English Audio Request

My friendship with Kathy was a real friendship. She made me laugh. She made me feel wanted. She understood me. We would do anything together. There was hardly ever a time when she was too busy to see me. If I wanted her, even if it was just for a walk, she was almost always there. We were sixteen when we met at the local technical college and we were both doing the same course. I was very nervous the day I started and Kathy was the first person I talked to. She was fun, she was lively, she was sure of herself.
It was not a perfect friendship. Perhaps there is no such thing as a perfect friendship except in books. It is difficult to say exactly what was wrong with it. There were two things that I have to tell you about. Either one of them is enough to explain what was wrong between us. Both of them together brought our friendship to an end.
I learned very soon is our relationship that Kathy was jealous. She did not like to think that I had anything she did not have. We would have great fun going out shopping but if I bought, say, a dress for a party and she thought my dress was better than hers, she would suddenly say “I think we were both wrong about that dress. It looks a bit cheap, doesn’t it?”
The other problem was my mother. She thought Kathy was common. She thought Kathy had a bad influence over me. She even disliked Kathy’s way of speaking. Not that I was anything special. Nor were my parents. But Mum disliked Kathy and looked down on her and kept on telling me to stop seeing her. Perhaps this was because Kathy was so friendly and talked with almost everyone. Perhaps even my Mum was jealous of this, because Mum was like me: shy and reserved.