SKYFALL, Johnny Kavanagh

Goodbye

Johnny's Point of View

Everything hurt.

My balls.
My legs.
My dick.
My head.

I felt like someone had put me through a meat grinder and then parked a bus on top of me.
Twice.

There was pressure in my chest – heavy, hollow – and something smelled like tea.
For a second, I thought I'd died and gone to the weirdest afterlife imaginable.

And then I remembered.

The match.
The try.
The sound of people shouting my name.
The pain.
And then—

Nothing.

It was over.

All of it.

All the years of brutal, early-morning sessions, pushing past pain, swallowing it down like it didn't matter – gone.
Just like that.
Because my body had finally tapped out.

I felt like I'd been stripped of something permanent.
Something sacred.

Jerking awake, my eyes snapped open, panic setting in hard and fast, pressing down on my chest until I could barely breathe.

My throat was dry.
My vision swam.
But even in the dim room, I could make out the shape curled against my side.
A soft mop of dark hair.
A familiar silhouette.

"Maeve?" My voice cracked. I coughed once, twice. "Maeve."

She stirred against me, sleepy and warm and totally unaware that the bottom had just dropped out of my world.

"Hm?" She murmured, lifting her head slowly. "You're awake."

I blinked at her, my heart pounding against my ribs. "You're here?"

She smiled, soft and tired. "Course I am. You asked me to stay."

"I did?"

Maeve gave a sheepish shrug. "You were very high."

I stared at her like she was a ghost.
Like maybe my brain was still addled and I was hallucinating the one person I couldn't afford to show this side of myself to.

"How long?" I rasped, licking my cracked lips.

She frowned. "How long what?"

"How long have I been out?"

She glanced at the wall clock. "It's 11:45, so nearly six hours."

I shook my head.
That wasn't what I meant.
The real panic crawled up my spine like something with claws.

"No – how long am I out?"

Her brows pulled together. "What?"

"How long am I out on injury?" My voice cracked and broke, raw with everything I'd been trying not to feel. "How long until I can play again?"

"Johnny..." She whispered.

"I need to know." I said. "I need to know."

She didn't answer.
Just stared at me with those wide, too-honest eyes full of something I didn't want to see.

Sympathy.
Pity.

I couldn't cope with that.

"Can you pass me that?" I said, pointing to the clipboard at the foot of my bed. "The chart. I need to see it."

She hesitated. "Maybe you should wait for a doctor."

"I need to see it." My voice was shaking now, but I didn't care. "I need to see for myself."

She flinched.
Just slightly.

I whispered, dropping my head back against the pillow. "Please. I just... I need to know."

Wordlessly, she passed me the clipboard.

I flipped it over with trembling hands, eyes scanning the page even though the letters kept blurring.

A full-body tremor ran through me.

"Can you get my Da?" I said quietly.

Maeve blinked. "Your Da?"

I nodded stiffly. "Just him. Please."

Her hands twisted in her lap. "What about your Ma?"

"No." My voice cracked. "Just Da."

She stood up slowly.
I could see the hesitation all over her.

"If that's what you want." She said softly.

I nodded, biting down hard on the emotion rising in my throat. "It is."

She paused near the door. "I—I can stay, if you need me to."

"I don't." I lied. "Just go."

Maeve's face crumpled like I'd smacked her. "Okay."

She turned away.

She was halfway out the door when she looked back.

"Goodbye, Johnny."

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

I stared at the ceiling.
Clenched my jaw so hard I thought it might crack.

"Goodbye, Maeve." I said.

And then she was gone.

The room was too bright and too quiet and too small.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to punch something.
I wanted her back beside me—but not like this.
Not when I was nothing.

Because right now, I wasn't Johnny Kavanagh the player.
I was just a broken boy in a hospital bed.

And I couldn't let her see me like that.
Not when she deserved better.

Not when I was afraid of losing the only thing that had ever made me feel like I was worth something outside a try line.