38 | Crush Culture
Crush Culture
Niall
FINN MARSHALL IS afraid of a lot of things.
Spiders, snakes, heights, needles (though he deals with them, being diabetic and all, but he hates them), enclosed spaces (mostly in regards to elevators), germs (also mostly in regards to elevators), hospitals, doctors, dentists, the dark, loud noises, fireworks, balloons popping, the ocean, boats, planes, trains, buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, horses, cows, sheep, goats, cats, mice, rats, bats, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians.
And most especially—women. And, you know, commitment and the likes.
There’s really no telling why. Someone like JJ, it makes sense. His father was a bad guy and his Mam stayed single for the rest of his childhood. I think deep down JJ is scared of a relationship that ends like his parents’ did—messy and with broken pieces everywhere.
But Finn’s parents—Bobby and Lottie—are the most in love people you’d ever meet. They’ve got four kids (Finn included) and a fifth on the way, and they’re both genuinely kind people who love each other and their kids.
So why is Finn like this? Why does he treat women like they’re landmines and he’s walking barefoot through a field?
He doesn’t know. Neither do I.
But apparently he thinks that I’m just brimming with profound relationship wisdom. It’s not like I’m walking around wearing a bleeding diaper and carrying a bow and arrow, so I wasn’t sure where this idea came from.
“I’m just saying Nialler, it’s getting way too complicated for my liking,” Finn mutters, leaning against the row of fifth year lockers beside mine. “Like, one second she’s tutoring me and the next I’m agreeing to be her dance partner.”
“Her what?” I look up at him. He’s been rambling about Chloe Holland—his little sister’s baby sister, and who (most notably maybe) I almost hooked up with at a party last November right after Gemma Byrne ripped my heart to pieces by cheating on me with this rugby lad in her year.
Chloe had just been visiting from London in November, to see her Dad (who lives here and works at Finn’s Da’s auto shop), but over the summer she moved here to stay.
Since I was home with my fucked up knee most of the time, I got a front row seat to watching (and hearing about) Finn pine over her all summer while she was babysitting his little sisters.
The thing was she wasn’t supposed to stay in town or go to Morrigal after the summer was over.
So ever since then Finn has basically been a basket case whenever the girl was around.
(For the record, he buzzed his hair off before he found out she was staying in town.
He had figured it would grow back normal by the next time he saw her).
About a week ago, Finn told me that our year head, Mr. Toal, called his parents’ and him in for a meeting about his marks.
He has dyslexia, and though he gets a lot of help and leeway for that, he still has to maintain a certain average if he wants to stay on the footie team.
I think for everyone else, they need to maintain at least a B3 average in all their classes, but for Finn, he just needs to get above a 50% in his weakest classes—Maths and English—and keep his marks above a 65% in his others (which he does fine in).
But apparently his English mark dropped below the 50% threshold (what he needs in order to play) and Lynch told him he could either get extra tutoring from his English teacher (who Finn hates) or get tutored by another student in his grade—one with good marks—who would sign off on tutoring sessions (which would be also be signed off by one of his parents, for proof).
I help him most of the time, since I'm in higher level English (Finn is in ordinary level), but I'm not sure how much help I am.
I just let him copy my homework sometimes and tell him what books to read for extra credit (he hates reading).
His mother didn't think I'd be a good tutor, and she didn't want him to choose one of his friends on the off-chance that he would goof off the whole time (it was a good chance).
So of course, without knowing her son had an infatuation with her (and vice versa, I think) she asked Chloe Holland to tutor Finn.
“Her dance partner quit,” he explains. “And she was so upset—she was crying, you know I hate crying—because she was gonna have to drop out of the competition so I just... kinda...”
“Offered to dance with her even though you have no ballet experience?” I finish for him.
“Come on, it’s easy street. I’ve seen them practice, the lad was just doing lifts and stuff, she’s the one prancing on her toes, not me. And we all took classes with Fitzy’s Mam in her old Dublin studio back in primary, I’ll be fine.”
“Fitzy’s Mam teaches little children,” I remind him. “You know, like your sisters'. And the only one of us good at those classes were JJ and Claire. And besides that, we were learning Irish dancing, not ballet.”
Finn shrugs, pushing himself off the lockers. “Well, I already told her yes, so...”
I sigh. “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Finn nods. “Yeah, I do.”
“You don’t.”
“No, I don’t,” he admits.
I shut my locker, the two of us heading to the common room for small break. “Remind me again how this pertains to me?”
“I was just giving you the backstory,” he explains. “I need your help. You know. With the ‘making a move’ stuff.”
“What makes you think I know how to do that?”
“Uh, hello?” he looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Molly Lockhart?”
I look around us in the halls, to see if anyone is looking at us.
Luckily, no heads seem to turn. Not that I’m trying to be secretive about whatever is going on between Molly and I, but I’m not exactly sure what’s going on myself.
We’ve kissed (four times by my count) some and fought some, and I’ve gone and promised her I won’t drink anymore (and it’s been two days but my promise has been kept, though I’ve had to do a lot of distracting myself).
But I’ve told none of this to anyone, so I don’t know how (or what?) Finn knows.
“Chloe thinks you guys are an item.”
“Don’t talk about me with your girlfriend!”
“Your girlfriend talks to my friend Chloe, and Chloe tells me things when I ask.”
My mind is racing. She tells her friends about me. Oh my god, does Claire know? “She told Chloe we kissed?”
