“Sit down,” I tell Molly, gently guiding her back to the bench. “Take a breather. You’ll go back in when you can see straight.”
The medic comes over, and I don’t know what to do. I should be back on the pitch organizing the wall, but I can’t leave her yet. So I just sit down on the grass next to her while the medic checks her over. She answers the questions clinically—“It’s bruised.” “No, I’m not dizzy.” “I know my name. It’s Molly. It’s 2007. We’re in Ireland.”
The sub—Madden—doesn’t get the point, and there’s a collective groan from our side. That poor lad isn’t going to hear the end of that for weeks.
“You okay?” I ask Molly, who looks miserable to be sitting. She nods.
I jog back onto the pitch, but the game is sluggish after that. When the whistle blows for halftime, the score is still 0–0. Almost all our goals are blocked by their monster of a goalkeeper, and on our side, Liam never looks so bored in his life. The ball barely ever comes his way.
We all trudge into the locker room. The adrenaline is fading, replaced by the ache of bruises and the cold damp of our kits. Molly follows us, sitting in the corner and looking like she feels out of place.
Coach O’Shea walks into the center of the room. “Right! Listen in!”
We all look up.
“Nil-nil isn't good enough,” O’Shea says, pacing back and forth. His voice echoes off the tiles. “They’re down to ten men mentally—Burke is on a yellow, he’s scared to tackle. They’re a disgrace to the sport. But we’re not winning yet. Why?”
“We’re forcing it through the middle,” JJ pipes up, wiping mud off his forehead.
“Exactly!” O’Shea points at him. “They’re clogging the center. They’re parking the bus. We need width. Niall, Molly—I want you spraying those balls out to the wings. Use the space. 15, 7, 9, keep them on their toes, crowd them in and distract them. Everyone else, fall in line. Make them run. Make them chase the game. Tire them out, then kill them with speed. Can we do that?”
“YES COACH!”
“Good. Get some water. Two minutes. Fourteen, you fit?”
Molly stands up from her place on the bench. She winces slightly, but masks it quickly. “I’m fit.”
“Good lass. Get out there.”
I stand up, testing my knee again. It’s stiffening up. The halftime break is always the worst part for the joint; it likes to be moving. I flex it, wincing internally at the grind of bone on cartilage.
Forty-five minutes. Just hold it together for forty-five minutes.
??` ?? ?´?
THE SECOND HALFbegins. We spread them thin, until Ballymore is gasping. They’re heavy men, and the constant running is draining them. Without Burke’s bullying—he’s terrified of a second yellow—they’re ghosts.
80 minutes. Still 0-0.
I receive a ball from Fitzy. I don’t even have to look. I know exactly where she’s at. I ping a cross-field ball, forty yards, perfectly weighted. It soars over JJ’s head and drops right into Molly’s path. She lets it hit her thigh to kill the spin, then volleys it before it touches the grass.
The keeper dives, but he’s reaching for air. The ball nestles into the bottom corner—shhhhk.
The stadium explodes. Molly stands there for a second, stunned, before her face breaks into a look of pure, radiant joy.
I don’t care about my knee. I don’t care about being cool or how it might look. I sprint forty yards and scoop her up, lifting her right off her feet. She grabs my shoulders, laughing—a bright, breathless sound that I revel in—as I spin her around.
“You beauty!” I yell. “What a strike!”
“What a pass!” she screams back, her eyes shining into mine. “We make a good team.”
“Don’t we?”
The rest of the team piles on—a mass of blue-and-white limbs—celebrating the first score of the game and first score of the season. And it’s hers. I feel an overwhelming sense ofpride. Anyone who doubts her before surely has to be rethinking themselves now.
As I watch her jog back to the center circle, adjusting her jersey and wiping the mud from her face, I can’t take my eyes off her. Every nerve ending is lit up like a Christmas tree.
She glances at me, catching my eye—and catching me staring. She’s already flushed, so maybe she doesn’t really blush, but my stomach turns around in knots as she looks away again.
