Читать книгу Guilt: The Sunday Times best selling psychological thriller that you need to read in 2018 - Amanda Robson, Amanda Robson - Страница 15

Bristol is a cool city. The perfect city. The smell of salt on the breeze. The craggy squawk of seagulls. The Georgian architecture. Banksy. Quirky bands. Quirky bars. Individual shops that no one outside Bristol has heard of. The soft rolling Bristolian accent that sounds as if people are hiding fudge beneath their tongues.

My photography course is fantastic. What a versatile, intellectual art form photography is. Although I always liked taking photographs, I never realised what an artist I was until I began this course. I have taken four hundred photographs for my extended project, although I haven’t told anyone what it is about yet. It is a special secret that I am looking forward to unleashing.

Miranda, you are fantastic too, with your glamorous shiny flat. My sensible, caring sister, a sister like a second mother. But then you have always been there for me.

Most of all, and I want to shout this from every balcony in Bristol, I am on a high because I’m infatuated with my lover Sebastian. His craggy face. His swarthy complexion. The darkness of his stubble that radiates testosterone. It’s the first time I’ve ever been infatuated with anyone, isn’t it, Miranda? You have always teased me about how I suck men in and spit them out.

And I haven’t had a panic attack since I arrived.

I will never forget my first one. At school. At the start of my first mock A level. Chemistry. I could hardly breathe. The more I looked at the words on the exam paper in front of me, the less I could read them. They became black wavy lines swimming in front of me. When the result came out I had an E. Not a result to shout about. Not like yours always were, Miranda.

This bad experience made future exams even more nerve-racking. Looking back, for me, moving towards exams was like moving towards the guillotine. It was simple. My life was about to end. No life beyond them. This is not how I feel now on my photography course. My photography course at the University of the West of England is so natural, it feels like an extension of me.

After my first panic attack, a barrage of further attacks hit me regularly, assuaged only by cutting. The panic attacks pulled me down. Cutting lifted me up. So many panic attacks. So much cutting.

The last one was the night before I came to Bristol. Since I came to Bristol, the panic attacks have gone. What has stopped them? The smell of salt on the breeze? The way Sebastian melts into my soul? What will it take to make me throw away my blade? Or will throwing away my blade always be one step too far?