None of This Is True

by Lisa Jewell

She’d looked up the menu online earlier, so she’d be able to google stuff if she didn’t know what it was, so she already knows what she’s having.

“That was my husband. Yes. Not my father. And no, you are not the first person to make that mistake. My husband is a lot older than me. I’ve been with him since I was fifteen.” Josie pauses and glances up at Alix. Alix tries to hide her surprise. “Fifteen,” she repeats. “And he was…?” “Forty-two.” Alix falls silent for a moment. “Wow. That’s…” “Yes. I know. I know how it seems. But it didn’t quite feel like it sounds at the time. It’s hard to explain.” Josie purses her lips and shrugs. “There’s power in being a teenager. I miss that power in some ways. I would like it back.” “In what way was there power?” Josie shrugs again. “Just in the way that you have something a lot of people want. A lot of men want. And a lot of them want it. They want it so much.” “It? You mean youth?” “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. And when you meet someone who is very clear about what they want and you know that the only thing that stands between what they want and what you have is your consent… Sometimes, as a very young girl, there’s a power in giving that consent. Or at least, that’s how it felt at the time. That’s how they make you feel. But really, it’s not, is it? I can see that now. I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed? But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.”

“It was just there. Like an invisible monster in the room.” “A monster?” “Yes. That’s what it felt like. His interest in me. It felt like a monster.” “So, you were scared of him?” “Not of him. No. He was nice. I was scared of his wanting me. I couldn’t believe that nobody else could see it. Only me. It was so big and so real. But my mother didn’t see it. Helen didn’t see it. But I saw it. And I was scared of it.” “So, it didn’t feel like power then?” “Well, no. And yes. It felt like both things at the same time. It was confusing. I became obsessed with the idea of him. But it was another year until anything happened.”

She remembers pinning the girls’ artwork to the fridge with magnets and Walter tutting and taking it down because it looked messy.

Both women fall silent. Then Josie sighs and says, “Men.” 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.

As her eyes scan the pavement for the daughter she hasn’t seen for five years, her thoughts spiral back to the day Roxy disappeared and the reason why she left and she feels a nauseating darkness envelop her, and as it begins to smother her, her breathing grows labored and panicky

Walter molested her ?

“Yes. She’s fine. She’s at a friend’s house.”

She doesn't have friends

She thinks of her underwear drawer, at home, of the trophies and trinkets tucked away behind her socks and bras. Not just Alix’s. The others too.