One of the Boys
Molly
HURTS. IT HURTS.
It hurt during and it hurt after.
He loves me. He said so. He keeps saying so—whispering the words into the crook of my neck.
Did I love him?
I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’m so confused. I’m scared.
All I can feel are his hands, and the heat of his breath against my skin, and those honeyed words filtering through my ear in the stale air of that locker room. Everything was heavy. Everything was too loud. And I couldn't get away.
“You’re so perfect, you know that—?”
Hurts
Stop
it feels wrong
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
what if i tell and they don’t listen
What if no one believes me?
or what if they do
what if I’m broken forever
and ever
someone make it stop
stop
STOP!!!
I wake with a violent gasp, my lungs seizing as if I’m being dragged to the surface from the bottom of the Atlantic. My heart is a frantic bird battering its wings against the cage of my ribs. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I sit up in the darkness, digging my fingernails into my scalp and tangling them in my hair. Dammit. That's the second nightmare I have had since we have been in Ireland. I thought I had finally built up an immunity, a fortress in my mind that the memory could not breach.
Wrong.
I force myself to breathe—in for four, hold for four, out for four—counting the rhythm until the walls of the room stop feeling like they are closing in. Just push it down. It’s just stress. It will go away.
That’s what Dad always said when the nightmares first started back in the States, three years ago.
Of course, I lie and tell him I can never remember the dreams—because having to tell him what they are about is not an option.
He deals with torn ACLs and concussions, not... those kinds of things. Not this.
I choose to believe him anyway, about the nightmares just being caused by stress.
Tons of things can be caused by stress, even injuries.
Dad once told me a story about this player he took care of who had major phantom limb pain caused by stress.
It's all about your brain misinterpreting signals, making you think you're hurt when you're really not.
Or, you know, in danger even though everything is OK.
This is just the stress of the team list. It has to be. It can't be anything but stress. Of course it’s stress. I need to stop saying the word stress. It is stressing me out.
Making the cut for a team had never been a question before.
I have always been confident enough in my skills that I know I will make the cut, one way or another.
But this is different. I can 100% be denied to play on the team, no matter my skill level, because I'm a girl and this is a boy’s team.
It’s already a miracle I had been allowed to try out.
The try-out. I know I have Niall Blue to thank for that.
If he hadn't stepped in and convinced O’Shea to let me try-out, I'm not sure I would have even been allowed back on that field.
Why? He didn't have to say anything. He could have turned the other way, and no one would have known or cared.
We don't even know each other. We just keep crossing paths, orbiting each other, being pulled closer like rafts at sea—just close enough to see the other, but not close enough to touch.
Not that I want to touch him or his pretty face or sculpted arms or anything. It is just a term of expression. The waters are rough is all I'm saying. If we keep bumping into each other, I'm worried the flimsy raft I float on will splinter and I'll be the one pulled under the waves.
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
TICK. TICK. TICK.
A clock or a bomb, I’m not totally sure. Only time will tell.
The exact time—according to Claire—for the posting of the team list is rapidly approaching.
She says that every year O’Shea always posts the list on the board at the far end of the lunchroom 10 minutes before the end of the big break.
She says she thinks he likes to see the younger years sweat.
Though they're not the only ones sweating right now.
I can’t focus for the life of me during the whole lunch period.
Not on the chatter between Claire, Niamh, and Marissa; not on Rory’s usual silence that I usually try to pull her out of; not on the sandwich Lorraine and I made last night since we both agreed our respective school lunch food sucked.
I am tick-tick-ticking away inside, waiting for the explosion.
I glance at the clock. Only a few more minutes.
Looking at the time is a mistake. It may have eased my nerves barely, but it puts the boys’ table right in my sight.
Guys that I can now classify as being on the football team (at least most of them) based on the matching faces I saw at try-outs yesterday. Niall and JJ are among them.
Niall is sat on the far end of the table, with JJ and Joey Fitzpatrick (who had also been at try-outs, and even said hello to me, and was very nice) across from him.
And next to him is a guy with a short buzz of dark hair, whose name I do not know but I can tell well enough (having eyes and all) that he is a part of whatever tight-knit little group those four must have.
They were always clustered together in a group during try-outs.
Niall’s back is to me, but almost as if he can sense my staring, his head turns and we lock eyes from across the lunch room.
Not really “across”, we aren’t that far away, but it still feels like the world narrows to just him and I—sounds dimming, ticking slowing, breathing halting.
And maybe I imagine it, but he winks at me before turning back to his friends. Good sign or bad sign?
Maybe it's a sign to get a grip.
I’m literally losing my mind.
“Molly? Earth to Molly?” Claire is shaking my arm. I quickly snap my gaze back to the table.
“Yeah? Sorry.”
“Look.”
I follow her pointing finger to Coach O’Shea, who has entered the canteen, a white paper clutched in one hand and a silver staple gun in the other.
He walks to the bulletin board, thwack-thwacking the paper up, and leaves just as quickly.
I am clearly not the only one watching, that is made clear by the instantaneous swarm of navy wearing students descending on the board like locusts.
I stay frozen. My stomach has dropped into my shoes, leaving a cold, hollow space where my courage used to be. What if I’m not there? What am I gonna do if I can’t play?
“Come on!” Claire doesn’t give me a choice. She grabs my hand, her grip surprisingly iron-clad, and hauls me toward the fray.
“Out of the way, ye bunch of clodhoppers!” Claire shouts, elbowing her way through the wall of boys.
“Oi, Claire, watch the ribs!” A boy with curly blonde hair rubs his side. I saw him at try-outs yesterday, too.
She pays the big guy no mind. “Move it or lose ‘em, Gerard!”
She drags me to the very front. I stare at the list, the names blurring together into a mess of black ink on white. My eyes scan the positions, stomach sinking with each name they pass. I don’t see it. I look at the bottom, the subs. Nothing. A cold, stinging burn starts behind my eyes.
Of course not. You were stupid to think—
“Molly! Look!” Claire squeals, her finger jabbing at the center of the page. I blink away the blur and look where she is pointing—my name. My name. Molly Lockhart. Number fourteen. Central Midfielder. Starting lineup.
Claire shrieks, throwing her arms around me and bouncing so hard we nearly topple into the bulletin board. “You actually bloody did it! You’re a Saint! Oh my god!”
I stand there, the noise of the canteen rushing back in like a tidal wave.
I'd done it, I've actually done it.