In Ecstasy Read Online Free

mistake—and was punished for it. I couldn’t believe how judgemental I’d been towards him.
    I lay back against the cool pillows. My bed smelled of newly laundered sheets. Every Friday Mum strips all the beds and remakes them with clean linen. I breathed in and rubbed my legs backwards and forwards against the smooth, crisp sheet. Ecstasy. I’d always thought I might try it one day. I’d heard kids at school talking about getting wasted on the weekends. They made it sound awesome. I pictured the roughly made tablets with their tiny butterflies. An amazing experience inside a tiny pill. How could something that made you feel like that be bad for you?
    I’d heard the horror stories about people dying from ecstasy, and how it was a gateway to much worse drugs, but I also knew that it was mostly government propaganda and sensationalist stories to sell newspapers. Ecstasy was like anything else. If you did it safely, you’d be fine. The people who died were the ones who took stupid risks—or way too much. And people who went on to harder drugs were always going to do that anyway. I knew heaps of guys at school who’d smoked weed for years, and they’d never touched anything else. And last night everyone had been happy and in love. No one was aggro or fighting. Last night people were glorious.
    I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. I felt so restless. Not in a bad way, but running over every tiny detail, trying to recapture the tranquillity and peace. I dressed and went into the kitchen. Last year Mum spent a fortune on a new kitchen, so now it looked like something out of Home Beautiful. She is meticulous about keeping it perfect. Everything has to be in its place.
    I poured myself some orange juice. The fridge door was still open when Mum walked in. She kicked at it lightly with her foot and used the sleeve of her dressing gown to rub away my fingerprints as she flicked the kettle on.
    â€˜How was last night?’ she asked, getting out her favourite cup, which has thirty written on it even though she’s really thirty-eight.
    â€˜Good,’ I said, drinking my juice and flicking through yesterday’s paper.
    â€˜When did you get in?’
    â€˜This morning. Soph had modelling so I walked home.’
    It was partly true. Soph did have modelling. But I was deliberately making Mum think I’d stayed the night at Sophie’s when we’d never left the party.
    Last night was the first time since Dad left that Mum let me go out without someone’s parent taking me or picking me up. She’s been totally over-protective. It’s like she has to prove that she’s this super mother. But Damon, her boyfriend, has been getting on at her about lightening up. When I asked if I could go to Dominic’s party it was Damon who supported me.
    â€˜Rae, she’s fifteen,’ he’d said when Mum frowned at my suggestion that Sophie and I could find our own way home. ‘Think about what you were doing when you were that age.’
    That stopped her. Gran had been really strict on Mum when she was my age. Mum had told me how all she’d ever wanted was a bit of trust and freedom.
    â€˜You take your phone and call me when you get there,’ she said finally.
    I was so happy I hugged both of them. ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘you’re awesome.’
    So I didn’t want her to think I’d taken advantage of her trust. She’d freak if she thought I’d been out all night. And go completely psycho if she knew about the E. The best thing to do was let her believe I’d been at Soph’s.
    â€˜You’re supposed to be at Dad’s at eleven,’ Mum said, getting the milk out of the fridge.
    â€˜Do I have to go?’ Last night Lewis had asked if I wanted to go to a dance party. I could only imagine what it would be like, feeling that way in a room with hundreds of people soaking up the rhythm of the universe. And to go with