Boy Who Made It Rain by Brian Conaghan Page A

could see her point, you know, when I played all the events over in my head. I was raging though. But then when I played that in my head, you know, why I was raging, I think it wasn’t Cora I was raging at. No, it wasn’t Clem either. It was myself for not realising it. I sort of had an idea that something was going on, but I guess I blanked it out of my mind. Well, that’s what people do when they don’t want to admit the truth, isn’t it? I read that somewhere in a book about psychology or psychiatry or something like that, it was psycho something. Anyway it said that by not engaging with true events, that’s the book’s words by the way, by not engaging with true events you are consciously blanking it out of the mind. But the thing is, the harder you try to blank it out the more it takes over the things you think about. It was weird because I kept thinking about it all the time. All the time. I couldn’t concentrate in any of my classes. I couldn’t even do my art. It was mad as, so it was.
    Then I got dead para…paranoid…and thought the whole school was gawking at me when I walked down the corridor. Especially all those mongo NEDs. Cora kept saying ‘why don’t you say something?’ But I just couldn’t. I thought that if I asked him he ’ d have dumped me then and there. I was sort of loved up with him at the time. I couldn’t just pure ask him outright. I was terrified. But that all changed. Another part of me was like, you have to trust him if you’re going to have any future together, you have to be able to trust each other. The thing is he gave me no reason to think that anything bad was going on, apart from the gossiping and sniggers. He was just the same, nothing changed in him. And when I think back and ask myself was there any sign of anything strange going on, you know, in his behaviour, I’d have to say no. It was the same Clem as ever, but it was like one of those things that hovers over you, you know, like a bubble or a cloud or something. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
    Then I did something really bad. Not like bad bad, but bad enough to make me feel bad. I didn’t cry over it or anything like that, I just had this thing saying something in my head, ‘I can’t believe you did that, Rosie; I can’t believe you did that.’ Anyway, I stayed back late in the art room to start off my portfolio, I was just doing some life sketching, bowls and cups and fruit and stuff like that. Easy stuff. But it was all one big pretence. I did sketch a wee bit and I did need to get the portfolio started but I could just as easily have done it at home, the thing was I didn’t tell Clem that I was staying back. I knew his study class finished at a certain time, so I just waited till ten minutes before it was over and then I waited outside for him to come out. No, I wasn’t waiting on him. I didn’t want him to see me. We hadn’t planned it. I was actually waiting across the road so that when he came out I was ready to nick down and hide behind a car. I was standing there shaking. I was pure morto that I was doing this. That’s just not what I do. Well, obviously it is now. Anyway, the next thing I know I see Clem coming out of the school’s main doors, only he’s not alone. I thought ‘you cheeky little...’ In front of the school as well. By this time I was in bits. I was livid. I was half going to run up to them and have it out right there and then. Thank God I didn’t. But I could feel my anger getting the better of me, my hands were sweating and I was clenching them into a fist. The funny thing was though, there was this wee voice in my head saying ‘what are you doing, Rosie? You’re making a complete fool of yourself. If he catches you it’s curtains.’ So I’m hiding behind this car and the next thing I know they’re walking in my direction and I’m like,