15 | That’s My Girl!
That’s My Girl!
Niall
THE DELAY IN the tunnel was annoying, but now that we’re moving, it doesn’t matter. The game has its own logic. It’s a language I speak better than English.
Ballymore comes at us like a landslide like they always do.
They’re rubbish. They have size, sure—Burke and his midfield partner are built like bricklayers—but they turn like ocean liners.
They’re slow on the pivot and slow in the head.
They want Molly gone because they’re going to lose either way—but they don’t want to lose to a girl.
What a bunch of pussies.
I receive a pass from Gerard, spin away from a sluggish tackle, and look upfield.
I see JJ start his run before he’s even committed to it.
The two of us can play a game together blindfolded.
I loft a ball over the top, perfectly weighted.
JJ brings it down with his chest—beautiful—but a Ballymore defender basically climbs up his back to stop the play.
“Ref!” I shout, arms out.
“Play on!”
“Taking the piss,” I mutter, spitting on the turf. I track back. The ball spills loose in the midfield. It’s a chaotic scramble, boots clashing and mud flying. I’m about to dive in, but the back of a blue jersey catches my eye, pulling my focus.
Molly.
She isn’t running toward the ball. She’s running away from it. She’s drifting into the empty pocket of grass behind the Ballymore midfield line. And she isn’t watching the scramble; she’s watching me.
It’s like my brain knows what to do on instinct. I slide in, win the ball from one of the Ballymore lads with a crunching tackle that rattles my molars, and hook a blind pass to my left.
To anyone in the stands, it must look like a mistake.
But Molly is already there. She catches the ball on her instep, smooth as silk, turning the momentum into a drive.
It’s eerie. With JJ, our connection is built on sixteen years of shared history.
With Molly, it’s instinctive. We’re tuned to the same frequency.
I know where she’s going because it’s exactly where I would be.
Molly drives through the center. A Ballymore winger lunges for her legs. She doesn’t flinch. She drops a shoulder, feints left, and drags the ball right. The lad goes sliding past her on his face. The crowd lets out a collective gasp.
She lays it off to Aidan on the wing, then sprints for the box, demanding the return. She plays with a cold, focused fury that’s terrifying to behold. Aidan crosses it in. It’s a decent ball, but the Ballymore keeper, a giant lad who looks about thirty and probably has a mortgage, punches it clear.
Our game settles into a rhythm. It’s violent and choppy as stormwaters, but a rhythm nonetheless.
Ballymore realizes very quickly that they can’t outplay us.
They can’t catch JJ’s speed, they can’t get their long balls past Liam at the back, and they can’t handle the intricate passing triangles Molly, Fitzy, and I are weaving in the middle. We’re running rings around them.
So, in true Ballymore fashion, they decide to play dirty. Every tackle is late. Every challenge comes with an elbow. They’re pulling shirts and stepping on toes.
“Watch the feet, ref!” I yell after Burke rakes his studs down Fitzy’s calf.
“Keep it moving, Blue,” the ref warns. He keeps his cards in his pocket. Is someone paying him? He’s letting these lads get away with murder.
“They’re trying to wind us up,” I tell Molly as we reset for a throw-in. I’m breathing hard, the cold air burning my lungs. Sweat is dripping into my eyes, stinging like salt.
“I know,” she says. “Their number eight can’t pivot to his left. He’s heavy on his right foot.”
“I see that too. Next time you get it, drive at his left. I’ll make the overlap.”
She gives me a quick nod as the whistle blows again.
Ten minutes later, I win a header and knock it to her. Molly controls it with her chest, lets it drop to her foot, and turns. She drives straight at O’Connell—the number eight. Just as we’ve planned, she attacks his weak side. He stumbles like a baby giraffe, and she’s past him.
Thirty yards out. Ball at her feet. Space opens up in front of her like the Red Sea. JJ is making a run to drag the defenders wide. She’s got a lane. She touches the ball forward, winding up for a shot or a through-ball.
She doesn’t see him—but I do.
Burke is coming in from the blind side. His shoulder slams into her chest, and his trailing leg sweeps her out. She hits the ground, and I can see the air knocking out of her from here.
The whistle blows—a long, shrill blast that pierces my eardrums. The misty haze of anger overtakes me in a way it never usually does on the pitch. I’m usually the cool one. The captain. The one who calms the lads down. But not now.
I don’t feel the pain in my knee. I don’t feel the cold biting at my skin. All I feel is a white-hot rage that starts in my gut and explodes outward. Burke is getting up, a smirk on his face, hands raised in a mock-innocent “who, me?” gesture. I’m going to kill him. I’m actually going to end him.
I don’t punch him—I’m not that far gone—but I shove him with both hands, putting every ounce of my weight and fury into it. He stumbles back, the smirk vanishing as he hits the turf.
“What the hell is that?” I roar, getting right in his face. “You trying to kill her, you absolute scumbag?”
“She shouldn’t be on the pitch if she can’t take a hit,” Burke sneers, regaining his balance.
“That isn't a hit! That is a straight red!”
The ref shoves between us, flashing a yellow at Burke.
“Yellow? Yellow, seriously?” I roar. “He isn't even playing the ball. He does that on purpose.”
“It’s reckless, but not malicious,” the ref says, scribbling in his notebook.
“Not malicious?” O’Shea is closing in now. “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining! That is borderline assault!”
I break away from them. I can’t look at Burke anymore or I’ll do something that will get me banned for the season. Luckily, I have more sense than that. I head toward Molly instead.