“Oh. No. She did not. At least if she did, Chloe didn’t tell me,” Finn looks a bit surprised. “Good for you, lad. Fitzy owes me a tenner. And he owes JJ twice that if you guys—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I warn him.
Finn puts his hands up. “Fine. Anyway, Chloe just said that she thinks you guys like each other, nothing scandalous. But even if she hadn’t—everyone talks about you two, mate.”
That throws me off a bit. “What do you mean? Who talks? Since when?”
“Mate, you picked her up and spun her ‘round like a rag doll during our first game. Probably since then, I reckon.”
“She scored the first goal of the season and was happy,” I argue. “It was a celebration.”
Finn nods. “You never pick me up like that when I score.”
“I would if you ever scored,” I mutter, shoving him with my elbow.
Finn gapes at me, making a show of smacking me in the side before shaking his head and moving on. “Whatever. I didn’t come to you to debate your relationship status, lad. I need your help. I don’t know how to tell Chlo that I like her—and I don’t know if she likes me.”
“Finn, I don’t even have my own shit figured out right now. My best advice to you is to get your head screwed on straight before you screw up.”
He sighs. “I guess.”
“Hey, why don’t you just—ask her to go with you to the winter ball? Girls love dances.”
Finn looks at me like I suggested shoving batteries in his ears. “Mate, I just told you I don’t know if she likes me like that.”
“That’s what the dance is for. To find out.”
Finn shrugs. “I guess. I dunno.”
“You’ve got to start somewhere,” I say. “And if she says no, you’ve got an answer.”
“Yeah.”
We reach the common room. “You’ll be alright, Finn.”
Finn sighs, nodding. “Yeah. Hey? Will you help me then?”
“What? Ask her?”
“No, lad. Ballroom dancing. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
??ˋ ?? ?ˊ?
I WAS STILL suspended from games until the end of November, but O’Shea made sure I never had a quiet moment during practice.
He didn’t have me practicing with the lads, but rather forced me into an assistant coaching position. Mostly my duties consisted of setting up and putting away cones and balls (shite I already did as captain), and helping critique the lads.
O’Shea and I had a bit of a different approach to critiquing.
Where he likes to use colourful metaphors (such as telling a lad his dead grandmother could run faster if he shoved a pack of Duracell Batteries up her arse), I preferred to do something more sound, like suggest to the lad he was planting his right foot too early and slowing himself down.
O’Shea dismisses everyone today at seven, as per usual, reminding everyone we might not have a game this Saturday but everyone needed to still stay at peak.
Next Saturday, I will be playing again. Which means next week was back to practice with the lads, back to my defensive position. And I would be doing it sober, all the way.
Molly jogs a bit slower than the rest of the lads, giving me the perfect window of time to head across the frosty, muddy grass toward her. I check over my shoulder, making sure no one’s watching (because what Finn said earlier about people talking kinda made me weary), before I step up behind her.
I reach out, lightly grabbing her sides and pulling her back flush against my chest. I feel her stiffening completely under my touch for a split second, before she recognizes who I am and melts back into me.
I can’t resist burying my nose in her damp hair for a fleeting second before she pulls away, turning around and grinning at me.
“What was that for?” she asks, her voice teasing. She twists off the cap of her water bottle and takes a long, thirsty swig. Her cheeks are still flushed a pretty pink from practice, and maybe from me surprising her, but it's a warm, sunny day otherwise.
“Just felt like it,” I shrug, shoving my hands into the pocket of my jacket, so I won’t be tempted to touch her again out here in the open. “You played brilliant today. You do pretty well in my spot.”
“Thanks. You did good today too, for a guy who wasn’t actually playing.”
“Ah, shut up.”
She laughs, bumping her shoulder playfully against mine. “Seriously, though, Niall. You know, you make a pretty good coach. You should think about going into it—you know, after you go pro and win eight world cups or whatever.”
I laugh, but the thought sticks like gum to a carseat.
No one has ever suggested that to me before.
Ever. In my mind, football was something I would play until my body broke down.
I always figured once my career ended, I’d leave The Reds in Manchester and come back home and work in the bakery again.
But the idea lodges itself deep in my brain anyway, stubborn and clinging like a burr. I love strategy, I love fixing the mechanics of a play, I love watching my teammates improve.
“Maybe,” I mutter softly, glancing away from her intense gaze and pretending to squint at the sun. “After the pros.”
“Are you going to college and everything, or do they have a draft thing here?” she asks. “In America, you have to go to a University if you want to play professionally—unless you’re Lionel Messi or something.”
“Here it’s academies,” I explain. “But I’m going to Uni, yeah. Education is important to my Ma.”
“Where do you plan on going?”
I shrug. “Well, I wanna play for Manchester United, so whichever Uni is closest to them.”
She grins. “You think they’ll take you?”
I pretend to scoff. “Of course they will. They’d be daft not to.”
Molly laughs, rolling her eyes. “You’re so humble.”
“I’m realistic.”
She rolls her eyes again, but she’s smiling. “Yeah, yeah. So did you want something from me, or did you just pull me aside to chat me up?”
I shrug. “Just wanted to see you.”
“Oh.” She blushes again, chewing at her lip nervously.
She glances over her shoulder toward the locker rooms. “Well, uh...
I'll shower and meet you in the car, then?
You can come over for a bit if you want.
My dad's still here until Wednesday, and he makes the best dinners. We're having his lasagna tonight.”
“Yeah,” I nod, smiling softly. “Yeah, I’ll meet you in the car.”
She smiles, nodding before turning and jogging back toward the locker rooms.
I sigh, pushing myself off the bench and heading toward the parking lot.