Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
W hy did I feel like it was a date? Why did I want it to be? Why did I keep thinking of Niall’s penis? Why? Why? Why? Because I liked it? Because he made me a woodlice house and painted his gate ocean blue? Because I was finally getting to have a picnic with a man? Because he’d suggested Slievenamon? Because I have OCD?
I’d laid three outfits on the bed: my mustard-yellow dress, my salmon-pink jumper and jeans, my peach-coloured lacy vest top (the one I’d worn to the pub when I stuffed my bra with socks) and a pair of denim shorts that still had the label on. My grandmother used to say take me as I am or don’t take me at all, so I pulled on my vest top and salmon-pink jumper and grabbed the denim shorts before I could change my mind.
I applied my cherry-pink lipstick then rubbed it off, then reapplied it again. Jesus, what was I doing? Niall wouldn’t notice any of it anyway. Why would he? I didn’t have time to straighten my hair, and actually, I didn’t want to, so I ran my fingers through my curls to at least tame them and then the doorbell rang and I made my way downstairs with nothing but Niall’s penis on my mind.
When I got to my porch a pack of condoms lay on the matt with Una’s name scribbled out, replaced by a smiley face. I grabbed them so Niall wouldn’t see them, slipped them into my back pocket, pulled my salmon-pink jumper down and then opened the door.
Niall was stood there with a rucksack on his back. He was wearing shorts and a white T-shirt and for the first time in my life I admitted it (in my head, not out loud) that Niall was hot. Niall was hot and I’d seen his penis and he was taking me for a picnic up Slievenamon, and I’d worn my bloody salmon-pink jumper.
‘Ready?’ he said.
‘Yep,’ I said back.
‘You look nice.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you wearing lipstick?’
‘Yes. No. It’s just lip balm,’ I lied.
‘It suits you.’
‘Thanks.’ I blushed the same colour as my cherry-pink lipstick.
It was the first time I’d ever blushed because of Niall and the fact that I had in front of him made it worse. I used to go red all the time in school. Anything would set me off, if a boy I liked walked past me in the corridor, if a question was directed at me in class, if someone called my name in a crowd, or if I had to recite a monologue in my drama class.
The worst thing a person can do is tell someone they’ve gone red because it only makes them redder. Una used to do it all the time; she’d love to point it out just as something embarrassing happened, because she knew I’d go five times as red in response. Sometimes she’d chant red, red, red to me under her breath just to make it happen, which I know made her sound horrible, but it wasn’t done with mean intentions. It was done with humour (Una’s humour).
‘Everything OK?’ Niall asked.
‘Just hot,’ I said as my cheeks continued to burn.
‘You’ll be roasting by the time we get to the top. Probably best you leave the jumper here?’
There it was; I blushed again.
‘Do you want to put it in my bag?’
‘Thanks,’ I said as I peeled it off, only it got stuck on my bloody head, didn’t it, and all I could see was Una laughing at me.
I hadn’t stuffed my bra. In fact, I’d not put one on at all. It wasn’t that I didn’t need one, I probably did, but I felt more comfortable like that, more free, and I hadn’t planned on taking off my jumper because it wasn’t that hot at all. In fact, it was quite cold but that might have been because it was seven o’clock in the bloody morning and I was stood on my doorstep with a pair of denim shorts on and a peach vest top with my nipples poking through.
The worst thing was the jumper hid my back pocket, which hid the condoms (to some degree) and I’m sure if Niall looked closely he’d work out what the small square packet in my back pocket was.
But Niall didn’t say anything, thank God. He just said come on let’s go and off we went, up the mountain of Slievenamon, all the way to the top.
We talked the entire way up about everything and anything and by the time we got there, I felt like I knew Niall in a whole new light. For example, he’s dyslexic and couldn’t actually read properly until he was fifteen. And that he’d hidden it from everyone, except Mr and Mrs O’Callaghan, who paid Mrs Evans (our old English teacher) privately to come to the shop and teach him. I loved her even more when he told me that.
Niall also told me that he was arrested for drink driving when he was eighteen and that no one knew about it because Mrs O’Callaghan was so embarrassed that she made him promise he would never tell anyone. He had to do community service, which explained why I used to see him picking up litter in the village wearing a high-vis top. He said he felt a lot of anger towards his dad and that the bugs helped him feel calm. In a way, they sort of saved him – that’s what Niall said – and I felt bad for all the times I thought he was weird for being so fascinated by them. So I told Niall that they had sort of saved me too – because if it wasn’t for the woodlouse key ring, the butterfly or the glowworms, I’d never have got my wallet back, jumped from a crane, or gone inside a cave and had the flashback.
When we reached it (the top of Slievenamon), I didn’t see Fionn or his fair maidens or a dead duck or a boiled head, or a banshee. I just saw Niall, with his top off (because it had got pretty hot, after all). And then he turned to me and said:
‘Shall we pick some wild mushrooms and eat them with our picnic?’
And I swear I felt my grandmother squeeze my hand but when I looked down it was Niall’s hand in mine and I didn’t mind.
I didn’t mind one bit.
The End .
The Beginning.