Keeping 13

Against his father's⁸ orders, Johnny² slips into Shannon's¹ hospital room on crutches and sees her bruised face for the first time — almost unrecognizable. Guilt drowns him. He drove her home to that house, kissed her and got them caught, gave her father¹⁰ a reason.

Shannon,¹ stripped of defenses, shows him everything: bruises on her arms, legs, neck, and thighs, the bandage from the chest tube that saved her collapsed lung. He asks if her father ever touched her sexually. She says no. He promises he's not leaving.

When her mother⁹ arrives and orders him out, blaming Johnny² for the injuries, he tells Mrs. Lynch⁹ he'll be back and kisses Shannon's¹ forehead in front of everyone. Outside, he tells his skeptical parents he was right all along. His father⁸ finally believes him and drives to the Garda station.

Days without contact drive Johnny² to Shannon's¹ door with Gibsie⁴ and Claire.⁵ Darren⁶ tries to block entry. Johnny² plants his crutch in the doorway and declares he isn't leaving until Shannon¹ decides for herself. She slips under Darren's⁶ arm and throws herself into Johnny's² arms — the first time she has openly defied her family for him.

Before they can leave, a car screeches up and dumps Joey³ on the road, slurring and stoned, his wallet and phone traded for drugs. Shannon¹ recognizes the dealer's car. Gibsie⁴ lifts Joey³ off the tarmac and loads him into his Focus. At the Kavanagh house, Johnny² and Gibsie⁴ shower Joey³ clean of vomit while Shannon¹ waits downstairs, her family's ugliest secrets now exposed to the boy she loves.

With Johnny's² parents in Dublin and the house empty, Shannon¹ stays the night. They spend hours on the couch talking — she about the dread she's carried since birth, he about how she calmed something restless inside him that rugby never could.

When Shannon¹ asks why he likes her, bracing for pity, Johnny² tells her he loves her — not drunkenly like in the hospital, but present tense, clear-headed, and terrified. She gives his words back to him: a crazy fucking amount.

They kiss until three in the morning, fully clothed and grinding, whispering promises neither fully understands how to keep. When exhaustion takes them, Johnny² wraps himself around her on the narrow couch. Shannon¹ asks him to keep her. He says he already is. For the first time in her life, she falls asleep without fear.

Johnny's mother⁷ discovers Shannon¹ sleeping over and, remarkably, makes them breakfast. But when she drives them back to Elk Terrace, Marie Lynch⁹ is waiting in the garden, unraveling. She accuses Johnny² of statutory rape and declares Shannon's¹ injuries are his fault for not staying away.

Mrs. Kavanagh⁷ detonates. Johnny² physically restrains his mother⁷ from attacking Marie⁹ as the neighbors watch. Shannon¹ screams that she loves Johnny² in front of her entire family — brothers, mother, Darren,⁶ everyone.

Joey³ leans against the garden wall, arms crossed, unmoved by the chaos, later telling Darren⁶ that fighting this relationship is futile. In the aftermath, Shannon's mother⁹ compares Johnny² to their father¹⁰ — a charming sportsman who destroyed her. Shannon¹ delivers an ultimatum: drive him away, and she will never forgive her.

The police locate Teddy Lynch¹⁰ not in hiding but checked into Brickley House, a rehabilitation facility — admitted the day after Shannon's¹ hospitalization. His voluntary treatment demonstrates remorse to the court, earning bail on condition he completes thirty days and attends trial in November.

He writes apology letters to each child. Shannon¹ refuses to open hers. When Johnny² reads it aloud — words of regret and hope for family reunification — she asks him to burn it. He torches it with a lighter and lets the wind take the ashes.

Joey³ had predicted this outcome with devastating accuracy: their father would emerge sober, the court would praise his rehabilitation, and nothing would change. Shannon¹ lies awake counting down the days, knowing in her bones that her mother⁹ will eventually take him back.

On the first day back after Easter, Shannon¹ hides in the PE hall all morning, terrified of whispers about her father. Johnny² finds her in the corridor. When she tries to walk away, convinced his parents have turned him against her, he stops her: ask him what he wants. He wants her. They kiss in the hallway as the bell rings.

He slips a pink phone into her shirt pocket — loaded with music, credit, and the contacts she needs. At lunch, he announces to the entire rugby table that Shannon¹ is his girlfriend and anyone who touches her answers to him. She takes the empty seat beside him, a stray gazelle who's been claimed by the pride's dominant lion. For the first time at Tommen, Shannon¹ feels like she belongs somewhere.

Seven weeks after surgery, Johnny's² doctors sign him off for light training. He throws himself into rehabilitation with obsessive precision — five-in-the-morning gym sessions, hydrotherapy pools, gradual return to pitch drills.

Shannon¹ sits in the stands at every session she can attend, clapping when he catches a ball, covering her eyes when tackles connect. His body responds faster than expected; the forced rest actually healed chronic issues that had plagued him for months. But the coaches at The Academy don't fully trust him — he played injured before and lied about it.

With forty-six days until the international summer campaign, every session matters. Shannon¹ tells him he'll make it with a certainty he can't match. Her belief steadies him when his own wavers, and slowly, session by session, the number thirteen reclaims the pitch.

Shannon¹ spots her father¹⁰ in a car at the shopping center with another woman's head in his lap. She vomits on the sidewalk from sheer panic. Johnny² walks straight to the car, slams his palm on the windscreen, and drags Teddy Lynch¹⁰ out.

Standing nose to nose with the man who nearly killed Shannon,¹ he delivers three punches to the face and a promise: one more bruise on her, and he'll finish what he started. Teddy¹⁰ sneers that Shannon¹ is no daughter of his. Johnny² hits him one final time and walks away trembling to wrap his arm around his girlfriend.

