Good Girls Don't Read online

  Contemplating it gets me angry and stresses me out, though, so I don’t. It’s their problem, really. Besides, there are people who really don’t care. They just aren’t the more vocal ones.

  The teacher is talking. We are supposed to be listening. Sarah and I are actually counting down the days to the summer holidays in our homework journals and sighing happily at the thought that it’s only a matter of weeks until Fifth Year’s over. I don’t know what I’m going to do over the summer. Work, maybe. Sleep. Watch DVDs and go to the cinema a lot. Dream about Abi and other attractive people. Do a lot of hanging out and spend the three months not really doing anything, but loving it anyway. The most perfect thing about summer is being surrounded by your friends and not having any responsibilities hanging over you. The days are long and warm and gentle and it feels like anything’s possible.

  It’s still summery outside. I look out the window longingly and am told promptly to pay attention. The teacher dislikes me because I don’t give her the respect she deserves, apparently. I hate that attitude that teachers have. Respect isn’t something that you’re owed automatically just because you’re a teacher. It has to be earned.

  The bell goes, and I sigh when I realise that it’s only the end of the first class of the day. The days are really dragging by. They always do at this time of the year, just when you want them to speed up.

  Sarah and I discuss this phenomenon on the way to our Irish class, coming to the conclusion that the school has been cursed, so that summer always seems impossibly far away to us.

  While we’re waiting for the teacher to get there, she turns to me and says, “Emily?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Has Abi ever talked to you about . . . I don’t know, anything that seemed kind of weird?” she asks.

  I frown. “Like what?”

  Sarah looks worried. “Like maybe wanting to kill herself?”

  “She’s not suicidal,” I say. At least, I don’t think she is.

  “Are you sure?” she says. “I’ve been reading this stuff she’s written, and it seems really dark. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m worried. She never talks about what she’s feeling.”

  “Well, she doesn’t talk to me, either,” I tell her.

  “Really? I thought she might have. You’ve been getting kind of close lately.”

  I grin. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  She laughs. “I was trying to be subtle, okay? But seriously . . . I worry about her sometimes.”

  I nod. I think I do too.

  Chapter Six

  She was crying because she’d just broken up with her boyfriend. She was rubbing her eyes and tear-stained cheeks and she still looked beautiful, and I took her in my arms and tried to comfort her, and the second I felt her body against mine I knew that I was seriously falling for her.

  ***

  That was the night Hugh and I broke up. That was the night Abi stayed over at my house and I kissed her and then felt horribly guilty about it, because it made us both feel awkward. It didn’t last, though. She didn’t react the way some people would have, disgusted and revolted.

  The second kiss was at my party. We were drunk. It happened. Or rather, she made it happen, and I got annoyed with her for doing it just for the shock value. It reminded me of something Declan would do, but she’s nothing like Declan, not really. Declan is all “Look at me! Look at me! Feel my pain!” and she’s quiet and enigmatic. He demands attention, and she (usually, at least) shies away from it.

  And Declan isn’t that bad, really. I’ve stayed friends with him for the last couple of years, after all. It’s just that sometimes he frustrates me. When he first started talking to me about how depressed he was, I told him to talk to someone who could help him, like a therapist. He said he didn’t need to. I said that if he was depressed then he should, and then he got annoyed with me and didn’t speak to me for a week. This happens again and again, every couple of months. I can’t count the number of times I’ve soothed him out of doing something drastic, and sometimes I wonder why I bother. Am I making any difference? He’s just going to go through this again and again. Maybe I should just ignore him and see what happens, if he’d really go through with it. When it comes down to it, it’s not up to me to fix his life for him. It’s up to him.

  But of course I’ve never tried that out, because I’m not willing to risk it. He knows that, too. Suicide threats are the ultimate in emotional blackmail.

  I think about what Sarah said. I don’t think Abi wants to die. But what would I know? You can’t know a person after just a couple of weeks of semi-deep conversations, even if you’ve been in the same school for years. Maybe you never really know a person, especially one who doesn’t readily discuss what she thinks and feels.

  I really do seem to want to play the role of the saviour, don’t I?

  Chapter Seven

  Barry and I have a Wednesday night tradition. Wednesday is a day when neither of us gets too much homework, so I go over to his house or he comes over here, and we watch a movie. Sometimes some of the others come, too, but Lucy and Andrew are too busy being seriously stressed out about the Leaving Cert being dangerously soon, and Roisín has maths grinds (she is scarily studious sometimes, veering on almost Janet-like), and Hugh has been busy with the band and of course his darling Fiona, so lately it’s just been the two of us.

  It’s a good thing, because I see Roisín at school anyway, and I see everyone at the weekends, and sometimes it’s fun to have one-on-one talks with people. Besides, he likes the kind of movies I do, including Velvet Goldmine, which Lucy watched and said, “I’m confused. And there didn’t really seem to be a plot.” Whereas Barry understands the love I have for the glam rock era, and therefore the love for the movie (and the glitter and the naked Ewan McGregor), although thankfully he’s over his stage of dressing like they did back then. It was a happy moment for all, I think, although he does look great in make-up.

