ool in our final year of primary, I had rea

ol, with massive funding and top-of-the-range facilities-coming from the brown envelopes of wealthy

at the local overcrowded publ

rrifying feeling of being

even begged Mam to send me to Beara to live with her siste

feeling that had overtaken me when my father

and didn't put up a fight when Dad insist

at, it g

vic

vio

phy

ed by several groups of boys all demanding thi

I wouldn't get off with the very boys tha

ggesting that the reason I was such a frigit

boys were, the girls w

much

sting that I was anorexic and threw my lun

ic-or bulimic,

s a frequent event-it was a direct response to the unbearable weight of the stress I was under. I was al

h our local GP. Several blood tests and exams later, our family doctor had assured both my mothe

one irregular cycle in the summer that had lasted le

my body working like a normal

angement, suggesting that the stress I was under at school could b

ere Mam pled my case, I was sent back to school

or spreading to sticking sanitary pads on my b

ing behind me hacked off a chunk of my ponytail with k

t moment I had hated the ones laughing a

ir camera phones and forwarded it to everyone in our year. The principal had cracked down on it qui

the toilets. I had bolted myself into a cubicle and contemplated ending it

ppointment, and at the time, I

ecause I was too

orking and waking up and hav

fuckin

looking and called my tormenters jealous bitches. He told

and I wasn't so confident about

were the same ones that had b

ad anything to do

ust unl

e for me and defend my honor, Joey didn

polar opposite of me in

was dark-haired; he was fair. His skin was sun-kissed golden. I was

dored by everyone at Ballylaggin Community School, a.k.a.

ng team helped Joey's popularity status along the

ey tried to protect me from it all, but

e walked out of the house five years previous, following yet another infamous blowout with our father. Tadhg and Ollie, who were eleven and

his that I missed

than me. Big and fearless, he was the ultimate