Binding 13

Silence fell around us then, as I quietly staggered through my thoughts.

Reeling, I tried to dissolve the information Joey had given me.

I tried to co

He didn’t seem like a superstar rugby player to me.

Okay, sure, physically he looked every inch the description of one, but he wasn’t…he didn’t…

I shook my head, thoughts awry with confusion.

Now that I knew exactly how invested he was in rugby, I could understand his irrational reaction tonight.

He didn’t want anyone to know about his injuries because he was scared.

He hadn't admitted it, but now that I knew what was at stake for him, it made complete sense.

If my future career I'd invested so much time and energy into was up in the air over an injury, I would do whatever it took to get back on track.

But lying about his recovery?

That seemed like a risky move to me.

A dangerous move.

He'd said it himself; he wasn’t healing right.

So why risk his body like that?

"What happens to a boy when he tears his adductor muscle?"

The question was out of my mouth before I had a chance to think it through.

"What – like in the groin?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "What happens?"

"Depends on the severity of the tear," Joey replied without hesitation. "But he'd be sore as fuck for a while. If it was bad, he'd probably need physio and rehab."

"What if it was really bad?" I chewed on my fingernail and asked, "What if it was bad enough that he had to have surgery down there?"

"Sha

"Would it be really bad?" I kept pushing. "For a boy, that is? Would it hurt?"

"Put it this way," Joey bit out, still shuddering. "I'd rather break both legs than suffer that kind of trauma to my package."

"Would it hurt to walk and stuff?" I asked. "What about playing sports?"

"Sha

Oh, Jesus.

No wonder Joh

"Why?" he asked then.

"Oh, I was just wondering because Lizzie said her boyfriend, Pierce, had surgery to repair his adductor muscle back in December." Shrugging, I continued to lie through my teeth. I didn’t know Lizzie's boyfriend's last name, let alone the condition of his adductor muscles. "Lizzie said he's back playing rug-uh-soccer again, but that he's still in a lot of pain. She asked me if I knew anything about it since you play hurling. I told her I'd ask you."

"Well, you can tell her that I said the poor bastard deserves an unlimited supply of morphine," Joey muttered. "And a bed. And an endless supply of icepacks for his balls."

"His balls?" I swallowed deeply, eyes widening. "Why would he need an icepack for those?"

"Because when the surgeons cut you open for that kind of procedure, they make an incision right below your s –ugh! I can't." Shaking his head, Joey snapped, "I can't even think about it without going out in sympathy with the poor bastard."

"But what if–"

"No!"

"But I just –"

"Goodnight Sha

Flopping onto my back, I cradled the top of my head with my hands and released a slow, steadying breath, hoping to calm my tremulous thoughts and make my mind go blank.

When the sound of Joey's deep-sleep snores filled my ears, several hours later, I was still wide awake.

I was tired.

I was chasing sleep, urging it to come, but try as I may, I couldn’t make my brain shut off.

Staring up at the ceiling, I mentally flicked through my own personal catalogue of heartache.

It was a sick form of self-harm because thinking about it did me absolutely no good, but still, I relived every argument, cruel comment, and painful memory I'd endured; ranging from taunts on the school yard at the age of four to the comments made by my father tonight.

It was the ultimate form of masochism, and a ritual I always performed after a bad day.

Closing my eyes didn’t help matters either.

Every time I allowed my eyes to flutter shut, the mental images of Joh

I wasn’t sure if I preferred it when he was just the stranger who'd knocked me out and smiled in the hallways, or the moody, overreactive asshole who'd blown hot and cold tonight.

I definitely knew that I regretted learning what I had about him.

Discovering Joh

I had a superstar brother of my own, a can-do-no-wrong-in-anyone's-eyes pretty boy who was praised for his performance on the pitch and rewarded with free reign of it.

Joey, as good as he was to me, was also a total manwhore who had left a trail of broken hearts from Ballylaggin to Cork City.

He'd been seeing his girlfriend, Aoife, exclusively for about eight months, and he seemed completely devoted to her, but the jury was still out on whether he was fully reformed from his old ways or not.

Experience told me that boys were dogs.

And fathers.

Fathers were bastards and men couldn’t be trusted.

Not all men, I begrudgingly admitted, but most were.

Especially the athletic ones.

Being the sister of one, I had an insight into the mind of these teenage athletes and knew that it was safest to be related to them, platonic friends, or just avoid them like the plague.

They had big egos, larger than life attitudes, and highly charged sex drives. Loyal to their families, their team, and not a lot else.

Trust my stubborn teenage hormones to spazz out at the sight of one.

Acknowledging it was the safest option, I decided I would move forward from tonight's events by blocking out everything I had learned about Joh

I was young but I wasn’t stupid, and I knew that harboring any sort of feelings, harmless crush or not, for a boy like Joh

Because in all honesty, since the day he knocked me out, I'd been harboring a lot of conflicting emotions towards him.

But the horrible way Joh

I needed to forget about him.

And I would.

I hoped.