your tongue out at me and I'm going to catch it."
I popped my tongue back in and gaped at him. "Yeah, right."
"Try it," he dared, grinning. "Go on."
My eyes widened and I jerked backwards.
I didn’t trust him not to follow up with the threat.
My reaction only made Johnny laugh harder.
"Stop looking at me like that," he ordered, pressing a hand to his side to stop himself from laughing.
"Like what? I'm not doing anything!" I retorted, unable to stop the smile spreading across my lips. "You're the one threatening to snatch my tongue."
"It's that wide-eyed, nervous look you've got going on," Johnny explained, still laughing to himself. "Don’t worry," he mused, grinning down at me. "I won't steal your tongue."
I feigned disbelief. "I'm not sure I believe you."
"You believe me," he assured me in a confident tone.
"Oh, I do?" I arched a brow. "What makes you so sure?"
"Because you trust me," he responded with a huge, megawatt smile.
"I don’t trust anyone, Johnny," I amended quietly, feeling my carefree mood evaporate into thin air, replaced with the familiar heaviness of despair that hung over my head like a constant raincloud.
Johnny was silent for a long moment, obviously pondering my words.
"Because of something that happened?" he finally asked. "In your past?"
"Because of a lot of things," was all I replied, unable and unwilling to give him more.
"Bad things?" he pressed, voice low and probing.
"Personal things," I croaked out, not liking the sudden and serious turn this conversation had taken. I cleared my throat and then added, "Private things."
"Things that make trusting people hard," Johnny finally surmised, watching me carefully.
"No." Shaking my head, I clasped my hands together tightly and exhaled a heavy breath. "Things that make trusting people impossible."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
I shook my head.
"You know what they say about a problem shared," he pressed.
"Not always," I whispered.
He studied me for a long moment, obviously mulling over my words.
"Do you want to know what I think?" he finally asked.
"What's that?"
"I think that you don’t want to trust anyone," he stated, continuing to push for more. "But you trust me despite yourself."
I opened my mouth to deny it, but stopped short, stumped on his words.
Was he right?
Did I trust him?
Perhaps I did in my own peculiar way.
I mean, I trusted that he wouldn’t intentionally attempt to hurt or sabotage me.
I trusted he was a good person with a kind heart and a beautiful mind.
But everything else?
The scary parts?
The terrifying feelings he provoked that I didn’t dare read into for fear of the unknown?
I wasn’t so sure.
"Because you can, Shannon," Johnny's voice broke through my thoughts. "You can trust me." His gaze was locked on mine, his strikingly intense, blue eyes burning holes inside of me. "I won't hurt you."
"I'm not afraid of you," I shot back defensively, feeling thrown off kilter by his eerily accurate assessment.
"Good," Johnny replied calmly, eyes locked on mine. "I don’t want you to be."
"Well, I'm not."
"I'm glad."
Feeling incredibly exposed and vulnerable, I just sat there, unable to form a coherent sentence, as I stared back at the boy who had been throwing my heart through hoops since that very first day.
He'll let you down, the defensive part of my brain argued. He'll hurt you worse than all the others.
"I won't," Johnny stated, seemingly able to read my thoughts. "Whatever you're used to," he continued to say, eyes locked on mine. "Or whoever you're used to. Whatever's responsible for that sad look in your eyes –" he paused to brush his thumb over my cheekbone. "That's not me, I'm not like that, and I won't do that to you."
"You promise?" I whispered, then quickly chided myself.
When I was anxious, I always asked for a promise.
It was a terrible habit I had from spending years of my life living in a constant state of uncertain anxiety.
Usually, I asked for those promises from my brother, and Joey supplied me with an abundance of them to ebb some of the stress.
Whether my brother meant to keep those promises or not, the small affirmation, however impossible or ridiculous, appeased something inside of me for a little while, making life a little more bearable.
"I promise," Johnny surprised me by saying.
In that moment, and with those two small words, Johnny Kavanagh unknowingly blasted a hole clean through the wall around my heart.
"Please don’t do that," I whisper/begged, as I frantically tried to repair the hole he'd left in me with facets of information like: don’t get attached because he's leaving soon, and past experiences like the night he hurt me, or worse, the night he rejected me.
Johnny frowned. "Do what?"
"Make promises," I breathed, heart slamming against my ribcage. "Please don’t."
"I just did," he told me unapologetically. "It's out there, and I'm not taking it back."
My stomach flipped.
My heart jackknifed.
My entire body trembled.
This isn’t safe, my brain warned.
Block him out.
Protect yourself.
Don’t let him in.
"I don’t go back on my word, Shannon," Johnny added. "So, you're just going to have to deal with it."
Then he dropped his attention to the notebook still in his hands and began to furiously scribble something inside before handing it back to me a minute or so later.
"What do you say?" he asked with a smirk.
I glanced down at the page and choked out a laugh.
In neat capital letters were the words: Shannon like the river. Will you please be my friend?
Two hand drawn boxes were sketched below the writing.
One box had a yes over it, and the other had a no.
The yes box had a smiley face.
The no box had a sad face.