Binding 13

23

Exes and hell no's

Joh

I saw her again today.

We passed each other no less than five times in the hallway, and every single time she put her head down and walked past me without so much as a backwards glance.

This wasn’t a new thing of course.

Sha

Nine days to be precise.

Being ignored didn’t sit well with me.

It was unfamiliar territory to me and I was quickly learning that I didn’t like it one bit.

Especially when the person ignoring me was the very same one who was tormenting my every waking thought – my dreams, too.

That's right; I was actually fucking dreaming about the girl now.

How messed up was that?

Last night, for instance, I dreamt that Sha

Except instead of being on the school pitch, we were at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

And instead of wearing Tommen's black and white, I was wearing green and white.

Sha

I was thrown the ball but when I caught it, Sha

For real, her face was contorted in pain and she was pointing at me.

That's when it got really disturbing because when I looked down, my legs were gone.

In their place were two stumps.

Then I began to shrink away, shriveling up like the creepy guy in the Harry Potter books.

Sha

It was fucking horrendous.

I woke up in a bog of sweat and had spent a solid five minutes patting my legs to assure my panicked mind that they were still there.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a warning sign.

Of what, I had no idea, but I had this god-awful feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t go away.

That feeling had stuck with me all day.

I couldn’t seem to shake it off.

I couldn’t shake her off.

None of this made any sense to me, and I had no goddamn clue why she was the person I wanted to go to.

Not Gibs.

Not my Ma.

Not my coaches.

I was freaking the fuck out inside, worrying myself half to death over the summer campaign, and it was a girl I barely knew, with soul deep eyes, that I wanted to confide in.

Because something told me I could.

Because somewhere deep down inside of me, I felt like she knew me.

Like she could save me?

Jesus, I was losing my bleeding mind…

After a disastrous last class on Friday – where I had retained not one iota of what the teacher had been prattling on about – I was heading out of the main building towards the P.E hall to catch up with Coach, when I heard a familiar voice call out my name.

For a split second, I debated pretending I hadn't heard her and walking out the door, but then she grabbed my hand and tugged me backwards, and ma

Inhaling a steadying breath, I mentally reminded myself to be nice, before turning around to face her.

"Bella," I acknowledged with a curt nod.

She looked just as good as she always did, with her black hair styled into a bob and a full face of makeup.

She was tall and curved and filled her school uniform in all the right places.

Fortunately, I was completely unaffected.

"Hey, Joh

The words 'like you give a shite', were on the tip of my tongue, but I toned my impatience down and went with, "What's up?" instead.

"Oh, you know, the usual," she replied, tucking her dark hair behind her ears.

Actually, I didn’t know.

I didn’t know anything about her and she knew even less about me.

We didn’t talk.

We fucked.

And that had been her decision more than it had been mine.

"I was coming out of the office and saw you walking outside," Bella continued to say, trailing her thumb over my wrist. "So I thought I'd come say hi."

Freeing my hand from hers, I shoved my hands into my pockets and rocked back on my heels. "Hi."

"I feel like we haven't talked in so long," she added.

I glared at her. "We talked a few weeks ago."

When you were trying to force yourself on me.

And let's not forget about the million fucking messages and voicemails you've left me.

"We did?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Yeah, Bella, we did."

"Oh god," she giggled, acting all coy. "I was completely wasted that night," she added. "I hardly remember a thing." She took a step closer. "I definitely don’t remember seeing you that night."

I stepped back. "Well, you did."

I wasn’t buying this convenient lack of memory bullshit.

She'd played that card too many times with me.

"Anyway, that's not what I meant." She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled up at me. "I was talking about the last time we met up. It has to have been before Christmas, right?"

More like Halloween, I thought to myself, but I was eager to get away so I didn’t object to her dates. Instead I nodded and said, "Yeah, that sounds about right," while wishing I knew the appropriate etiquette to use when dealing with vindictive girls I'd been foolish enough to stick my dick inside.

"So," she said in a breathy tone. "How have you been?"

"You already asked me that," I replied evenly, trying to mask my impatience at the pointless chitchat. "I'm fine."

"Oh yeah, well I'm fine, too," Bella replied, exhaling a loud sigh. "I mean, I guess I'm a little bored."

Yeah, well I was bored, too.

With this conversation.

"You know how it is," she said for the second time, and for the second time I stared blankly back at her.

Nope.

I had no clue what the fuck she was talking about.

"Oh my god!" she blurted then, clutching my hand once more. "I totally forgot to ask; how's your leg?"

Bella didn’t know the ins and outs of my surgery, only that I'd had a procedure done at Christmas.

When I told her that I would be out of action for a while, her biggest concern had been how soon I would be back on the pitch, whether or not I'd still get to play for Ireland in the summer, and when did I want to fuck again.

Besides all that, I didn’t trust her in that way.

Having sex with her was one thing but confiding in her was quite another.

"Better," I replied in a flat tone before reclaiming my hand.

"That's fantastic news, babe," she replied, smiling widely. "I've been really worried about you."

No, she bleeding well hadn't been.

If at any point Bella had been truly worried about me, she would have asked me something other than 'are you ready to meet up' or 'hurry up, I'm horny' in the bazillion texts she'd sent me.

She wouldn’t have fucked me over like she had with one of my teammates.

"I bet," I drawled, hearing the sarcasm in my own voice.

Now, I got that at no point during the time Bella and I had been messing around had we ever been anything remotely serious, but I still felt betrayed by the Cormac thing.

In my eyes, it was shady as fuck on both their parts, and I would never go off with one of her friends.

I had enough respect for her to show her that decency.