Page 30 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

Kitty and Antoinette’s Airbnb, West Hollywood, Los Angeles

I can’t sleep.

For someone with literal bodies in my basement, I generally have a pretty clear conscience and don’t suffer with insomnia.

But tonight I cannot sleep for shit.

I’ve tried everything.

Lying on my back.

Lying on my front.

Lying on my side with a pillow between my knees.

I’ve listened to two full guided meditations and I think I’m actually able to astral project but I still can’t actually get to sleep.

Even though I am exhausted.

Every time I close my eyes, I see Tor’s face. Her face from our call earlier, not her face how I want to remember her. I see the bruised, swollen, broken version of her. And that’s usually followed up by Ron Wilde’s lipless face in the sink at the Chateau, staring at me. Two really unwelcome images when I’m trying to drift into a state of rest and relaxation.

I give up and get out of bed.

Maybe I should go and ask Agnes if she’s got anything that can knock me out.

When I was little and couldn’t sleep, my mother used to make me warm milk – I wasn’t vegan when I was a kid – and sit with me. I wish Carmella was here now to stroke my hair and tell me to think about nice things until all the horrible things go away. But she’s not. I have to self-parent.

I creep out of my room and down the stone stairs.

The villa is too quiet.

I expected LA to be like London, motorbikes, cars, sirens, people shouting in the street. Proof of life even at three o’clock in the morning. Maybe this neighbourhood is one of the peaceful ones. I can’t really complain about that. It’s literally what I wanted.

I pad through to the kitchen, thinking I’ll make myself a herbal tea and doomscroll Insta until I feel sleepy. But when I flick on the lights, I almost scream.

Antoinette is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of cereal. She is also very much wide awake.

‘Oh,’ she says when she sees me. ‘Hello.’

‘You scared the living shit out of me,’ I say. ‘Why are you up?’

She shovels a spoonful of cereal into her mouth before answering.

‘Can’t sleep,’ she says and I watch as bits of Lucky Charms fly across the floor. ‘Thought you were a burglar.’

‘A burglar that turns on the lights?’

She stares at me. ‘Burglars need to see things, Kitty.’

‘Never mind,’ I say as I fill the kettle and click it on. ‘Tea?’

But Antoinette doesn’t answer.

I look at her and she is staring into space like a kid from a creepy early noughties movie.

‘Antoinette?’

‘I can still feel it,’ she says, her voice is detached, eerie.