25 | He’s a Fighter
He’s a Fighter
Niall
I'M A JERK.
I know that. I’ve known it for two-and-a-half weeks. But still, sometimes it’s hard to believe that I’d actually done what I did.
It had been sixteen days since I’d caught a moment of madness and kissed Molly Lockhart. Sixteen days since I’d tasted her lips and felt a surge of something so electric it made every other kiss in my memory seem like a flickering candle next to a forest fire.
Sixteen days since I fucked up.
There was room for improvement, sure. I could’ve chosen a better time, better location. Maybe gone a little easy on the tongue.
Oh, and maybe next time I shouldn’t immediately push her away and retreat into my little turtle shell. Ugh.
Among the many, many animals Claire and JJ have taken in over the years, they once had these two turtles.
One of them, JJ insisted, was female, and the other was male.
Claire thought otherwise. It didn’t matter, though—whatever their turtle gender, they were inseparable.
They’d eat together, sleep together, and whenever they got spooked, they’d retreat into their shells in perfect sync.
Claire said turtles were like that—they needed water and companionship, but when things got too intense, they’d withdraw into themselves.
I’d never related to an animal so hard in my life.
There was a tennis match going back and forth in my brain.
One side arguing: What were you thinking—kissing her?
Why would you want to drag her into your mess of a mind?
Why would you do that if you supposedly care about her?
And the other side saying: Why would you pull away like that?
Why would you put up a wall if you like her so much?
God, Niall, do you want to be alone forever?
That whole night, it was a battle of Why Would You’s going back and forth in my head. I couldn’t fall asleep, but also couldn’t come to a solid conclusion of which part had been a fuck up.
Starting the kiss? Or ending it?
And if I didn’t know how I fucked up, how could I fix it?
I can’t. That’s the only thing I’ve figured out in the past sixteen days—that whatever I almost had is irreparable.
We haven’t talked about it. She hasn’t brought it up, and I haven’t brought it up. It’s always festering in the air between us, the two of us pretending not to notice the bad smell.
So I’ve slipped back into old habits.
Last year, before my surgery, the only way I could get through the day was to stay buzzed twenty-four-seven. So that’s what I’m currently doing again, drinking just enough to keep me functioning but hovering about thirteen inches above the reality of the mess I’ve made of things.
Alcohol is like death to an athlete, like smoking and junk food. I had been weaning myself down to a couple of drunk nights a week after this summer, and was hoping to only be down to celebration drinks by Christmas.
Somehow I don’t see that happening anymore.
It might make me feel shittier on the pitch, but I know I won’t let my performance drop. I never do. The only thing that took me off the field last year was my knee, not the drink.
It’ll be fine, I will be fine.
“Do you reckon we’ll get our table back today?” Finn asks, nudging me in the ribs to grab my attention, pulling me out of my head.
Finn is hard to ignore, even when you are three sheets to the wind.
JJ’s loud because he likes to be the center of attention and to put on a show, Finn’s loud because he doesn’t know how to be quiet.
And every sentence comes accompanied by a frantic dance of his hands, his whole body participating in the conversation, like he’s trying to sell me on a religion or a used car.
He’ll go far in marketing, if he ever takes that route.
If any of the lads have noticed I’ve been acting strange lately, no one’s said anything.
They’re probably used to it by now, me shutting down every now and then, no one knowing how long it’s gonna last. I’m sure, like usual, they’ll assume it has to do with my da, and that I won’t want to talk about it.
Which is half correct. I definitely do not want to talk about it.
“Unlikely,” I sigh. “Rafferty’s a stubborn prick.”
About a week ago, these music lads—led by this mangy third-year named Stephen Rafferty, whose family owns that farm at the edge of town—had decided to take the girls’ usual table by the window.
Their lot had been kicked out of the band room for smoking, and I guess they thought my sister and her social circle were the easiest target for a territorial takeover.
So now, every day at lunch, my lads and I had to sit in the middle of the football table, acting as a buffer between the eejits on the team and my sister and her friends.
Friends that include Molly Lockhart.
It wasn’t that I was ignoring her. If she spoke to me, I spoke back. If I spoke to her, she spoke back. But all our talk was thin and empty, nothing like the way it had been before.
I could tell that she wanted me to be the first to say something about it, to be the one to take that step.
But I just... can’t.
