How he had stayed with me until my mother came.
The way he had touched me with big, dirty, gentle hands.
How he talked to me like he wanted to hear what I had to say.
And then listened to my rambling like it was important to him.
I remembered the embarrassing parts, too; the parts that kept me up late into the night with flaming cheeks and a mind full of disconcerting images and fumbling words.
The parts I didn’t dare acknowledge.
I did keep the envelope though, the one I had found in my locker the week I returned to school, with the hastily scrawled, 'From my people to your people' on the front.
The two €50 notes I had given Mam when I got home from school, but I had tucked the envelope into my pillowcase for safekeeping.
I didn’t have an explanation for why I didn’t throw it out, the same way I couldn’t explain why my body broke out in a cold sweat, my hands turning clammy, my heart fluttering rapidly, and my stomach twisting itself up in knots whenever I laid eyes on him.
Well, that wasn’t technically true.
There was an obvious, perfectly logical reason for my reaction towards him.
He was beautiful.
Every single time I spotted him in the hallways, it was as if every delayed urge, feeling, and hormone that had been lying dormant inside of my body for the last fifteen years erupted to life.
I was achingly aware of him; my body shifting into high alert whenever our arms brushed in the crowded hallways between classes.
But it wasn’t his looks or enormous, muscular build that had coaxed my stubborn hormones out of hibernation.
It was the way he had been that day.
During small break last week, when Lizzie caught me red-handed staring at Johnny Kavanagh, she'd decided to dish out all the information she had.
According to Lizzy, Johnny Kavanagh was never tied down to any particular girl or branded as anyone’s boyfriend, though there was Bella Wilkinson to contend with.
The pair had been knocking around together for a long time.
Bella was a couple of years older than him, more experienced, and from what Lizzie had told me, reported to her by the boys, sucked dick like a Dyson.
So yeah, it was a safe bet to say Johnny had been on the receiving end of a healthy number of blowjobs and god knows what else from her.
I was just thankful we had a Henry hoover at home and not a fancy pants Dyson, so I didn’t gag every time I cleaned my room to that particular image.
I wasn’t surprised by any of it though.
Johnny was almost eighteen.
I had two older brothers so I was quite aware what boys of that particular age demographic got up to behind closed bedroom doors.
The information was depressing but the cool dose of reality I needed to strengthen my resolve and douse out my hopes.
It was terribly unfortunate to develop my first crush on a person like him, considering we'd only spoken that one time and he was involved with a suction-mouthed sixth year.
Not that he would be remotely interested in me if he wasn’t.
I liked safe.
In my world, invisibility equaled safety.
I was happy to be wallpaper and blend in.
And Johnny Kavanagh was about as opposite of invisible as I could think of.
Before him, I'd never been interested in the opposite sex. I'd never been interested in anyone. But him?
I found myself seeking him out at school just so I could stare.
It was creepy and stalkerish on my behalf but I honestly couldn’t help myself.
I comforted myself with the knowledge that I had no intentions of acting on my feelings or pursuing my first and only crush.
Either way, I was perfectly content with watching from the side-lines, settling for taking sneaky peeks and glances at him whenever I could.
I justified my stalkerish behavior by reminding myself that I was not the only girl in school to lust after the delectable Johnny Kavanagh.
No, I was just one in a long list of many, many girls.
But he was just so interesting to observe.
He didn’t act like the rest of the lads at school. He seemed above them in a weird way? Like he was older than his years? Or bored by the mundane way of school life?
It was hard to describe.
He seemed to drum to his own beat. He oozed confidence and had a 'no fucks given' attitude that was ridiculously addictive.
He forged his own path at school, and like most natural born leaders, everyone else just followed along after him.
I guess that was the key to popularity; you needed to not want it, or not care that you had it.
The fact that he was beautiful with a body ripped to perfection didn’t hurt his cause either.
It made me a little jealous if I was being honest.
I didn’t care about being popular. It was the fact that it was so easy for some people while others, myself included in the latter group, suffered terribly.
He gave out this 'I'm the best. You're fucking with the best right here. You're not going to find anyone better than me. Bad luck on you' vibe and walked around with a constant fuck you expression on his face.
It was typical, banging-fists-on-chest, alpha male behavior – which I presumed had a lot to do with why every girl within a ten-mile radius seemed to gravitate towards him.
Thing was, whenever his eyes locked with mine, I never saw any of that fabricated machoism or his notorious glower.
It was hard to describe the look I received because usually when our eyes locked, it was because Johnny had caught me staring at him, be it in the lunch hall or outside classrooms, and I always turned away quickly, mortified.
However, on the rare occasion that I managed to steel myself and meet his stare, I was rewarded with a curious head-tilt and a small, twitching smile.
I wasn’t really sure what to make of any of it, or how to feel.
In a weird way, I kind of felt like one of those baby ducklings who imprint and attach themselves to the first person they see upon being born.
I'd watched a movie about this when I was a kid.
Maybe that was what was happening here?
Maybe I'd attached myself to Johnny because not only was he the first person I saw when I came to, but he was the first person who'd shown me genuine kindness.
I wondered if that was an actual thing that could happen to humans after suffering moderate concussions, but then quickly dismissed the crazy notion.
Thoughts like that were not normal and of absolutely no benefit.
Also, I wasn’t attached to him.
I simply enjoyed admiring him.
From a safe distance.
When he wasn’t looking.
Yeah, that wasn’t unhealthy at all.
"Do you want to come over after school today?" Claire asked me during big break on Wednesday.
We were sitting at the end of one of the ginormous tables in the luxurious lunch hall that I was still trying to come to terms with.
At BCS, we had a little canteen where people took turns sitting at the small round tables.
Here at Tommen, it was a glorified banquet hall with twenty-five feet tables, hot meals on offer, and enough room to seat the entire school.
The lunch hall was bursting to the seams with other students shouting and talking so loudly that I had to lean across the table to reply. "To your house?"
Claire nodded. "We can hang out and watch a few films or something?"
"Aren't you going into town with Lizzie to see Pierce?" I asked.
At least that's what I thought they were doing after school today.
That's all Lizzie had been talking about all morning.
Apparently, she was seeing some lad from fifth year named Pierce, and they'd been on and off together for months.
From what I had gathered, they were currently back on.
To be fair, Lizzie had invited me to come with them after school, but I'd declined because town was the last place I ever wanted to be.
My old school was based slap-bang in the middle of town and I tended to avoid all surrounding areas like the plague.
There were too many unwelcome faces that hung around there.
"Nah, Lizzie's in a mood," Claire explained, stabbing her pot of yoghurt with her spoon. "So, I'm guessing they had another fight today."
That explained Lizzie's noticeable absence at lunch.