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I didn’t know.

I only knew that Icouldn’tbreathe. The scariest thing was that I didn’t care. I wasn’t panicking. I wasn’t scared.

I was just…done.

“Shan,” Joey repeated, voice rising as fear enveloped his features. “Shannon, please.” Crouching down in front of me, he placed both hands on my shoulders and gently shook me. “Jesus Christ, Shannon, talk to me!”

I tried, but nothing came out.

Coughing, I began to gag against the foreign metallic taste as blood spilled out of my mouth in a thick, oozy gush.

My head lolled to one side, brought back to an upright position when Joey held my face in his hands. “Aoife, give me your keys,” he choked out, green eyes glued to mine. Releasing my face, he moved out of sight. “I’ll take her myself.”

“Joey, don’t move her. She could have internal—”

“Give me the fucking keys, baby!”

Without the strength of his hands holding me up, I automatically slumped forward, only to sag heavily against my mother.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around me, fingers moving through my hair. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

I wished I could hold my own weight and not lean on my mother. I didn’t want her touch but I had nothing left inside of me.

The last thing I remembered before darkness enveloped me was my brother’s touch as he folded me in his arms, followed by the sound of his voice as he whispered the words “Don’t leave me” in my ear.

2

Balls High

Johnny

No rugby for at least six weeks.

Father.

Bed rest for seven to ten days.

Father.

Your feet won’t be touching grass until May.

Father.

Torn adductor, adhesions, and athletic pubalgia.

Father.

Rehabilitation.

“Fuck!” Fisting the blankets around my body, I threw my head back and stifled a roar, knowing that if I had another outburst I was going to get bleeding sedated again. I was on thin ice with the nurses stationed down the corridor from my room. Getting out of bed to take a piss and collapsing on the floor beside my bed had rendered me blacklisted. I’d been given a huge bollocking for not asking for help, reminded I had a catheter in place, and then given another shot of whatever the hell it was they kept flushing into my IV. They told me it was for pain, but I was suspicious. I was high as a kite. Nobody needed that volume of drugs in their system. Not even me, the eejit with the self-proclaimed broken dick. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

Blinking away the blurriness, I tried to focus on the wall opposite my bed with the television mounted to it, and Pat Kenny hostingThe Late Late Show, but it was no use. I kept zoning out, my thoughts leading me back to that one word that had been haunting me, playing around in my brain like a broken record.

Father.

Father.

Father.

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