One More Time Read Online Free PDF

this sensation—it was entirely in my head. I knew this, but the ritual burrowed in to become a driving force. As I wore out shoe after shoe, my parents were forever asking why.
    I knew the solution was simple: stop doing it. But stopping was a much greater task than it sounded. Then again I didn’t care about my shoes. I could get new ones. But what about my hands?
    Excessive hand-washing took its toll and it wasn’t long before my hands became dry and worn. Cuts and cracks soon followed.
    ‘Mammy, Sean has something wrong with his hands! Mammy go look, go look!’
    Sarah and I had been playing with each other and the fun had turned into an argument. She pinched me,then I pinched her back. She slapped me and I returned the slap. The coarseness of my hands shocked Sarah.
    ‘What did you hit me with? What have you got in there?’ She wailed and grabbed my hands to see what they were hiding.
    I whipped them away. I’d washed them for over an hour that morning, and they were in a terrible state by afternoon.
    ‘Sean, show me your hands,’ my mam demanded. Reluctantly I opened them up and let her look.
    ‘Sean, what have you been doing to yourself?’ she exclaimed, examining my broken skin.
    ‘Nothing, nothing!’ I retorted with embarrassment. I tried to pull my hands back from her but she dragged me closer.
    ‘Your hands are in bits. Did you hurt yourself?’
    ‘No!’
    Mam regarded me sternly; she knew that I wasn’t lying but I was obviously not telling her the facts either.
    ‘We’ll show them to your father!’
    I was petrified.
    Mam didn’t show my hands to Dad, and looking back on those days I think that it must have dawned on her then that there was more to my problems than just adolescence. She took to watching me like a hawk.
    I don’t look back on those years with fondness. Life was a terrible struggle for me. Every day was spent trying desperately to hide my problems. And I was good at hiding them. I would wait until no one was in the house to do the hand-washing, and all my other rituals I did when backs were turned or people were distracted.
    The turning point was one morning at around one o’clock when my sister said, ‘Not tonight, not any more. You’re too old to be sleeping with anyone. You’re like a baby. What’s wrong with you anyway?’
    ‘Ah, just tonight, just one more night. I can’t sleep alone. I’m frightened.’
    I sounded like an addict, only concerned about one thing—my needs. Intent, focused, I was oblivious to what my sister had said to me.
    ‘No, get out. You’re too old, get out!’
    Sarah had talked like this before that night, but never with such determination.
    ‘Ah, come on, Sars, please. I’m serious—I really can’t sleep. I promise I’ll sleep on my own tomorrow night. Please just tonight. This will be the last time.’
    Jumping out of bed, Sarah powered towards me and grabbed me by the arm.
    ‘Out!’ she exclaimed in fury, as she led me from theroom and into the hallway. ‘You have to sleep on your own from now on, Sean.’
    ‘But, Sarah, I can’t. I just can’t! I’m scared!’
    ‘I don’t care,’ she replied rigidly. ‘Sam has locked his bedroom door and so will I. You’re on your own. No more of this!’
    ‘Please,’ I begged in a whisper, worried that Mam and Dad would wake up with all the commotion.
    ‘No, Sean. You’re being pathetic and if you keep doing this—’ she hesitated—‘I’m going to end up hating you!’
    Sarah’s eyes were filled with such resolution I had nothing more to say. What could I say? Seconds later she was gone and I heard her bedroom door locking. Suddenly I was alone; it was just the darkness and me. At first I considered turning the hall lights on, but decided not to—I had to be brave.
    I had nowhere to go, Sam and Sarah had locked me out and John was out of the question. I couldn’t possibly have gone to Mam and Dad. I realised for the first time that night, as I stood barefooted on the cold