Needing 13 - Johnny Kavanagh

BATHROOMS AND A CAN OF SARDINES

OCTOBER 20TH 2001

TARA

"Shannon, is that you?"

I wasn't really supposed to be in this bathroom. There was one much closer to my class, but I knew this was the bathroom my little sister would hide in if that whore Ciara Maloney and Hannah Daley messed with her.

"Shan?" I insisted again, approaching the only closed cubicle. "Can I open the door?"

"Go away," she whimpered. "Leave me alone."

No can do, baby sis.

Shannon was my baby sister. If someone had hurt her, they were going to deal with me. Maybe Casey, Erin, and Aoife too. My best friends considered my younger siblings as their own, which was perfect because whenever Joey and I got into fights to defend Shan, they provided us with a solid alibi if there weren't other witnesses nearby.

"Shannon, I will crawl if necessary on this fucking pissed floor if you don't open the door for me. Then I will be forced to give you a hug with my uniform all wet, and you wouldn't want that for your favorite sister, would you?"

I heard a sniffle from behind the door, and after a moment of silence, the lock clicked. The door opened a crack, and I gently pushed it the rest of the way. Shannon stood there, her eyes red and puffy from crying, her small frame trembling.

Dead.

They were so fucking dead.

I was going to kill them.

Ciara Maloney and her little minion weren't going to make it to secondary school if they kept picking on my sister. I shuddered to think about the kind of hormonal and devilish girls my Shannon would face when she actually reached secondary school.

Shannon had always worried Joey and me. She was sensitive, shy, and hated getting into conflicts. My sister was not weak. In fact, she was the complete opposite. She was the strongest person I knew. Joey used to say that our sister was like fucking titanium, and he was right.

She was a better person than me because the moment those two bitches were within slapping distance, I would slap them so fucking hard their children would be born with my fucking handprint on their faces.

Shannon wanted to confront her bullies. I knew she longed to yell at them, to tell them exactly what she thought of them. Maybe, with a little encouragement, she could even slap them. Shannon looked like she could be a mean slapper. It was in her blood. Da, Joey, and I were more into punching, but Shannon? My sister, given the right motivation and a little bad influence from yours truly, would slap whoever she damn well pleased.

And God knows that the day that happened, I'd definitely throw a huge fucking party. But for the time being, Joey and I would protect her. My sister had a heart of gold and was one of the few people who reminded me there were still genuinely good people in this world.

I stepped into the cubicle and hugged Shannon tightly. "Hey, it's okay. I'm here now," I whispered, feeling her tremble in my arms. "What did they do?"

"They called me names," she mumbled into my shoulder. "Said horrible things."

Rage surged through me, a hot, blinding fury. Those girls had no idea what they were in for. Shannon might be titanium, but I was a fucking sledgehammer.

"That's it," I snapped, my frustration boiling over at seeing my sister constantly bullied. "I'm going to fucking kill them." With determined strides, I grabbed Shannon's backpack off the floor and stormed towards the door, heading straight for the classroom of those heartless girls who had made my sister's life a relentless nightmare.