Johnny Kavanagh

She’s not even tryin’, and I’m already gone.

One minute, she’s just part of the group — mouthing off when she’s in the mood, goin’ dead quiet when she’s off in her head somewhere, always scribblin’ mad little notes down the side of her copy like her brain’s got better places to be than class.

Then one day, I look up, and it’s different.

I’m different.

She laughs at somethin’ Gibsie says — that proper belly laugh she does when she’s not thinkin’ about it, the one that scrunches her whole face up — and somethin’ in my chest goes sideways.

Swear to God, I’ve been tackled harder on the pitch and it didn’t hit like that.

I’m not soft. I’ve played through torn ligaments and migraines and the worst of Coach Murray’s bullshit fitness drills. But this? Whatever this is?

It’s worse. It’s better. I don’t even know.

She looks at me like I’m more than just a gobshite who talks too loud and scores tries. Like she sees me. And I haven’t a clue what to do with that.

But I don’t leg it. Not this time.

Instead, I start hangin’ back after class, actin’ like I need help with my notes — even though I don’t. I tell the lads I’ve got gym or some physio bollocks, but really, I’m just walkin’ her home. Shoulder to shoulder. Hands brushin’. Nothin’ big.

Except it is big.

She stops at the gate to her estate, looks up at me with that half-smile like she already knows the state I’m in. “Y’know you don’t have to make up reasons to hang out with me, right?”

I grin, scratchin’ the back of my neck like a total eejit. “Yeah, but doesn’t it make me sound mysterious?”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smilin’. And for a second, it feels like it’s just us.

No one else knows. Not yet. She reckons it’s easier this way — less drama, no questions. And maybe she’s right.

But sometimes, when she glances at me like she’s not guardin’ herself so hard, like maybe she’s just as wrecked over this as I am — I think: fuck it.

I’d take the hit. Every time.

Because for her? I wouldn’t even blink.