Read Crappily Ever After for Free Online

in the ozone layer, along with my childhood budgie’s fatal asthma attack. Having done the walk of shame across the street, I am greeted by Gran at the front door, buttoning her coat on her way out.
    ‘It’s lovely, dear,’ she says. ‘The ladies at the Stroke Club will love it. You should pop by for a cuppa.’                 
     
    I head straight to the shower attachment over the bath and immediately soak my hair through. I wipe the steam from the mirror and stare, long and hard. I have been warned by Marianne to only comb it with an Afro comb. Otherwise, the curl will be damaged. Good, I think – and grab a paddle brush belonging to my aunt. Half an hour later, I am still confronted with a mass of curls. Mortified, I decide to peek round the door of the bathroom, where I encounter Robert in the hallway, red-faced and speechless with mirth, pointing silently at me. A minute passes as he runs to fetch Mary and Betty. I loiter self-consciously, may as well get it over with in one go. Apparently, I am so amusing that tears are now streaming down their faces. Eventually, Robert finds the words he is searching for:
     
    ‘Pube head!’
    Profound.
    The others collapse against him, nodding frantically through their laughter. It is my new name for the next two months. Actually, it’s a blessed release from ‘pancakes’ – my previous name, due to my undeveloped chest.        
     
    Anyway, back to the disaster that is my love life. The first, being Sean, with whom I lived with for almost three years. I was at college studying to be a Nursery Nurse. Oh, if only I could now talk to my seventeen-year-old self in so many ways. I was at college only fourteen miles away and therefore still lived at home. I met Sean in a student bar in Dundee. He was standing at the end of the bar smoking a rolly and leaning lasciviously towards the barmaid. A peroxide blond with a top on that left nothing to the imagination. Tight, short and what appeared to be the arse of a Sumo wrestler protruding out of the top. Yes, the early warning signs do seem to be the most correct. Something I will take years yet to learn. If instinct makes your feet want to move in the opposite direction, do please listen. I whisper to my friend, Holly, with whom I have bunked off for an afternoon of snakebite (no blackcurrant, it’s common) that I like the cutie by the bar.
    ‘Join an orderly queue,’ sighs Holly, tossing a glossy red lock over her shoulder and raising her eyes to the ceiling. ‘That’s Sean Taylor. Studying music, he’s the lead singer in a band – The Magic Mushrooms. Everyone and their dog fancies him. He even has a huge gay following,’ she states in a ‘the subject is now closed’ voice.
    ‘Are you saying I have no chance?’ I question.
    ‘Well, of course you do.’ She examines a spot on my chin closely. ‘I just think it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Cut out the middle man and just go spending the next three months from now bawling your eyes out and listening to your heartbreak tape whilst eating your way through an entire tin of Quality Street.’                                                                                   
    Holly is three months older than me and therefore thinks she is much more worldly. I sulk and light up a Regal Small. I hate smoking. Again, if I could talk to me then…  I do it because it gets me in with the rough mob at college. Always handy to have them on side, even if they did practically wet themselves on day two outside our college building. The ringleader, Jan, pointed at me, just in case there was any doubt about who she was humiliating, and spluttered:
    ‘ You smoke?’
    ‘Have done since I was twelve,’ I lied, trying to hold in a cough.
    Ignoring Holly, I take a large slug of snakebite, lean forward and shake my 32A bosom further up in its training bra and saunter casually towards