More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
One thing I knew for certain was that I could never untangle myself from this girl. And what’s more, I didn’t want to.
I knew this wasn’t good. Jesus, a blind man could see I needed to run far, far away from this situation, but I couldn’t. Fucked up as it all seemed, I was quite content to remain right here, wrapped up in her personal breakdown. More than that, I wanted to wade in and do something, anything, to help her brother. It wasn’t even just about Shannon for me anymore. It was about Joey and three other little kids I hadn’t even laid eyes on. I wanted to help them all. My conscience demanded nothing less from me.
“With all due respect, Shan, fuck them.” My eyes widened. It was beyond rare to hear Claire curse and never about parents. “Fuck. Them,” she added with a meaningful stare. “Yes! Fuck them,” Gibsie cheered. “You tell her, babe.”
“You are sixteen years old, we are on our last week of Easter break from school, and you should be having normal teenage-girl experiences like staying over at your best friend’s house. Instead, you’ve spent the first week of break lying in a hospital and dealing with more crap than anyone our age should have to. So, you do you, Shan. If you want to stay with me, then dammit, you stay with me.”
Johnny visibly relaxed. “You’ll stay?” I nodded slowly. “If you want me to?” “I want you here,” he told me, never taking his eyes off mine. “I want you to stay with me.” Oh god. My heart. These words. This boy.
“Hi, Shannon,” he said with an awkward half shrug, giving me his full attention. Feeling shy, I tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled back at him. “Hi, Johnny.”
“I’m going to buy you dinner, Shannon.” Closing the space between us, he lowered himself down on the couch and turned to face me. “Sometimes we’ll eat here and sometimes we’ll go out, but it’s going to be a regular occurrence, so don’t overthink it, okay?”
“Why did you go with him?” Smiling back at him, I slipped my hands under the woolen blanket and snuggled deeper into the couch. “If you’re not into these kinds of films?” “Because he’s my best friend,” he replied, chuckling to himself as he stretched his legs out on the coffee table. “And he’s done worse for me.” “Like what?” “Like breaking out of hotel rooms in the middle of the night to come see me.” Johnny turned to look at me then. “Like bringing me to see you today.” “Thank you,” I breathed, feeling something shift inside of me, pulling me toward him. “For coming back.”
“Shannon, I…” He stopped himself short and released a heavy sigh. “Come here,” he said instead, lifting his arm. “Let me keep you warm.” Desperate for physical contact, I closed the space between us and burrowed into his side. His arm came around me and a shiver rolled through me when I felt his lips brush the top of my head. “Let’s do this,” he whispered, turning the volume up on the television. We didn’t say anything else after that.
I just wanted time with her. Away from her family and rugby. Away from everything. Just me and her. I wanted to hit pause on my life and just keep her.
All of those were encouraging me, assuring me that I was dead on the money because this girl was the girl for me.
“You called me Shan,” she said, grinning. “Yeah…” I grinned back at her. “So?” “My friends call me Shan,” she explained. “Well, the girls and Joey.”
“You show up and all the bad just…goes away for a little while.”
“That’s how you make me feel,” she whispered, blue eyes burning their way right down to my soul. “Better. Alive. Free. Safe. Important. I feel like I can breathe for the first time in days, and that’s only because you’re here—because I’m with you.”
“It’s hard to explain,” she said and grinned. “But I never wanted to leave that bathroom, because I felt safe. I feel safe with you.”
“Fuck it—” Unable to take another second of this, I cupped the back of her neck, closed the space between us, and crushed my lips to hers.
And the only true thing I knew in this moment was that I trusted this boy.
“Don’t let go, okay?” “I won’t,” he promised, tightening his hold on me.
“I am so fucking sorry that you were given those people as parents.”
Nodding, I wiped my tearstained cheek against his forearm. “I knew what was happening to me, I knew I couldn’t stop it, so I just thought up my happiest memory and clung to it.” “What was it?” “You and me,” I whispered, shivering. “Those things you said to me at the hospital. All those other times, too. I conjured you up in my mind and I concentrated on your face. I imagined your voice in my head and just kept you there—in my mind. Talking to me. Keeping me calm. Making me feel”—my breath hitched and I had to take a steadying breath before finishing—“safe.”
Here it goes… “Why do you like me?” Johnny stiffened behind me. “Why do I…what?” “Like me,” I filled in, my voice barely more than a whisper. “Why?”
“I don’t just like you. I fucking—” Shaking his head, Johnny rubbed his jaw before looking back at me. “Shannon, I love you.” I stopped breathing. “You love me?” He nodded slowly, blue eyes locked on mine. “Like, a crazy fucking amount.”
“I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been that way for a while now—a long fucking while, if we’re being totally honest.” Exhaling shakily, he added, “And that scares the shit out of me worse than the thought of not making the U20s. You scare me more than anyone I’ve ever come up against on a pitch.”
I know.” He looked a little sick when he said, “Dick move, huh?” “I love you back,” I blurted out, feeling a flood of heat rush through my body. “Like, a crazy fucking amount,” I added, giving his words back to him.
Still smiling, he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and said, “And going back to your earlier question, I like you because you’re you, Shannon. I’ve never met another girl like you.”
Exhaling another shaky breath, Johnny continued, “It’s like you see me—and I see you. Christ, I think you saw through me that very first day on the pitch at school, because I sure as hell haven’t been the same since, Shannon. You don’t give a shite about rugby. It never fazed you and that threw me because I’m not used to that. I’m not used to having someone want me for…well, for me—but you did. And you took the time to notice me. To see things that no one else was seeing, things I didn’t want to acknowledge to myself.” He ran a hand through his hair and slumped, his broad shoulders bowing.
