Shiver the Whole Night Through Read Free Page A

waiting for me at the front gate. He looked nervous but willing to say what he had to anyway, which I’ll forever be thankful for. Podsy’s always been a good friend.
    â€˜Aidan,’ he said, gulping, waiting until my father passed on inside. ‘I heard something about Caitlin.’
    â€˜What? Is she all right?’
    â€˜Uh  … 
she
is, yeah.’
    Meaning, but
you
might not be when you find out what happened.
    I still hadn’t clicked anything was wrong. I frowned at him. ‘Well, come on. Let’s hear it.’
    â€˜She got off with yer man from the carnival. The son. You know the guy, kinda greasy-looking. Everyone’s saying it. I wish I wasn’t telling you this, but you’ve a right to know.’
    Straight away, I knew it was true. I didn’t bother asking questions or trying to convince myself Podsy was wrong – I
knew
. In my guts, in the very heart of me.
    I think I actually went into shock then. The violent shock of it, like a cut that came so fast I almost forgot to bleed. But I felt the cut. Felt the pain. Like someone had driven their hand through my breastplate and torn my insides to shreds.
    I fought the urge to vomit as my head started lifting off my body and rising slowly into the air. I was gone, floating away, headed for space. Only me and that cold moon, out there in the darkness.
    I think I said thanks to Podsy. Then I stumbled inside, lay on my bed and cried until dawn broke, and for a long time after that.
    Incredibly, things got worse from there.
    For the first few weeks after Black Sunday, I had to listen to all sorts of sleazy rumours: they’d had sex, she was pregnant with his child, she’d done it with his friends, he’d paid her, he hadn’t paid her and she only did it because she’d do it with anyone – anyone except me, clearly.
    I put up with veiled jibes and sideways smirks, skin prickling in shame and self-consciousness. I knew everyone was laughing at me, and the fact they were laughing at Caitlin as well didn’t console me. I didn’t want them laughing at anybody, I wanted things back the way they were.
    I’d see that goddamn carnival out the window of my room until they shoved off a few days later. I even had to go there one evening with my kid sister Sheila, because my parents were too busy but she’d been promised. I managed to avoid eye contact with Francis/Heathcliff all night but it was horrendous.
    I tried to pretend this wasn’t happening as I struggled to make sense of it, to deal with it.
    She didn’t apologise. That was one of the hardest things to suck up. Caitlin basically ignored me from then on. I’ll be kind and assume she was too embarrassed to speak with me, to explain or say sorry (if she felt sorry, I don’t know). Certainly, it would have been excruciating for both of us. Whatever the reason, we haven’t exchanged one word since.
    She refused to take my calls, didn’t reply to texts or emails; she’d literally turn and walk in the other direction if she saw me coming. After a while, I stopped trying and gave up on her and me.
    But even
that
wasn’t the worst part.
    For some mysterious reason me, not Caitlin, became the target of mockery. She got a few good-natured slags from her pals, but they
were
good-natured; no intent to hurt. I got the impression one or two were even jealous that she’d bagged Francis.
    From early August, though, he was forgotten, by her and everyone else it seemed; unfortunately,
I
wasn’t. By the end of that month she was going with someone else – Caitlin moved on while I was trapped in a vicious circle created by someone else’s deeds.
    A relentless barrage of ridicule and abuse started rolling over me about a fortnight after it happened, and didn’t stop. I was openly jeered in the street, the shops, the community centre. Both girls and boys would shout things to me, vulgar jokes, absurd