None of This Is True

by Lisa Jewell

What is bottarga?

fourteen people with tanned arms and gold bracelets and crisp white shirtsleeves

She glances at Walter, at the fading glory of him,

she should peak and crest and then come slowly,

contentedly down the other side,

The energy they give off is effervescent, a swirling, intoxicating aurora borealis of grating, glorious entitlement.

It means she’s wrong, that everything, literally everything, about her is wrong and that she’s running out of time to make herself right.

She’s a consummate lurker. She never posts, she never comments, she never likes. She just looks.

Alix maybe mentoring Josie somehow, showing her how to be the person she thinks she was always meant to be.

Alix walks the children to school.

Is it any wonder that Alix is so torn about her marriage, when her

husband is capable of such acts of generosity and affection, whilst also capable of making her want to die?

mythical mirage of their marriage.

She pictures it and she wants it. She wants it more than anything.

But it is clear to Alix that Pat is actually a raging narcissist, and that no child of a narcissist ever makes it out into the world unscathed.

Josie smiles at her and bypasses Nathan, her arm just brushing against the cotton of his T-shirt, close enough to feel the clean heat emanating from his flesh.