Читать книгу The New Girl: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist perfect for fans of Friend Request - Ingrid Alexandra - Страница 8

Dear Journal,

I guess that’s how you’re supposed to start a journal entry, isn’t it? I’ve never written a journal before. Or I might have, as a kid at school or something, but I can’t remember that far back.

I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Mary. Hello. It’s a while since I’ve written anything, actually. I used to write a lot, I found it cathartic. Anyway, here I am, making a start. I might not be doing everything Doctor Sarah advised in our last session, but at least I’m doing this. Mark used to say I never followed through with anything. ‘Slacker,’ he’d call me, as though he was one to talk. Doctor Sarah said keeping a journal will help to record my thoughts and feelings, so I can catalogue my moods and ‘compartmentalise my issues’, or whatever it is she calls it. She wants me to keep track of any changes. It helps to put things in words sometimes; it makes things seem smaller when you can fit them into a little box. At least, that’s what Doctor Sarah tells me.

There’s a quote I’ve got stuck in my head. I can’t remember where I heard it, but it goes: ‘The only constant is change.’ A profound truth summed up in a paradox. It’s pretty fitting to my current situation. Nothing is permanent, so you’d better not get too attached to anything, right? I mean, why waste your energy? But we do. It’s human nature. People, possessions, ideas – we latch on like molluscs, suctioning for what we crave, whatever we think is going to get us through. The good news? Whatever terrible situation you may find yourself in, it will pass. The bad news? The things you depend on – really depend on – pass too. Often when you least expect it. Often before you realise you’re dependent to begin with.

But I digress. So, changes. Where to begin? The biggest one.

I’ve left.

I got tingles just writing that. Though not good tingles – yet. I’m hoping that will come in time. Yes, there was that initial euphoria – freedom! The world had opened up and suddenly I was able to be a part of it. I wasn’t hiding anymore.

But then something happened, I don’t know what. It shrank back, I guess. Into a claustrophobic bubble I can’t escape. It’s as if reality is elastic sometimes; it can expand and contract, or change shape depending solely on how you view it.

My old fears have crept back in, as though they’d been waiting until there was room for them. And now, there is. They say the world gets smaller the more you see of it … perhaps that’s what’s happened to me. I’m exploring more of the world now, so it’s more accessible, less immense. I say that now, as if I’m the confident, brave person I’m supposed to be, but the truth is I struggle to leave the house most days. The world in here feels so much safer, like I have reign over it, while the world out there reigns over me.

It’s funny, the ‘heebie-jeebies’ (Doctor Sarah uses some of the lamest terms) kick in at the strangest times. Right now, for example, I can smell his cologne, as though he’s just been in the apartment. Which I know is impossible – it’s probably a waft of the cheap deodorant Ben douses himself with after a shower – but I still get a jolt. Sometimes I’ll see him in the faces of people walking past, or in the shadows of my room at night. Adrenalin prickles over my skin like an army of ants and I have to get out, have to walk, skip, do something or I’ll go mad.

The fear can be paralysing. Sometimes I don’t have the drive to do any of the above. Sometimes all I can bring myself to do is drink. That’s proving the hardest habit to break, like saying goodbye to a faithful friend right when you need them most.

I’m lucky. That’s what they all keep telling me. Really? Am I? It seems like a pretty ill-fitting word for someone like me. I prefer Doctor Sarah’s way of putting it. She says I’m brave (whether she means it or not). But lucky? That implies a lack of choice or control, as though I had no say in what happened to me or how it turned out.

When I left Melbourne, my best friend was willing to pack up her life and move out here with me in a nanosecond. But I’m not ‘lucky’ to have her – we both put energy into cultivating and sustaining this friendship. It wasn’t luck that drove me to leave, although it played a role in those final moments. And it wasn’t luck that got us this apartment. It was Cat’s tenacity and charm – and the fact that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wanted me to be somewhere where I could forget the past, she said. Like a change of location has the power to do that. But it’s a nice thought anyway.

It is pretty amazing, this place. Not so much the apartment itself – the rooms are small, and there’s a disproportionate number of bathrooms to bedrooms (1:4), but it’s brand new (still smells of paint), it’s high up on the fifth floor with a spacious communal dining/kitchen area, and it has a massive balcony out the front, overlooking the water.

We live right in the heart of the northern beaches of Sydney where I used to come as a child, and I have to say, being this close to the sea is a godsend when it’s this stinking hot. We can’t really afford to live here, of course, which is why we’re looking for a fourth boarder. Ben is studying to be a high-school teacher and works part-time as a support aide for children with disabilities, so you can imagine there’s fuck-all money in that. It’s noble, though. It suits him, I think. Cat is studying PR and works at the café under our apartment complex.

I don’t work – not yet – but I have enough money to pay my share of the rent. I don’t worry about money so much; it’s the least of my problems. But I know the others do, and it makes me feel guilty.

What I have to focus on, the most important thing, is staying safe. Things could definitely be worse – and they were – but that’s in the past. I’m getting better, and I’m letting go. Of course, it’ll take time. But it won’t take forever. Everything passes, doesn’t it?

Sometimes, at dawn, when I’ve been awake for hours, I get up and tiptoe through the sliding doors that lead from my bedroom to the balcony. There, in the morning mist, amid the salty scent of the ocean and the low roar of the waves, I watch the sun rise over the sea. It’s in those moments I feel a sense of calm mingled with a longing, a sadness I can’t quite place. Am I nostalgic for a life left behind or for one I never had? I suppose it doesn’t matter. Because, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I can almost imagine that everything will be okay.