Good Girls Don't Read Free

poster there’s a framed photo of me and assorted friends at my seventeenth birthday party last December. I’m sitting on top of Barry and Roisín is leaning on us. Andrew’s tickling Lucy and Hugh is rolling his eyes at them, as we all tend to do at the world’s happiest couple. That was just before Hugh and I got together.
    There’s something special about going out with someone who’s been a good friend of yours beforehand. You can look back on your shared history and fool yourself into thinking that there was something there all along, some little spark, and that’s why this relationship is going to last forever. I’m sure we annoyed everyone with our “it was meant to be” rubbish. And it wasn’t meant to be, as it turned out, and we’re better off as just friends.
    It was nice to fall into the fantasy while it lasted, though.
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    There are eight of us in Fifth Year music. Sarah is in the class, which is really how I got to know her. I mean, she’s been in a few of my classes since First Year, but we never really got talking until this year. We realised we had a couple of friends in common, like Shane and Hugh, which gave us something to talk about, and since she’s been spending more time with them recently, what with them starting up a band and all that, I’ve been seeing her and her friends outside of school as well.
    Seeing as Abi is one of these friends, I am rather grateful for this, but it also makes things between Sarah and me a little awkward. I get the feeling she sees me as “corrupting” her best friend, somehow, which is completely ridiculous. I’ve got to learn to stop being so paranoid. It’s school that does it to me, I think. I go around thinking that sexuality is no big deal and that honestly, no one cares if you want to sleep with boys or girls, and then something at school reminds me that most people don’t think that way. The way “lesbian” is thrown around as an insult. Or this girl in my class, Joanne, talking about how people who are bisexual don’t really mean it. It’s just a phase, or they’re just trying to be different, or they’re just hiding the fact that they’re gay. Thank you for your opinion, Joanne. Can I hit you now?
    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,