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I think I’m in love with you.
I was starving for him. Ravenous. I needed this boy.
I love you. I am so in love with you. Please be okay.
“I’m so in love with him, Claire,” I confessed, and then I burst into tears. “I love him so much that the thought of him not being okay is killing me.”
“She makes my heart go, like, whoa.”
“Boom, boom, fucking boom.” I shook my head. “All the time.”
“Boom, fucking boom, boom.”
“Thank fuck, ’cause I’m in love.” “You’re in love?”
“You get it, Gibs,” I slurred happily. “You get me.” “I get you, buddy,”
“You’re my best friend,” I told him, but he looked like a pillow. “I love your big rugby-ball head.”
“Oh, Johnny,” Mam sighed. “You never had to lie, baby. I like that girl.” “She’s mine,” I grumbled. “You can’t have her.”
“Bulldozer.”
“Hi, Johnny.” “Boom, boom, fucking boom, Da,” I groaned, slapping a hand against my chest. “I’m done for.”
“I love you, Shannon like the river,” he slurred. My heart stopped. Did he just? No. No, of course he didn’t. “I fucking love you,” Johnny said again. Oh god. He did. He absolutely did. Twice.
I didn’t want to leave him. Not back in the changing room at Royce. And not now. Not ever.
“You are worth so much more than rugby.”
“Who’s hurting you, baby?”
“My father.”
Johnny was asleep.
And it was right there that I cried like a fucking child on my father’s shoulder.
“I need you to understand. To take a step back from this dream you’ve been chasing and realize that your life is already happening.”
I didn’t want to go home. But I knew I had to. I didn’t want to get beaten. But I knew I would.
“Joey says we don’t hit girls.”
You’re back in that room with Johnny. He’s telling you he loves you. You’re okay. Kick after kick after kick. Spluttering and wheezing, I desperately tried to cling to the image of his face. It was fading out.
She went to him. He beat us. Terrorized us. Tortured us. And she went to him. She chose him. Our own mother.
“Make a choice, Mam,” Joey snarled as he glared down at our mother. “Him or us?”
