Leaning back in my seat, I raised a hand and grabbed the Jesus handle and focused on counting the cars passing us in a bid to distract myself from obsessing over the speedometer on his dashboard.
I could feel the tension emanating from him, his earlier friendliness replaced with stony silence, our conversation obviously the catalyst behind the shift in his mood.
The silence enveloping us right now was thick and uncomfortable, and I was irrationally disappointed by this.
I was more than disappointed.
I was reeling.
For the first time in forever, I had been enjoying myself.
I had loosened up, bantering back and forth without the fear of, well, backlash.
And then he dragged the rug right out from beneath me.
I hadn't seen it coming and I was regretting ever coming out of that bathroom stall.
When Johnny reached across the console and started switching out CD's in his swanky car stereo, I had to sit on my hands to stop myself from grabbing the wheel.
A few moments later, he settled on a song, track number five, and the car filled with a familiar guitar intro, providing a temporary distraction from my troubling thoughts.
Johnny cranked the volume and Jimmy Eat World's The Middle blasted through the car speakers so loudly I could feel the vibration of the bass in my bones.
I loved this song and considered it my anthem.
Like seriously, I drowned myself in the lyrics daily.
If music healed the broken hearted then the lyrics of this song soothed my soul.
It was on a mix CD Joey's girlfriend made him for Christmas. He obviously wasn’t keen on the CD Aoife had made him because I had swiped it from his bedroom last month during a random sister snoop-fest/spot-check and Joey had yet to discover it was missing.
It was currently in my portable discman where I listened to it on repeat every night before bed.
Concentrating on the lyrics of the song I already knew off by heart, I attempted to get a handle on my nerves, but the punk rock beat only seemed to encourage the crazy in my designated driver because the minute we slipped onto the main road, Johnny put the pedal to the metal and floored it.
When the speedometer tipped over 120kmpr, I closed my eyes and stopped breathing.
Covering my face with my hands, I peeked between my fingers, groaning when the flash of headlights of cars in the opposite lanes whizzed past us.
"What's the matter?" Reaching over, he turned down the volume on the stereo. "Shannon?" His attention flickered between the road and my face. "Are you okay?"
"You're going too fast," I strangled out.
"Relax, we're going the limit," he replied, but he slowed the car. "And I'm a good driver. You're safe with me."
"Okay," I muttered, still feeling like we were going way faster than 100 kilometers an hour. "But I'd feel better if you slowed down."
Exhaling heavily, Johnny slowed even further.
"Happy now?" he asked, tapping the dashboard.
Leaning over, I checked the speedometer.
80 kilometers.
"Yes," I breathed, my coiled-up muscles relaxing ever so slightly. "Thanks."
Sagging back in my seat, I allowed my gaze to drift over him.
He was staring at the road ahead, one hand resting on the gearstick, the other elbow leaning against the door.
Like he sensed me watching him, Johnny glanced sideways and caught me red-handed.
I smiled weakly.
He stared heatedly back at me, unsmiling.
My smile faded.
With a low, frustrated growl, he turned his attention back to the road.
Shaking his head, he muttered something unintelligible under his breath, hand tightening around the wheel.
Feeling dismissed, I clasped my hands on my lap and stared out the windscreen, not daring to cast another glance at him.
We didn’t speak for the remainder of the drive, with only the songs coming from the stereo breaching the thick silence.
"Listen," Johnny announced, breaking the silence when the lights of Ballylaggin town came into view. "What I told you back there? About my surgery?" His tone was level, polite even, as he stared straight ahead, maneuvering through the narrow streets and laneways. "I would appreciate your discretion."
Appreciate my discretion?
He was embarrassed about having an injured groin?
He should try having a useless father whose only talents were gambling his dole money and impregnating his mother, while whoring himself around to anyone stupid enough to have him.
Frustrated, I turned to him and said, "Who would I tell, Johnny?"
"Your friends," he countered and then in a much quieter voice muttered, "my friends."
"Well, I'm not going to tell anyone," I bit out, annoyed and insulted. "I'm not a motor mouth."
He tightened his hand on the wheel but made no response.
Irritated by the sudden formality in his voice, not to mention the fact that he had spent the past fifteen minutes ignoring me, I glared at the side of his face and growled, "Why would I bother telling anyone anyway?"
"Because," he bit out, keeping his attention to the road. "I know what most girls are like."
Most girls?
If he considered me to be like most girls, then why spend all that time talking to me?
Why ask me all those questions and make me feel comfortable enough to answer him if he considered me to be just like most girls?
Why bother with me at all?
"You're being ridiculous," I muttered.
"I'm being careful," Johnny corrected calmly. "I shouldn’t have said anything to you, it was incredibly fucking reckless on my part, and now I'm asking you to do me a favor and keep it to yourself. I've a lot on the line here, Shannon, and word getting out about this could really mess things up for me. More than you will ever know."
I folded my arms across my chest. "Fine."
"Fine?" he repeated warily.
"Yeah," I deadpanned, staring straight ahead. "Fine."
"Great." He blew out a heavy sigh and said, "Thanks," following it up several seconds later with, "I appreciate it."
Silence followed; thick, heavy, and unbearable.
I was conflicted by the turn of events.
Was he playing me?
Had this been a big game to him?
Messing around with my emotions by being kind and roping me into a false sense of security with all that getting to know each other talk back at the school?
Dangling the prospect of a friendship in my face with all that niceness and small-talk and then snatching it all away?
It wouldn’t be the first time this happened.
I should have seen this coming and I was disappointed in myself for letting my guard down so easily around him.
Dammit!
"Are you okay?" he asked, breaking the silence.
I didn’t respond because I couldn’t.
I was concentrating too hard on not crying.
"Shannon, I didn’t –" Johnny started to say but stopped short. He rubbed his jaw and then dropped his hand back on the wheel. "I don’t –" He stalled again, this time shaking his head. "Forget it."
I didn’t probe or push him to finish whatever he had been trying to say.
I didn’t want to hear it.
Retracting from the current source of my confusion and frustration – which was my designated driver – I focused all my efforts on ignoring him and keeping my emotions at bay.
If I could jump out of the car right now, I would, but he was a fast driver and I didn’t fancy my chances of surviving the post-jump impact.
"What are you thinking?" Johnny finally said, making a left turn onto my estate.
It was a deep, hilly ascent to my house with several hundred attached houses running side by side on either side of the road, mine at the very top.
Many of the houses were boarded up, others were dilapidated with untended gardens – my own included – but right now, I was too annoyed to care what he thought.
I swung my gaze to glare at him. "You want to know what I'm thinking?"
Johnny glanced sideways, eyes full of heat and barely contained frustration, and gave me a clipped nod before turning his attention back to the road.
"Fine," I snapped, blinking back the familiar sting of tears as I proceeded to tell him exactly what I was thinking. "I think you're paranoid about people finding out you're injured because you know you shouldn’t be playing."