Binding 13

Shannon arrives at school early. Seeing Tommen College for the first time, she is impressed by its size, particularly the large common rooms for her year, where she even has access to a small kitchen. She is greeted by her two friends from primary school, Claire and Lizzie, who came to Tommen a few years before. Shannon expects to be bullied, but instead, the students largely ignore her, and she even makes friends with people Claire and Lizzie know.

In the afternoon, she leaves her phone in the bathroom in a different building. She runs back for it through the heavy rain and is relieved when she finds it. However, as she walks back across the rugby fields, the boys playing on the field yell at her. As she tries to hurry off the field, she is struck in the back of the head by a ball.

Johnny is the school’s star rugby player. He plays on several club teams and the U18 national team and he aspires to play professionally. He gets angry and frustrated at the school’s team because most of the players are not very good. He notes how he allows rugby to rule his life—training, going to the gym, eating healthy, and avoiding alcohol and girls—while the rest of the team does not share his dedication.

Out of anger, he kicks a ball and is sent off the field by the coach. Realizing that he has allowed his anger to get the best of him, he begins to apologize, then sees that the ball hit Shannon in the head.

He rushes to Shannon’s side and finds her dazed, struggling to stay on her feet. She is concerned about how her dad will react to her ruining her clothing, as Johnny gives her his jersey to cover her ripped skirt.

As Johnny walks her to get checked out by the school’s first respondent, he repeatedly apologizes. To his surprise, Shannon asks him why he would hit her with the ball, thinking that he did it on purpose. He assures her it was an accident, as she makes him promise that he would never do something like that to her intentionally.

Johnny ends up with Shannon outside the principal’s office. Dazed from her injury, she rests her head in his lap, and though this makes him uncomfortable, he is also struck by her beauty. Eventually, Shannon recovers enough to talk with him. He is devastated to learn that she is only 15, while he is 17.

Shannon’s mother shows up and angrily yells at Johnny, assuming that he did this to her intentionally. When Shannon defends him, her mother is still unsure since Shannon has lied about her bullying in the past. Johnny offers to buy Shannon new clothes, which makes her mother even angrier thinking Johnny assumes they are poor.

Johnny goes to the locker room where his teammates are changing after practice. He tries to stop himself from thinking about Shannon, believing that girls are just a “complication” that might interfere with his rugby training. He typically sleeps with older women to avoid the “drama” of girls at his school. The latest of these is Bella, a 19-year-old he has been with for months.

Johnny speaks with his best friend, Gerard “Gibsie” Gibson, who also plays on the team. He asks if the team is talking about seeing Shannon when her skirt came off, and Gibsie tells him that the team is interested in her.

Angry, Johnny tells his entire team that they cannot tell anyone about the incident with Shannon on the field. One kid initially argues, but Johnny points out that they would all be embarrassed if it had happened to one of their sisters and would not want the incident repeated. They agree not to tell anyone about it.

Johnny then tells them that they have to leave Shannon alone. However, one player, Ronan McGarry, argues. He tells Johnny that Shannon is his age and if he wants Shannon, he will have her.

Annoyed at Ronan—who constantly argues with Johnny and calls him “entitled” because of his rugby stardom—Johnny sends him out of the locker room, and Johnny’s team backs him up. However, as Ronan continues to talk about Shannon, Johnny slams him up against the wall and chokes him, forcing Ronan to agree not to pursue Shannon.

Johnny showers as his team leaves. When he returns to the locker room, he looks over his recent injury. He has scarring on his thigh and pain throughout his groin. Since his surgery, he has been unable to ejaculate, having suffered extreme pain the first time he tried to masturbate two weeks before.

He receives several texts from Bella asking him to hang out. She accuses him of lying about his injury and says he has a “useless dick.” He angrily responds that she can do whatever she wants and shuts off his phone.

Johnny tries to get Shannon’s file from the school secretary, Dee. Describing her as a “cougar,” he attempts to flirt with Dee but fails. Instead, he takes an envelope and puts money inside, dropping it in Shannon’s locker.

After class, Gibsie comes to Johnny’s car and shows Johnny that he got Shannon’s file. He tells Johnny that he knew he would be “obsessing” over Shannon and he wanted to help. He also implies that he allowed Dee to perform oral sex on him to get the file.

Johnny reads through Shannon’s file and sees pages and pages of incident reports from her old school. He blames the school, Shannon’s parents, and even Shannon’s brother for not intervening to stop the bullying. He vows to protect Shannon and never let anything like this happen at Tommen.