I was also handed a plastic bag from her mother with my jersey inside, along with a mumbled apology for shoving me in the hall that day – obviously trying to cover her arse for putting her hands on a student – and another stern warning to steer clear of her daughter.
Furious over being cornered in a fucked up and unnecessary intervention – not to mention treated like a villain for an honest mistake – I'd responded with a sharp, "No fucking problem," before taking my jersey and stalking back to class with every intention of doing just that.
I didn’t need that kind of hassle in my life.
I didn’t need the threat of suspension hanging over my head. It messed with my plans, and there was no girl worth putting my future in jeopardy for.
Following the rules, more for my own sake than hers, I stayed away.
I didn’t speak to her, and I didn’t approach when I saw her between classes or in the lunch hall during break.
I kept a wide-ass berth of that girl and the complications that seemed to follow her.
But as pissed as I was, I still kept an eye out for her in the hallways.
Call it being overly protective of a vulnerable girl or call it something else, but I kept my ears open when it came to Shannon Lynch and shut down any shite that may be an issue, making sure she had a smooth transition into Tommen.
However, after a couple of days, it quickly became clear that she didn’t need anyone's help.
Shannon was liked at Tommen.
Teachers liked her.
Students liked her.
I fucking liked her.
That was the problem.
Besides, she had her own little bodyguards in the form of the two blondes that always seemed to be flanking her wherever she went.
I recognized the more protective one of the two girls as the sister of Hughie Biggs, our team's flyhalf, and one of my closest friends.
The other blonde was the on/off girlfriend of Pierce ó Neill, another teammate of mine.
I couldn’t remember the name of Pierce's girlfriend, only that I remembered how fucking vicious she could be with her tongue and that any lad in his right mind should keep a wide berth.
Throwing myself into my routine, I attempted to ignore and forget about Shannon, choosing to concentrate on the game and ignore all distractions around me– pussy being the most dangerous kind of distraction.
I really fucking tried.
But then one of the lads would bring her up in conversation, or she'd pass me in the hallway at school, and I was back to square one.
I couldn’t understand it and tried not to think too much into it.
But it didn’t stop her from coming up in every conversation I'd been involved in since her arrival at Tommen.
Lads were pricks and age meant nothing to most of them.
Too fucking many of the eejits in my year were talking about her, thinking about her, and plotting about her, and it drove me batshit crazy.
Last week, for instance, I'd actually voiced my frustrations, telling a shocked table of classmates to cop the fuck on – that she was only fifteen.
It didn’t matter to them that she was only in third year, and it bothered me that it mattered to me when it really shouldn’t.
Plenty of third years scored with people from fourth, fifth, and hell even some sixth years.
Not me.
Never me.
Unlike the rest of the lads who had no problem fucking around with younger girls, I was fully aware of the implications that could arise.
I'd had more than my fair share of lectures from coaches and former pros about the catastrophic repercussions that came from fucking with the wrong girl.
And while I wasn’t particularly proud of my behavior towards girls down through the years, I drew the line at anyone younger than me.
I knew that made me a hypocrite considering I was more than willing to go with girls older than me, but I had to be safe, dammit. I had a dream and a clear vision of what I needed to do in order to achieve it. Messing around with younger girls was dangerous.
Which is why this particular girl was pissing me off so much.
The minute I laid eyes on her, something had hit me hard in the chest.
Something unfamiliar and disconcerting.
Over a month had passed and I was still reeling.
We were into February and I was still silently obsessing over Shannon like the river.
I didn’t like it and I liked her even less for being the sole cause of my uncertainty.
It didn’t make sense.
She was a tiny scrap of a girl – all limbs and bones. There were no curves on her, and I doubted she even wore a bra if I was being honest with myself.
See?
Too young.
Too fucking young.
But that didn’t stop me from searching for her in a crowd.
And it didn’t stop me from looking when I found her.
The more I tried to block her out, the more I sought her out.
Until I was seeking her out between every fucking class.
Sometimes, I found her watching me right back.
She always gave me this dazzled in the headlights look before ducking her face.
I wasn’t sure what to make of any of it.
I fully acknowledged that I was having an irrational reaction to the girl.
It wasn’t normal.
Problem was, I couldn’t seem to get a handle on myself.
I couldn’t turn my brain off.
Bella was another problem for me.
She was sick of, what she referred to as, 'being mugged off' and had texted me a couple of weeks ago to call time on our non-hookups.
I knew I should have felt something about that – I'd been sleeping with the girl for close to eight months – but all I felt was empty.
There was no connection there and I was tired of feeling used.
It wasn’t like we met up for a chat or went to the cinema or anything like that.
She didn’t want that from me.
Not even when I offered.
Sure, there were no feelings involved, and I had never been interested in having a relationship with her, but after spending six out of eight months with my dick inside her, I wasn't opposed to buying the girl dinner or taking her to a fucking movie.
I had offered on many occasions and she had declined every last one.
Because that wasn’t public enough.
Because Bella only wanted me when I was on full-view in the pub or at school, where she could show me off to all her friends like I was some prized fucking bull.
Bella had informed me via text message that she had moved on to Cormac Ryan from sixth year.
I had half suspected something was going on between the two for a while now because he had been acting shady as fuck around me.
Cormac had gotten the call up from The Academy during the summer. He'd been to a few sessions with the youth and competed in several bouts of trials.
So far, Cormac had been unsuccessful in earning a permanent placement contract and I wasn’t holding my breath for the guy.
That wasn’t me being a spiteful prick.
It was me stating facts.
He was a decent winger, but he needed to pull some serious magic out of the bag if he was to make it onto the main card with the club.
If he made it, good on him.
If he didn’t, I didn’t give a shite.
Cormac was in the year above me so we had never been friends, per se, but having played on the same team for the last five years, I had expected a little more loyalty.
And if Bella was looking to provoke a reaction out of me by screwing my teammate, she would be sorely disappointed because I would never give her the satisfaction.
Did it hurt?
Yes.
Did I feel betrayed?
Of course.
Did that mean I wanted her back?
Hell fucking no.
Because I couldn’t handle liars, and that's what she was.
I also didn’t cope well with mind games, which was exactly what she was trying to do to me.
Breaking up with me, going off with my teammate, and then turning right around and flooding my inbox and telling me she wanted me back was a prime example of the games this girl liked to play with me.
What she failed to understand was that it didn’t matter how many games she tried to play or how many times she promised to suck me off.
There was no going back there.
Not for me.
Maybe I was dead on the inside like Bella had suggested in the million text messages she'd sent me after I turned her offers of working things out down.
I didn’t think so.
I had feelings.
I cared about things.
Just not liars.