  “So what have you been up to, Miss Emily?” he asks me, as we settle down on my bed to watch Road Trip. (Ah, mindless entertainment!) It’s a very teenage-drama-series moment, the two of us lying on the bed together, with the duvet pulled up over us, only without the sexual tension.

  “Declan,” I say.

  “No, Emily, I’m Barry. Bar-ry.”

  “Oh, stop, you know what I meant.”

  “What has he done this time?”

  “Well, we sort of –”

  Barry looks at me. “What did you do?”

  “Slept together.”

  “You what?” He looks truly disgusted. I look at him carefully to see if he’s joking, but he seems to be serious. That was the last thing I expected.

  I can’t say anything.

  “Are you serious?” he continues.

  I nod.

  “Why?” he demands. “I mean, you don’t even like him half the time. He’s always manipulating you, and I can’t believe you’d – degrade yourself like that.”

  “Degrade myself?” I exclaim. “I did not – no, you know what? This is stupid. I don’t have to justify myself to you. I just thought I’d tell you, because you’re my friend, and we talk about this sort of stuff. I don’t need you looking down on me like this.”

  “I just don’t see why you’d do something like that, that’s all.”

  “Because I wanted to! Because it felt like the right thing at the time, that’s why.”

  “And you think that’s a good enough reason? You can’t just go through your whole life doing whatever you feel like, you know. I mean, do you care about anyone except yourself?” I’ve never seen him this angry. It scares me.

  “I do care,” I say softly. And I do.

  Maybe it’s the softness that snaps him out of it. “Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have – you’re right, it’s your choice, I was just being stupid.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, not meaning a word of it.

  He hugs me, awkwardly. I return the hug, and then we stare at the TV
screen. The tension is overwhelming.

  “You know – I actually do have a lot of work to do tonight, so maybe I should go,” he says.

  “Okay. I mean, if you have something to do – you should get it done,” I say.

  He hugs me again and leaves. I close the front door after my best friend and watch him walk away.

  Chapter Eight

  I don’t watch the rest of the movie. I consider calling Lucy, but I know she’s busy studying, and I don’t want to interrupt her. She’s stressed enough as it is. She wants to do law, so the pressure is on.

  Lucy is the epitome of the bad-girl-gone-good persona. When I first got to know her, when I was in Third Year and she was doing Transition Year, she didn’t give a damn about school. We used to skip class and get drunk and/or stoned at her house. As a direct result of this, I failed all my mocks. Since then, of course, she’s done a complete turnabout. From bad influence to shining star. My mum knows her mum, and she just loves telling me how much work Lucy is doing.

  “Of course she is, Mum, she’s in Sixth Year.”

  “But she was working last year, too. You should really be doing some study this year, to make it easier on yourself next year. That’s what Janet did.”

  “Janet can’t even cook for herself, Mum.”

  The conversation usually ends at that point.

  I can’t believe Barry freaked out like that. He’s never reacted like that to anything, ever. He’s usually so laid-back, with an attitude like mine – if no one gets hurt, then what’s the problem? And I can’t believe he had the nerve to try to make me feel as if Declan is beneath me. We don’t criticise one another when it comes to relationships. That’s always been a given. Each of us has made questionable choices in the past, but it should never be an issue between friends.

  I can’t believe he thinks I don’t care about anyone. That hurts. I mean, that really, really hurts in a way that I didn’t think anything could. He knows me better than anyone, and he said that to me. Maybe it’s true. I don’t think about other people as much as I should. I don’t really care about Declan, I just don’t want to feel guilty about ignoring him. I don’t care about my friends, I just want to have a good time with them. He’s right. I’m completely selfish.

  No, I’m not completely selfish. I try to be there for my friends, especially him, and I don’t know why he’s suddenly accusing me of not caring about people’s feelings. I mean, he can hardly be feeling protective of Declan. They don’t get along at all.

  He just wanted to hurt me, and I don’t know why, and that’s what’s getting to me.

  We’ve been friends ever since First Year. He was the first friend Hugh made in secondary school, and he came home with him one day. I stopped by to say hi, seeing as Hugh and I have lived on the same road for our entire lives and we’ve been friends ever since we got past the “members of the opposite sex are scary and should be avoided like the plague” stage. So Hugh introduced me to Barry, and we hit it off right away. I think for a while he thought I fancied Barry, which was his vivid imagination more than anything else. I mean, I had a bit of a crush, but I was thirteen. I had crushes on everyone. I started spending more time at Hugh’s house than I ever had before, and at some point Barry started coming over to see me instead. Hugh has always insisted that Barry and I are destined to be together, but then again, he’s a teenage boy and he doesn’t understand any male/female relationship that doesn’t involve attraction.

  I haven’t told Hugh that Barry used to have a crush on him. Hugh wouldn’t be too thrilled. Hugh is perfectly okay with the idea of girls having somewhat bendable sexuality, but it’s a different story when you’re talking about guys. He was disturbed enough by Barry in make-up.

