I hate the way my brother’s friends talk to each other. They call each other things. Cunt. Knobhead. Dick. Wanker. Knob-jockey. Gay. They don’t even think about what it means. Like sometimes I think it’s their way of saying they love each other. If boys love each other idk. Maybe. History does not record.

One time him and my brother took me on a trip to see a new bridge somewhere. It was perf. I got to sit where I could look at John’s neck. He had like a totally flawless neck. It was a pale brown colour and had no lines. The hair was trimmed exactly right and it was as black as coal and tightly curled. He never shaved it. He wasn’t the shaved-head kind of guy. My brother’s neck was the exact opposite. It was grey because he never washed it only rinsed himself in the shower. It had pimples, like totally gross pimples. His hair was always sticking up. The necks of his collars always had Blood Spots, oml. I never wanted to look at my brother’s neck. John Brown was excited because this was the bridge with the Longest Single Span in Ireland, like totally a Cable-Stayed Bridge, with a tower of A Hundred And Twelve Metres! Like it was completed NEARLY A YEAR EARLY!!!! Imagine the excitement! He was practically having an engineering orgasm every five minutes in the passenger seat in front of me. It was one small step for mankind to imagine what he’d be like having a human one. I almost had one myself watching him.

We drove east for nearly two hours and it was morning and the sun was in the side window all day. And at some point I fell asleep as you do. Faintly in my sleep I heard my brother say, She’s out cold. And John Brown said, She’s so cute when she’s asleep. I wanted to wake up and say, WHAT ABOUT WHEN I’M AWAKE FFS??!!?? And my brother said, That’s about the only time she’s cute. And they laughed. And I knew they were being OK about me and I just went deep. I woke up about twenty minutes later and they were talking about something else.

John Brown said, I don’t know.

My brother said, Come on, Nigger, it’s mad like.

I have exams in a couple of weeks.

It’s always work with you for fuck’s sake. Man, get a life.

Faith would kill me.

Fuck Faith. She’s never going to know.

So at that point I guessed that we were approaching something that always upsets me – the Moment Of Embarrassing Revelation. And I did what I always do. I fucked up. I sat up suddenly and said, Where are we, guys?

My brother gave me a hard look in the rear-view mirror. It was maybe a bit like a retina scan.