Keeping 13

Shannon sits with Joey in the bedroom and tries to comfort him, but he ignores her, lying in bed and staring at the wall. Edel knocks on the door, informing Shannon that Claire and Lizzie are there to see her. She hesitates, but then Aoife walks into the room. Before, Joey had insisted that he didn’t want her to see him going through withdrawal. However, Aoife goes up to him and cradles his head, and Joey moves for the first time in days as he hugs her around the abdomen.

Hesitating on the stairs, Shannon is not sure that she wants to go down and see everyone, confessing to Edel that she is “scared.” However, Edel tells her that she is “strong” and that she knows that Shannon can face it. When she gets downstairs, Shannon collapses into Claire and Lizzie’s arms as they comfort her.

Later that night, Johnny goes to bed and is surprised to find Shannon there for the first time since her parents’ deaths. The two talk about what happened the night of the fire, with Johnny breaking down in tears as he tells her about Marie’s final moments. Despite telling her how guilty he feels, Shannon insists that he has saved her life “many times.”

The next morning, Johnny passes all his medical tests at the Academy. As he sits in the locker room waiting for the practice session, he remembers Shannon’s words of encouragement. He looks at his phone and sees a message from her, telling him that she is proud of him and that he is going to “shine.”

On the day of her parents’ funeral, Shannon sits in the front with her siblings. She notes how little of her mother’s family is there but sees all her friends. She watches as Mr. and Mrs. Kavanagh comfort her family and realizes there may be “hope” for them to recover.

When it comes time to remove the caskets from the church, her family turns away as Teddy is taken out. Joey and Darren realize that they don’t have enough people to carry their mother, so they ask Johnny, Gibsie, and Darren’s husband Alex to help them.

During the burial, Shannon watches, leaning into Johnny for comfort, as Joey and Darren lower her mother into the grave. Joey stays behind and is joined by Aoife. He scolds her for coming, but she insists that she is sticking by him—even while he’s in rehabilitation.

Afterward, Shannon walks back with her friends. Johnny tells her how incredibly proud of her she is for being so strong the last few days, even as she admits that she feels like she is “drowning.”

After the funeral, Shannon, Johnny, and their friends sit out back on the lawn, watching Tadhg and Ollie play in the tree house. Gibsie accidentally tells the group that Johnny got called up for both the U20 and Senior National Rugby teams. As everyone congratulates him, Johnny looks at Shannon, who begins to cry. He starts to tell her that he doesn’t have to go, but she assures him that she is crying out of happiness.

A few days before Johnny goes to France with the U20 teams, Johnny sneaks into Shannon’s room. The two talk, and Shannon brings up the first time they tried having sex. She tells Johnny that she “needs” to be that close to him, and Johnny agrees. The two then have sex, as Johnny repeatedly checks to make sure Shannon is okay throughout.

The morning of Johnny’s birthday, Gibsie wakes Johnny up. Panicked, Johnny can’t find Shannon, then realizes she is hiding in the bathroom. Ollie comes into the room—on the lookout for Edel to stop Johnny and Shannon from sleeping together. When he finds Shannon, Johnny offers him 100€ to keep it a secret, and he gleefully accepts.

Johnny and Shannon go with their friends on a camping trip for Johnny’s birthday. Shannon gives Johnny his birthday present: a scrapbook she made of all the big moments in his rugby career. Johnny loves it, shocked that she was able to collect everything, and Shannon admits that Edel has saved everything ever written about Johnny.

Later that night, they sit around the campfire and drink. When Shannon hears Johnny starting to slur and smells the alcohol, she connects it with her memory of her father and shuts down. She can hear him inside her head and see his face. However, Johnny coaxes her out of her anxious state, promising her that he will never be like her father, and she will never be like her mother. Shannon decides to drink with him, and the two wake up hungover the next morning.

At the airport, Shannon’s family says goodbye to Johnny. Gibsie is hysterical, crying, but Shannon reminds him that Johnny won’t be gone that long. As she says goodbye, she tells Johnny to “kick ass,” reminding him that she is “keeping 13” (593).

Shannon goes to the bar to watch Johnny’s last match on television. She is shocked by the number of people there, all cheering Johnny on. He ends up scoring the winning points for Ireland.

However, the celebration is interrupted when Bella comes into the bar with Cormac. Bella immediately starts insulting Shannon, but Shannon no longer fears Bella—after everything she has been through, no one has the “power” to hurt her anymore. Instead of fighting with Bella, she simply tells her that she forgives her for what she’s done, then goes back to watching the TV.

Johnny is named Man of the Match. When he is interviewed, he thanks his family and school, then specifically names Hughie, Feely, Gibsie, and Shannon, with his words that he’ll “be home soon” echoing in Shannon’s mind (608).

After the match, Johnny goes back to the hotel and is overwhelmed by all the fans and people yelling for him. He does his best to sign autographs and take photos, then breaks away, exhausted, to see his father.

Later, he sits with his dad in a restaurant and gets filled in on everything happening at home. His dad reveals that Sean is talking more, Shannon is seeing a therapist, and his mother is buying her all sorts of clothing and makeup.

Johnny tells his dad that he got offered a two-year contract to play with the National Team. Even though it would be in Dublin and the money is more than he could have expected, he isn’t sure that he wants to do it. He tells his father that he wants more time to be a teenager, and his father assures him that there is nothing wrong with that.

Gibsie picks Johnny up and takes him to the beach to see all their friends. Johnny is shocked by how much Shannon’s body has changed, and Gibsie comments that she has been finally eating right and not vomiting from anxiety.

Johnny’s friends greet him and congratulate him on how well he played. Shannon pulls him aside and the two walk down the beach. They end up making love in an alcove, then talk afterward about Johnny’s future. He tells Shannon about the contract. Shannon is adamant that he should do it, especially if she is the only reason he wouldn’t. Johnny remains uncertain.

“Shannon”

Johnny wants to take Shannon out to dinner alone, but she insists that they have their whole lives to be alone together. Instead, they meet all their friends at a restaurant. Seeing them all together, Shannon feels “more content than [she] had in weeks” (626).

Shannon, Johnny, Claire, and Gibsie go to a music festival for two days. Shannon watches as Gibsie and Johnny drink, dance, and sing along to every song. She sits on Johnny’s shoulders while Claire sits on Gibsie’s, and she notices the way that Claire and Gibsie are becoming closer. As she lies in her tent and watches Johnny sleep, she thinks how much she is going to miss him when he leaves again.

The second night at the festival, Johnny tells Shannon that he has made a decision about the contract. He tells her that he chose “what’s right for [him],” and reassures Shannon that no matter what, it won’t “break” them because nothing can (635). He tells her that one day he will marry her, and they will start their own family.

On the first day of September, Shannon goes to Tommen for the first day of school. She meets Lizzie and Claire, and they see Tadhg walking down the hall. Then they are joined by Johnny, who reveals his decision to stay at Tommen and turn down the contract.

As they make their way down the hall, they discuss how eventful the year is going to be. Shannon spots her brother, Joey, who got out of rehabilitation last week, standing in his Tommen uniform. As other girls around them make comments about Joey, Gibsie remarks, “[L]et the madness begin” (641).