Good Girls Don't Read Online Free

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