That night at the Kavanagh house, Shannon¹ curls against his chest and confesses that during the beating, she survived by conjuring his face in her mind. His voice was her safe place when her body was failing.

Johnny's vindictive ex-girlfriend Bella¹⁸ corners Shannon¹ in the school bathroom with two friends. They hold her down, smear tuna across her uniform, and scrawl insults on her face in lipstick before photographing their work.

Shannon¹ calls Joey,³ who storms the school in his BCS uniform and punches Bella's¹⁸ boyfriend Cormac. Joey's girlfriend Aoife¹⁵ tackles Bella.¹⁸ Johnny's father⁸ arrives and threatens the school with legal action for negligence, offering his services pro bono to the Lynch family. The board expels Bella.¹⁸

But Joey's³ lengthy disciplinary record at his own school triggers his permanent expulsion from BCS — he cannot sit his Leaving Cert. Mr. Kavanagh⁸ clears the criminal charges, but the damage compounds: Joey³ has lost his education, his hurling team, and another piece of his crumbling foundation.

After learning of his father's¹⁰ impending release and his own expulsion, Joey³ arrives home high. His mother⁹ slaps him across the face. He erupts, screaming that she broke his mind worse than their father¹⁰ broke his body — that the sound of her crying and begging him to save her plays on an endless loop in his skull.

He packs a bag. Aoife¹⁵ parks outside and begs him not to leave, clinging to his waist. Joey³ tells her to forget about him, that loving him is poison for her. She collapses on the ground screaming his name as he walks into the dark.

Shannon¹ watches from the garden, frozen, as the one person who never failed her vanishes. Darren⁶ drives off searching. The house is quiet for the first time in Shannon's¹ memory, and the silence is worse than any scream.

Shannon¹ calls Johnny² at one in the morning — her father¹⁰ is in the kitchen with her mother,⁹ doors locked, speaking in an eerily calm voice. Johnny² drives thirty minutes through darkness. Shannon¹ drops from her window into his arms. He sends her to the car and climbs back in through the window.

The staircase is slippery with liquid — alcohol and petrol, though he doesn't understand why. He finds three-year-old Sean¹⁴ soaked in whiskey, barely verbal. He creeps past the kitchen with all three boys clinging to his body. At the front door, Marie Lynch's⁹ eyes meet his across the hallway.

She mouths two words: save them. Then she closes the kitchen door between herself and her children for the last time. Johnny² carries them to his car and drives away. Minutes later, the house ignites. Both parents are pulled from the flames, dead.

The funeral falls on a bright May morning. When Darren⁶ and Joey³ realize they need six pallbearers, Darren⁶ asks Johnny.² Gibsie⁴ volunteers without hesitation. Patrick Feely¹⁷ plays guitar and sings as the coffin descends. Joey³ stares into the grave and tells his younger brothers their mother is an angel now with big, beautiful wings.

Then he is escorted to a residential treatment facility for his addictions — a ninety-day program he signed up for himself. The Kavanaghs reveal they applied for foster care approval back in March, the morning after Johnny² first brought Shannon's¹ brothers to their house uninvited.

Mrs. Kavanagh⁷ tells Johnny² she wants all five Lynch children — broken, bent, or out of shape. Johnny² gives his blessing without hesitation. For the first time, the Lynch children have a home that isn't held together by fear.

The Academy coaches travel to Cork to evaluate Johnny,² joined by senior team management who are short on centers for the summer tour. He passes every medical and plays brilliantly. He's selected for the Under-20s squad and as a reserve for the senior team.

He leaves Ireland in June, saying goodbye to Shannon,¹ Gibsie,⁴ his parents, and the Lynch boys — Sean¹⁴ clings to him repeating his name. On tour, Johnny² struggles with homesickness and doubt, writing long letters about feeling like a boy among men.

In the final match against Fiji, starting for the senior team for the first time at eighteen, he scores the winning try in the final minutes. Named Man of the Match, he looks into the television camera and tells Shannon¹ he loves her. In a packed bar in Ballylaggin, she watches through streaming tears.

Johnny² returns from tour to find Shannon¹ tanned, healthy, and transformed by months of proper nutrition and safety — her body filling out in ways that leave him speechless. But the shadow of a two-year professional contract in Dublin hangs over them. Shannon¹ tells him to sign.

His father⁸ advises patience. At the Oxegen music festival, Johnny² watches Shannon¹ laugh on his shoulders during a Jimmy Eat World set — the band whose song carried her through her darkest moments — and realizes what he needs. Not what coaches demand or contracts promise.

He needs one more year of treehouse-building and camping trips and late-night drives to the beach with the people he loves. He defers the signing, choosing Tommen, choosing his friends, choosing her — for now. The contract will wait. His youth will not.

September arrives and Shannon¹ enters fifth year, having skipped transition year alongside Claire⁵ and Lizzie.¹¹ Tadhg¹² starts as a combative first-year, immediately provoking Gibsie⁴ by flirting with Claire.⁵ The Kavanagh household hums with organized chaos — four Lynch children, three dogs, and one overprotective mother⁷ monitoring bedroom doors.

Then Joey³ appears in the school entrance wearing a Tommen uniform for the first time: thinner, darker, more haunted, but with his green eyes sharp and focused. He completed treatment and enrolled for his Leaving Cert year.

Shannon¹ stares across the hallway, hardly believing he came back. Gibsie⁴ declares this year will be eventful. Johnny² wraps his arm around Shannon¹ as she leans into his side, knowing the road ahead remains uncertain but understanding, finally, that she isn't walking it alone.