74. Now

Scrawled across the walls in smaller letters, surrounding that one central slash of a question, which is burnt onto the insides of my eyelids like the shock of a flare, are excerpts from Jenna's journal, which is sitting on the counter by the sink.

She's always leaving it in the living room, poking out between the arm of the sofa and the cushion, propped on the shelf by the light switch. As I hold the red book with spiders and coffins Biro-ed all over it, I realise that despite the ‘DO NOT READ' message written all around the sides, Jenna had been leaving it out on purpose.

I had congratulated myself on feeling not even the faintest hint of temptation to read it, but now I recognise what that really was: a fear of learning the truth.

And maybe if I'd read it, my little girl would still be alive.

Her words swirl all around me, painted on the walls, forcing themselves into my head.

I wish I'd never been born.

If I disappeared, would anyone miss me?

M sees nothing. I see everything. Does M want to die because of me? How could they tell there was something wrong with me when I was just a baby?

T is the only one who understands me.

I thought school was safe but AA have turned everyone against me.

T makes me feel like I could be something better.

How

can someone make you feel so good, and

then so bad, and then so good again?

Everybody hates me.

T says he loves me.

Why does M let GD treat her like that? Why are we here? Why is he allowed to treat me and M and GM like this? Why are MAA special?

Do I love him? Is this thing love or lust or fear or

revulsion?

Am I invisible, M? Today my friends took out my soul and ate it right in front of me.

T gave me something so beautiful I almost cried. What did I do to AA? No one else would

understand

our love.

I found something that scares me.

I don't know what to do. How could

M do this? I can't look at them any more. I wish I was

dead.

My family are

liars.They're

killers.He makes my

skin crawl.

Aren't you meant to

love your children?

On and on and on,all around me, my daughter's tortured voice screams and screams all the things she couldn't say to me.

Tristan, Mina, Ava and Ash are all talking at once and Lydia is shouting something down the hallway but it all merges into a faraway storm as I open Jenna's journal and start reading from the first page.