Being Emily Read Online Free

Then when ah got up and peed the nice feelin went. Was that sexy too? Was any feelin inside you?
    Fiona? Mammy came in the bedroom. Ah’m gonnae get the twins aff tae bed .
    Okay .
    Mammy stroked my hair. Sorry, hen. Your da’s watchin the TV but if you want some peace you can read in the kitchen . She smiled at me.
    Ah wanted tae ask her, but somehow the words didnae come.

    Four Years Later

WHEN I FIRST knew Jas his front teeth had wee jaggy bits across their biting edge like a wean’s. Serrated. Most folk’s teeth wear tae a straight edge by the time they’re about fourteen but in sixth year at school his were like mini-saws. I could feel them when we were kissing, hours spent tangling with passion in a quiet bit of wasteground on the edge of the park. We never really done anything much, just kissed till wur lips swelled up. Every time it seemed as if we’d be carried away by it, one of us would pull back or move the other’s haund away fae the danger spot and we’d break, talk for a while until the moment passed. Sometimes, lying in bed at night, I’d imagine what it’d be like for him tae put his haunds under my claes, touch my naked skin. In the beds across fae mines were Mona, an unidentifiable lump under her downie,and Rona, wan airm thrown out of the covers, white in the light of the streetlamp.
    How did Jas sleep? What would it be like to lie beside him, coorie like spoons all night long?
    It seems weird we never spoke about it, since we spent all the rest of our time talking, never ran out of conversation. He never anyway. Always something on his mind; big things, never trivia.
    Look at this , he’d say, showing me something he’d cut out the newspaper about fossil fuels. Or he’d start a conversation wi my da. So what do you think of the situation in Iraq, Mr O’Connell? D’you think we should end the sanctions?
    Da cairried on watching Countdown wi the sound turned doon; I knew he was making up words in his heid while he answered Jas.
    Havenae a scooby aboot politics son, but these things’ll never hurt the government – it’s always the ordinary folk end up suffering .
    Jas didnae know the meaning of the word casual; everything was important to him and if it wasnae important, what was the point in talking aboot it? Why gossip aboot some daft popstar’s lovelife when you could discuss the meaning of life, why watch soaps when you could read about the molecular composition of polymers?
    And he didnae just talk about things, he done them. He was aye writing letters for Amnesty or campaigning for something on the school council. Or studying. Or working. Probably the only time he wasnae daeing something purposeful was when he was with me.
    I met Jas when I moved to the non-denominational (or – as my da called it – proddy) school in sixth year. I wanted to dae Advanced Highers in English, Art and History and St Philomena’s couldnae timetable them thegether. They triedtae persuade me to change one of the subjects, then suggested I go to Burnside just for History but it seemed less complicated tae move school – it was only for a year. And though I’d been dead happy at St Phil’s when I was younger, after all the stuff that had happened this past year, I was glad enough tae go where no one knew me.
    I met Jas the first day when he came up to me after English and thrust a photocopied leaflet about the debating club in ma haund.
    ‘Is multiculturalism the new racism?’
    I went alang cause I’d nothin else to dae efter school on Friday and Friday is a day when you want to have something to dae. I thought it’d be good to get tae know some folk at school but it was just Jas and two of his pals and a couple of fourth-year girls who wanted to get off with the sixth years. And me. Clocked in a dusty classroom wi the desks moved back and stacked upside doon so you could see the chuggie stuck tae the underside.
    Jas was electrifying. I wasnae convinced by all he said, but he said it wi a passion