None of This Is True

by Lisa Jewell

rather an abyss formed of trauma that she keeps circling and circling with a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach.

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.

Walter didn’t really have much to do with the girls’ schooling, especially after all that business with the social services when Erin was in year six.

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?

From somewhere else in the flat she hears the muted sounds of her husband’s voice. She tucks in her earplugs and turns the page of her book.

Alix squirms. This woman, she strongly suspects, loathes her daughter.

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.

And there it is, the point which it all boils down to eventually. The point where there are no words, no theories, no explanations for behaviors that baffle and infuriate and hurt. Just that. Men.

She’s starting to feel that Erin is part of the problem here. She’s starting to feel like Erin is no longer on her side.