  That could be why Barry and I are such good friends, I guess. The sexuality thing. I don’t mean that like we have some kind of exclusive club or anything, but – it was because of that common bond that we could open up to each other.

  ***

  Third Year, the Lucy year. Barry and I were talking one weekend, one of the few weekends I wasn’t completely wasted, and he said tentatively that he thought Hugh was cute.

  “Well, of course he’s cute,” I said. “That’s pretty obvious.”

  “Yeah, but –”

  “But you like him?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  I shrugged. “He’s cute.”

  And he just laughed. “You’re so cool, you know that?”

  And I’d been playing it cool the whole time, but my heart was actually pounding and despite the laid-back attitude it all seemed more real and intense than most of the conversations we’d had. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not, but there was a sense of relief about it all.

  Chapter Nine

  “Is everything okay?” Roisín asks me on Thursday morning before class starts.

  I smile. “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Barry and I had a fight,” I tell her.

  “Oh.” She makes a sympathetic face. “What was it about?”

  “Just something stupid,” I say evasively. “We’ll probably sort it out soon, it’s not a big deal, it’s just – I don’t like fighting with him.”

  She tries to hide a smile.

  “What?” I demand.

  “Nothing. Just – you and Barry.”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t start this again. Please.”

  “But – you two! You’d be so cute together.”

  “I’m sure we would, if we had any feelings for one another. People tend to forget to take that into account.”

  “I think there’s a spark there.”

  “You think there’s a spark everywhere, Roisín.”

  “Yes, but this is a serious spark.”

  “There’s no spark. He’s like a brother to me. He watches how much I drink and asks me if I’m getting enough sleep and if I’m getting all my homework done. You can’t turn that into something romantic.”

  “But he cares so much about you,” she sighs.

  “As a friend! I care about you, but that doesn’t mean I want to do unspeakably naughty things to you, now, does it?”

  “You don’t want to do unspeakably naughty things to me?” She pretends to be offended.

  “Oh, sweetie, you know I do,” I play along.

  “Get a room,” Wendy mutters as she passes by. Wendy is in our year. She’s not terribly pleasant. I would probably hate her if it wasn’t such a waste of my energy and if she wasn’t such a pathetic person.

  “What a great idea,” I say sweetly to Roisín, who’s rolling her eyes. “What a thoughtful suggestion, you know?”

  “Very,” she says, then lowers her voice. “Em – I don’t know how you put up with this crap, I really don’t.”

  I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Yeah, right,” she says sceptically. “Still – I’m just amazed at the way you can deal with it.”

  “You’re the sweetest person ever, you know that?”

  “I try hard, I really do.”

  “Come on, let’s go to English.”

  Chapter Ten

  English. I like it when we watch movies, and read plays, and that sort of thing. I dislike the writing essays aspect of it. I mean, it can be impossible to express how much you like something sometimes, or explain why, when it’s just a gut feeling that you can’t elaborate on. Instinctive reactions are hard to discuss.

  It’s usually a fairly relaxing class, though, which makes a nice change. I’m really not that great with the whole work ethic thing, in that I don’t think I have one. I just sort of drift by. Homework gets done, mostly, sometimes with time and care put into it, sometimes not.

  Roisín is a good student. She wants to go into teaching, which will suit her perfectly. She’s great at explaining things, particularly to those of us who are less academically inclined. (Me.) She’s interested, you see, which I suppose makes a difference. She seems to like this business of learning pointless information
, while I resent it.

  Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person in the world who still dislikes school, while everyone else seems to have dealt with that and moved on and studied hard. Like Lucy, and Andrew, and Roisín, and Sarah. I suppose I’ve still got Barry for company in that area, although even he’s starting to accept school as a necessary evil. But no, he understands. I still have him.

  Unless of course I bring up last night and we start arguing again and then we never speak to one another and we end up old and decrepit and alone in nursing homes looking back at this time in our lives and wishing that we’d stayed friends instead of letting this come between us. And I don’t want that to happen. The thought of not being friends with him physically hurts.

  I’ll talk to him. I’ll ask him what exactly is going on, and then we’ll talk about it, and we’ll sort it out. Sounds like a plan.

  Chapter Eleven

  I see Lucy at lunch. “You’re still coming tomorrow, right?” she asks.

  “Of course.” I smile. Tomorrow’s her eighteenth, and in the time-honoured tradition of birthdays and the Irish nation, we’re going to get very very drunk.

  “We’re meeting outside the bar at around half eight,” she continues, “but if you want a lift, come down to my house, okay? Andrew’s going to drive a few of us into town.”

  “Does that mean he’s not drinking?” I say, and as soon as I say it I wish I hadn’t. Of course he isn’t going to be drinking. Not much, anyway.

  She nods. “Yeah, but you know how he is about alcohol anyway. Everything in moderation, and all that.”

  “It’s terrible, isn’t it?” I smile.

  She grins. “Oh yes. But anyway, just thought I’d offer you the lift.”