“Well, you’re wrong.” His breath fanned my face as he spoke, making me feel light-headed. “I want you because you drive me fucking crazy. And yeah, I’m not going to lie, I feel sorry for you,” he added gruffly. “I’d be a coldhearted bastard if I didn’t, but that’s got nothing to do with why I want to be with you. I’m sticking around because I need you.” My heart beat so fast I feared it would burst. “You need me?” “You think it’s the other way around, but it’s not,”
“You make me feel like I’m enough as I am,” he finally admitted. “Like if this is the furthest I go, if I don’t make the squad, then it’s okay.” “You are enough,” I breathed, wrapping my hand around his neck. “Just as you are right now.”
“You’re such a good person, Johnny Kavanagh, and you don’t even know it. You don’t see how little rugby has to do with how special you are. But I do. I see it, and I know.” “See?” He clamped his hands on my hips and exhaled shakily. “You say it and I believe you.” “Because it’s true,” I choked out, breathing hard and fast. “I just… God, you have no idea how lovely you are.”
“I’ll go,” Shannon hurried to say. “Right now, I promise.” Mam sighed heavily. “You don’t have to do that, Shannon, love.” “She doesn’t?” “I don’t?”
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the donkey,”
“Because I’m not going anywhere.” “Really?” Shannon whispered, staring up at me with those lonesome eyes. Her fingers were digging into my sides so hard I had a feeling she was going to leave a mark on me. “You promise?” There she went asking for promises I wasn’t sure I could keep, and there I went making them anyway. “Yeah, Shan,” I croaked out. “I promise.”
Well, he wasn’t shouting, which was a good thing because as sorry as I felt for Shannon’s brother, if he planned on speaking to my mother the way he spoke to me and Gibsie yesterday, I was going to lose my shit. There was a line in a man’s life that no one crossed. That line for me was my ma. No one fucked with her.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck did those people do to these kids?
She started to shake her head. “No, no, no, you don’t have to do that for me—” “I need you to do this for me,”
“And don’t you dare touch my daughter,” she added, yanking Shannon out of Mam’s reach. Oh no. Oh fuck no. Don’t do it, Ma. Take the high road… “Maybe you should have said that to your husband,” Mam shot back heatedly. “When he was battering the shite out of the girl!”
“Shannon Lynch?” I called out, ignoring the rest of her fucked-up family. “I love you back.” Sniffling, she lifted her chin from Joey’s chest and looked at me all red-eyed and blotchy. “S-still?” “Still.” I nodded in confirmation. “Like, a crazy fucking amount.”
He looked up at me then. “It’s going to be okay, Shan.” “Which part?” I whispered. “The Kavanagh part,” he replied.
Joey gave me a knowing look. “Read the fucking message, Shannon.” Heart fluttering wildly, I clicked into the message. A crazy fucking amount. X “You’re right.” I blew out a shaky breath. “It’s him.” “Told you,” Joey replied. “He’s not running on you, Shan.”
I thought about his words for a moment. “Hey, Joe?” “Yeah, Shan?” “What are you going to say if someone asks you?” “I’m going to tell them to fuck off and mind their business.” I sighed. “I wish I could do that.” “Do what?” “Be brave,” I whispered, feeling wistful. “You already are.” He turned to look at me then, green eyes full of pain. “So fucking brave.” “Don’t feel like it,” I mumbled with a shaky breath. “I just feel like running.” “Do you want to?” His tone was hopeful and a little desperate. “We could get on a bus right now and just go.” My heart skipped a beat in my chest and I had to
...more
“Joey,” Darren began to say. “Can we not do the wounded boy act today and just be civilized—” “Eat shit,” Joey sneered, holding his middle finger up as he thundered down the staircase.
“Yeah, well, just so you’re aware, I’ve never had a problem with any of the drunks at the bus stop.” I swiped my schoolbag off the floor and gingerly slipped it over my shoulder before brushing past him. “Just the drunks in this house.” “Jesus,” Darren groaned, trailing after me. “I’m drowning in mood swings.”
“Fuck you, Gerard Gibson!” Bella screamed over her shoulder. “Not on your life, princess,” Gibsie roared after her. “I wouldn’t touch you with McGarry’s dick!”
“Does she hate me?” I asked then, feeling a little faint. “Your mother?” “No, Shan, she doesn’t hate you,” he replied, voice torn. “I don’t think there’s a person on this planet who could hate you.”
“Wait, wait, wait—” Breaking the kiss, Johnny stared down at me, breathing hard. “You’re my girlfriend now, right?”
“So this is what having a girlfriend’s going to be like?” he teased, but thankfully set his crutch down. “You bossing me around the place and telling me what to do?”
Johnny took his phone and slid it into his pocket, then placed the pink phone in my hand. I stared blankly at the device. “What’s this?” “It’s yours,” he replied. Slipping his schoolbag off his shoulder, he pulled a charger out of the front pocket and then proceeded to stuff it into my bag. “Wh-what are you doing?” “It’s yours,”
My mouth fell open as I gaped at him. “You bought me a phone?” “You needed a phone, and I missed your birthday.” He shrugged, like it wasn’t the gigantic deal it was, and said, “Made sense.”
“But you didn’t have to do this for me—” “I’m going to do a lot of things for you, Shannon.”
“I’m sorry, guys,” I muttered, feeling terrible. “I’m a pain in the ass.” “Yeah, but you’re our pain in the ass,” Lizzie countered. “And we happen to be sort of fond of you.”
