Did I really have sex with Shepherd?
All I can see is him. His whole weight on top of me, pinning me down like a butterfly trapped. The smell of him. The feel of him. It was like being woken from a coma. And after years and years of living a ghost life I finally felt . . . spirited away.
I felt alive.
It faded when I left him in the woods. Just like I faded when he left me behind in the small town of Greystone.
I hate these feelings growing inside me. Hate myself for feeling this way. I hate that I’m attracted to an arrogant manipulative sadist. I hate what that says about me.
The sun is shining when I escape the trembling and the tears. I thought I would burst. I feel shattered, like broken glass. I look at my bedroom door. I’m too afraid to sleep. The nightmares are waiting for me on the other side.
I force myself to stand up and stretch. The urge to go and start checking the room is overpowering, but I feel like I’m buried under sand. I can barely move.
The garden under my bedroom window is bare and grey, the grass the only splash of colour. Brown decaying leaves litter the corners of the garden wall. The howling wind blows the top branches, roars away in the stillness, my eyes back to feeling dry and sore as if they’ll never be able to cry again. It looks so cold outside. I yawn.
I lie down on my bed, watch the branches sway, dance, the grey clouds behind them an ominous warning, repeating a mantra in my head a thousand times.
Stay away from Shepherd Lawson. Keep your heart locked, forever.
7
YOU
I’M HAPPY WHEN the other girls return. Their noise and drama distract me.
Annabeth’s bed is sunken in the middle from the weight of designer-shop bags. She’s showing us the Christmas presents her parents bought her. Lilac is sifting through the bags with the tips of her fingers, looking superior because her family know better than to buy her clothes. She has an eating disorder like some of the other girls, here.
Scarlett is pretending to be disinterested in the bags, but really she’s as shocked as me by how much stuff Annabeth has. She’s always on the lookout for what the other girls get, especially clothes or make-up. She’d like to be one of their gang, but they don’t want her, so she’s stuck with me.
I put up with Scarlett as she pops sugar-free pink bubbles and reads about celebrities and the latest sex scandals. She’s not as dumb as she makes out, though. She is intelligent, but she stuffs her head with what nail polish doesn’t chip, what spray tan will make her legs look slimmest. Scarlett self-harms, suffers from clinical depression.
What’s best about Scarlett, is she doesn’t pry into my private life. She always listens, never judges. That’s what she’s like. Angel perfume and waxed legs and hugs and not too many questions. It’s why we get on. We let each other be.
Also in the room is Daisy, but you could forget she’s here. She’s sitting in the corner, and she’s made herself small. She never speaks, just sits there nibbling her fingertips. I daren’t ask how her Christmas was, but she should never have gone home. She didn’t want to leave, she told us in therapy group, but her uncle insisted and she can’t say no to him.
Daisy is twenty-five years old and fell pregnant with Max when she was sixteen. Max’s father died from a drug overdose. Max was only six. Sadly, it was Max who discovered his dad’s body.
Daisy is like a girl a toddler would draw. Fuzzy red hair, sticks for limbs. She’s an inch smaller than my five-foot-three body. I hope Daisy isn’t using cocaine, again. Max is only nine. I want to take him by the hand and save him. Save my friend Daisy, too.
Unable to stop herself, Scarlett reaches forward and lifts a lace red vest from one of Annabeth’s bags. Her fingers run over the silk and she admires it.
Lilac is a blue-blood anorexic, a pedigree. Mummy and Grandmummy taught her all they know. They’re proud of her, though they wouldn’t say so directly, of course. They visit every fortnight, three wasted women in designer clothes, sculpted from the same source, with dark hair cut pixie-short to show their cheekbones. Her mother was an actress, and Lilac used to model for catalogues before she got too skinny. Their Christmas present to her was a silver-plated handheld mirror. They understand that, though, and that’s what makes the gift special.
Like my father’s camera . . .
My own family are only with me when I can’t control it, like in nightmares, or in the Black Magic box.
How I love my broken, damaged sister.
I look at Daisy, quiet in the room. Dark circles under her blue eyes and a sunken face, she is too thin. I worry she’s becoming anorexic. She told me she pulls hair from her legs and arms. It feels like a release, she said, the plop of the hair coming out. To me, it sounds like pain she’s inflicting on herself. Just like the pain I feel from my obsessive checks. Pain we’re punishing ourselves with.
Lilac’s face is as red as a summer rose when she squeals, ‘Oh my fucking god, bitches. Have you seen the new owner of Swan Lake?’
I nod, trying hard not to look like a Cabbage patch doll from the memory of him.
I quickly direct my attention towards Cheshire, the resident ginger cat, who’s sleeping on the windowsill. I go over to him and stroke his fur. About two years ago, Cheshire wandered into Swan Lake and he’s never