At least I can take comfort in the fact that none of my mates have any sound idea on girls’ either. Not even Know-It-All Joey Fitzpatrick, who’s always been the sanest of our lot. Though he’s been on a few dates, so maybe I should pick his brain on what to do about my whole Molly dilemma.
JJ joins Finn and I right before we step into the canteen, coming from the east wing hall; Fitzy’s class is right in this corridor, so he always gets to the table first. I scan the room, steeling my nerves for the inevitable sight of Molly. But that’s not what stops me in my tracks.
“Cop on, I swear to God...”
Claire’s at her table today, but she’s not sitting. Well, rather, she’s half-seated. Stephen Rafferty has his arse on the same chair, his hip braced against hers, both of them clearly trying to shove the other off.
Claire’s red-faced and gripping the table edge, and I hear her yell, “Get off, Stephen!”
“I told ya, Care-Bear.” Rafferty leans his weight into her. “It’s a free country. Plenty of room if you want to take a seat on my—”
“I’m gonna fecking kill him,” I hear JJ murmur behind me.
“Get in line.”
I reach the table, just as Rafferty gives an impatient shove with his hip.
It catches Claire off balance, making her slide right off the seat and landing on the floor with a hard “Oof!” Her skirt flies up, flashing her knickers to the entire canteen for a split second, before she scrambles to pull it down, her eyes glossy with humiliation.
Rafferty’s mates—who were crowded around the table, just like the girls’ and Molly, who’s now helping Claire up—are snickering. A few people at the surrounding tables were whispering behind their hands.
Rafferty looks almost remorseful. “Shite, Claire, I didn’t mean to—”
He doesn’t get to finish before my fist connects with his jaw.
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
“NEVER HAVE I had the profound displeasure of seeing such a promising lot of young men—and young lady—sitting in my office after a common brawl on school grounds during school hours.”
Principal Lynch stands behind his mahogany desk, his hands clasped behind his back.
Rafferty and his lot (Tadgh, Sean, and Brody) were on one side of the room, and my lads (Fitzy, JJ, Finn and I) were on the other.
After I’d punched Rafferty, hell had broken loose, and of course the lads had jumped in to help me.
Claire’s on our side of the room too, tucked into a chair and looking small.
JJ is the only one in the room besides her who’s sitting down, and he’s rubbing her shoulder and whispering into her ear.
The sight alone is the only thing keeping me from lunging across the room and finishing what I started.
Lynch drones on with his usual speech, and then dismisses and talks to each of us separately.
I wasn’t the Incredible Hulk, he reminded me. I had a “promising future.” I shouldn’t throw it away for “reasons that might seem righteous in the heat of the moment.”
After each chastisation, he sends us to wait for our parents to pick us up out front. I wait outside Lynch’s door, for him to be done with Claire. He’d saved the two of us for last.
When the door finally opens, I stand. Claire doesn’t say a word, just walks straight into me.
Claire’s the sun, but when the clouds come, she turns into a clinger. She holds on tight, her head buried in my chest, and I wrap my arms around her and ignore the sting in my hand.
Lynch is watching us from the doorway, the look on his face not entirely unsympathetic. I knew why we were getting off so easily. More sympathy points thrown our way.
I hate it. I think I would rather sit in detention for a month than have everyone look at me like I’m a charity case just because my father drowned.
“Your mother is on her way. I expect to see you both tomorrow—on better behavior,” Lynch says, nodding at us. “Claire, think about what I said.”
Once he retreats into his office, I steer Claire outside. We sit together on a wooden bench, everyone else already gone.
“I’m sorry, Niall,” she says first.
“Don’t be, really. It’s not your fault, and I’m not angry. Not with you, anyway.”
“You should be,” she wipes her nose. “You’re suspended from the match on Saturday. You hate missing games.”
“Ah, bollocks to the game,” I say, shaking my head. “I’d miss a thousand games, Claire. That’s what brothers are for. If that prick touches you again, I’d do it again.”
“It was my own fault for being stubborn about the seat.”
“It wasn’t,” I insist. “What did Lynch say to you?”
Claire shrugs, her voice small. “Just that I was a good kid and smarter than to be in the middle of such a mess.”
“He’s right. You are.”
“I’m sorry, Niall.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder, encasing her in a hug. “Don’t be, Clairey. I mean it.”