Binding 13

Christmas break was a prime example.

I'd spent my time working like a maniac to get back to the pitch, having been out on injury, while these guys had spent their break eating and drinking the shite out of life.

I had no problem losing a match if we were genuinely the poorer side.

What I could not accept was losing due to lack of preparation and poor discipline.

School boys league or not.

That wasn’t fucking good enough in my book.

I was perturbed beyond all rationality when a girl strolled across the pitch - fucking strolled right through the training grounds.

Irritated, I glared at her, feeling a rage inside of me that bordered on manic.

This was how fucking bad this team was.

The other students didn’t even care that we were training.

Several of the lads shouted at her, but that only seemed to rile me up further.

I didn’t understand why they were shouting at her.

This was their fault.

The fools ranting and shouting were the ones that needed to either up their game or put their rugby dreams to bed.

Instead of concentrating on the game, they were focusing on the girl.

Fucking eejits.

"Great display of captaincy, Kavanagh," Ronan McGarry, another one of our latest recruitments, and a piss poor excuse for a scrumhalf, taunted as he jogged backwards past me. "Overrated much?" the younger guy taunted.

"Keep fucking ru

"Maybe you should take your own advice," Ronan taunted. "Dublin scum."

Deciding I didn’t care about punishments, I reclaimed the ball and threw it at his head.

Accurate and precise, the ball socked McGarry in the desired region – his nose.

"Settle down, hotshot!" Coach barked, jogging over to check on Ronan who was cupping his face.

I snorted at the sight.

I hit him with a ball, not my fist.

Pussy.

"This is a team sport," Coach seethed, glaring at me. "Not the Joh

"Oh, it is?" I shot back, snarling, unable to stop myself from taking the bait. Mr. Mulcahy, the school's senior rugby coach, didn’t like me much and the feeling was completely mutual.

"Yeah," Coach bellowed. "It damn well is."

Jogging over to where the ball had landed, I swiped it up and stalked over to him and McGarry, unwilling to let it go. "Then you might want to remind these fuckers," I snarled, gesturing around to my teammates, "because I seem to be the only eejit that showed up to training today!"

"You're skating on thin ice, boy," he seethed. "Don’t push it."

Unable to stop myself from pushing it, I hissed, "This team's a fucking joke."

"Hit the showers, Kavanagh," Coach ordered, face turning a dangerous shade of purple, as he slammed a finger in my chest. "You're out!"

"I'm out?" I shot back, taunting him. "Out of what exactly?"

I wasn’t out of shit.

Coach couldn’t drop me.

He could ban me from training.

He could suspend me.

Give me detention.

It didn’t make a blind shit of difference because come match day, I would be on that pitch.

"You'll do nothing," I sneered, letting my temper get the better of me.

"Don’t push me, Joh

Ronan, who was standing beside coach, gri

Furious at the threat but knowing I was beaten, I let rip at the ball in my hands, drop kicking it with an unsated fury thrumming through my veins and no care for direction.

The minute the ball whizzed off the foot of my boot, the anger inside of me dissipated in a rush, ejecting itself from my body in defeat.

Dammit.

I was being difficult.

I knew better.

Coach threatening me with The Academy was a low blow, but I knew I deserved it.

I was losing my shit on his pitch, with his team, too emotional and over-worked to pull myself together.

Never in a million years would I ever feel so much as a hint of remorse for hitting McGarry with the ball, that fucker deserved a lot worse, but Feely and the rest of the lads were a different matter altogether.

I was supposed to be this team's captain and I was acting like a tool.

It wasn’t good enough, and I was disappointed in myself for my outburst.

I knew what was wrong with me.

I had spread myself too thin these past few months and had come back too soon from injury.

I had been cleared by my doctors to return to training this week, but a blind man could tell I was off my game and it was pissing me the hell off.

The prospect of juggling school, training, club commitments, and The Academy while nursing an injury, was a strain on both my mind and my body, and I was struggling to find the pristine discipline I usually displayed.

Either way, it wasn’t an excuse.

I would apologize to Patrick after I'd eaten, and the rest of the lads, too.

Coach, noticing the change in my temperament, nodded stiffly.

"Good," he said in a calmer tone than earlier. "Now, go clean up and for fuck's sake rest up for one damn day. You're only a kid, Kavanagh, and you look like shit."

The man didn’t like me much and we clashed on a daily basis like an old married couple, but I never doubted his intentions.

He cared about his players and not just our ability to play rugby. He encouraged us to succeed in all aspects of school life and was constantly chanting about the importance of exam years.

He was also probably right about me looking like shite; I certainly felt like it.

"It's an important year for you," he reminded me. "Fifth year is more crucial to your leaving cert than sixth year and I need you to keep your marks up – oh shit!"

"What?" I demanded, startled.

Following Coaches horrified gaze, I turned around and locked eyes on the crumpled ball on the edge of the pitch.

"Oh shite," I muttered when my mind made sense of what I was seeing.

The girl.

The fucking girl who'd been prancing around the pitch was laid out on her back on the grass.

A ball lay on the grass beside her.

Not just any ball.

My bleeding ball!

Horrified, my feet were moving before my brain could catch up. I ran towards her, heart hammering against my ribcage every step of the way.

"Hey – are you okay?" I called out, closing the space between us.

A soft, female groan came from her lips as she attempted to get to her feet.

She was trying to stand up and failing miserably, clearly startled.

Unsure of what to do, I reached down to help her up, but she quickly slapped my hands away.

"Don’t touch me," she cried out, tone a little slurred, and the jolting caused her to fall onto her knees.

"Okay!" I automatically took a step back and held my hands up. "I'm so sorry."

Achingly slowly, she climbed to her feet, swaying from side to side, confusion etched on her face, eyes unfocused.

Clutching the side of her muddy skirt with one hand, and balancing the rugby ball in the other, she looked around, eyes wild.

Her attention landed on the ball in her hands and then shifted back to my face.

A glazed over sort of fury blazed in her eyes as she half staggered, half stalked towards me.

Her hair was a total mess, tumbling loosely down her small shoulders, with pieces of mud and grass caked to the tendrils.