She’s been helped to the bench. Finn is sitting with her, pressing an ice pack to her ribs. Her face is deathly pale, save for an angry red welt on her cheek that must have happened when she hit the ground.
My heart hammers against my ribs. Seeing her hurt... it twists something inside me.
“Jesus,” I breathe, kneeling in front of her. I try to keep my voice steady. “You alright? Molly?”
She doesn’t look up. She just flexes her fingers, testing the joints. When she finally lifts her head, her eyes are watery, but the fire is still there. “It’s fine.”
Finn snorts from beside her. “Yeah, brilliant. Only went down like a sack of bricks.”
She shoots him a glare—then winces when the movement pulls at whatever is bruised under her kit. I reach out, acting on pure instinct. I pull the collar of her jersey down just an inch—enough to see the dark, ugly bruise already blooming across her collarbone.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter before she slaps my hand away.
“Don’t think you’re allowed to do that, mate,” Finn snickers, though he looks worried too.
I pull my hand back as if I’ve been burned, realizing the implication. I truly don’t mean anything dirty by it, and haven’t thought it through. “Sorry. I just... I’m tryin’ to see.”
Molly doesn’t seem to care about the awkwardness, or at least she doesn’t say anything. The ref blows for the free kick. Molly stands up, wobbling like a sapling in a gale. Finn and I both catch her elbows.
“Sub! Lockhart, out!” O’Shea calls out. He puts one of the other second years onto her position, a ginger lad who looks like a deer in headlights but quickly gets off the bench.
“Sit down,” I tell Molly, gently guiding her back to the bench. “Take a breather. You’ll go back in when you can see straight.”
The medic comes over, and I don’t know what to do.
I should be back on the pitch organizing the wall, but I can’t leave her yet.
So I just sit down on the grass next to her while the medic checks her over.
She answers the questions clinically—“It’s bruised.
” “No, I’m not dizzy.” “I know my name. It’s Molly. It’s 2007. We’re in Ireland.”
The sub—Madden—doesn’t get the point, and there’s a collective groan from our side. That poor lad isn’t going to hear the end of that for weeks.
“You okay?” I ask Molly, who looks miserable to be sitting. She nods.
I jog back onto the pitch, but the game is sluggish after that. When the whistle blows for halftime, the score is still 0–0. Almost all our goals are blocked by their monster of a goalkeeper, and on our side, Liam never looks so bored in his life. The ball barely ever comes his way.
We all trudge into the locker room. The adrenaline is fading, replaced by the ache of bruises and the cold damp of our kits. Molly follows us, sitting in the corner and looking like she feels out of place.
Coach O’Shea walks into the center of the room. “Right! Listen in!”
We all look up.
“Nil-nil isn't good enough,” O’Shea says, pacing back and forth. His voice echoes off the tiles. “They’re down to ten men mentally—Burke is on a yellow, he’s scared to tackle. They’re a disgrace to the sport. But we’re not winning yet. Why?”
“We’re forcing it through the middle,” JJ pipes up, wiping mud off his forehead.
“Exactly!” O’Shea points at him. “They’re clogging the center.
They’re parking the bus. We need width. Niall, Molly—I want you spraying those balls out to the wings.
Use the space. 15, 7, 9, keep them on their toes, crowd them in and distract them.
Everyone else, fall in line. Make them run.
Make them chase the game. Tire them out, then kill them with speed. Can we do that?”
“YES COACH!”
“Good. Get some water. Two minutes. Fourteen, you fit?”
Molly stands up from her place on the bench. She winces slightly, but masks it quickly. “I’m fit.”
“Good lass. Get out there.”
I stand up, testing my knee again. It’s stiffening up. The halftime break is always the worst part for the joint; it likes to be moving. I flex it, wincing internally at the grind of bone on cartilage.
Forty-five minutes. Just hold it together for forty-five minutes.
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
THE SECOND HALF begins. We spread them thin, until Ballymore is gasping. They’re heavy men, and the constant running is draining them. Without Burke’s bullying—he’s terrified of a second yellow—they’re ghosts.
80 minutes. Still 0-0.
I receive a ball from Fitzy. I don’t even have to look. I know exactly where she’s at. I ping a cross-field ball, forty yards, perfectly weighted. It soars over JJ’s head and drops right into Molly’s path. She lets it hit her thigh to kill the spin, then volleys it before it touches the grass.
The keeper dives, but he’s reaching for air. The ball nestles into the bottom corner—shhhhk.
The stadium explodes. Molly stands there for a second, stunned, before her face breaks into a look of pure, radiant joy.
I don’t care about my knee. I don’t care about being cool or how it might look. I sprint forty yards and scoop her up, lifting her right off her feet. She grabs my shoulders, laughing—a bright, breathless sound that I revel in—as I spin her around.
“You beauty!” I yell. “What a strike!”
“What a pass!” she screams back, her eyes shining into mine. “We make a good team.”
“Don’t we?”
The rest of the team piles on—a mass of blue-and-white limbs—celebrating the first score of the game and first score of the season. And it’s hers. I feel an overwhelming sense of pride. Anyone who doubts her before surely has to be rethinking themselves now.
As I watch her jog back to the center circle, adjusting her jersey and wiping the mud from her face, I can’t take my eyes off her. Every nerve ending is lit up like a Christmas tree.
She glances at me, catching my eye—and catching me staring. She’s already flushed, so maybe she doesn’t really blush, but my stomach turns around in knots as she looks away again.
I’m a goner. That’s it. Completely underwater.
Or maybe floating to the surface for a change.