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She thinks I don’t love her.
She thinks sometimes I cut myself because of her.
She thinks my father destroyed me. Made me incapable of love. Because the only way to keep him happy is to pretend he’s a good man, a good father, and the only way to do that is to shut down your senses entirely.
She thinks I’ve sacrificed her for a place in this family, and she can see it’s not my fault, that my father has controlled me so completely that I can’t be considered responsible. But still, it’s not good enough. I’m not good enough.
And she’s right.
77
BEFORE
I put as much pressure as I could on Jenna’s cut wrist, my fingers slippery, the blood soaking into my trousers.
Oh God. Did I know this was going to happen? Did I make this happen by telling her about this place?
What if my mum had attacked Tristan, and now I was responsible for the death of Frances’s daughter?
Voices, down below, in the hall. A girl’s voice called something down the stairs and then Rose was standing in the doorway and her mouth opened wide before she let out a mind-splitting scream.
She fell to the floor beside us and shoved me away but I held onto Jenna’s wrist.
‘WHAT DID YOU DO?’ Rose lashed at me with her nails and I reared away.
I shook my head. ‘She… I didn’t… Jenna did this.’
‘No.’ Rose clung to her friend. ‘Jenna?’
‘Rose?’ A voice came up the stairs. Footsteps.
‘MUM!’ Rose shouted.
The footsteps quickened and then Lydia came in. Her mouth made a straight line. ‘Jenna?’ Lydia rushed towards us, her gaze darting about. ‘I’m a nurse,’ she said, looking me in the eye, and I let her ease Jenna off me, down onto her side on the floor. She held her fingers over Jenna’s wrist and her face by Jenna’s cheek.
‘What happened?’ she asked, looking at me, at my hands covered in blood, then at Jenna’s other hand, her fingers slashed where she had been holding the slice of mirror.
‘I think she cut herself with this,’ I whispered, pointing at a dagger of silvered glass edged with red.
Lydia reached into her bag then pressed against the wound with a wad of gauze.
‘She killed her!’ Rose had her fists pressed hard either side of her face. ‘Miss Smith killed Jenna. Why are you even here? What is this place?’
My knees weakened. This is how it looks. ‘This is my father’s house,’ I said. ‘I told… I knew Jenna was struggling. I thought she might come here.’
‘Rose? Calm down,’ Lydia said.
‘What do you MEAN?’ Rose ran to the sink, picked up a tumbler and smashed it on the wall.
I didn’t know this would happen. Not really. Not for sure. If I had, I would’ve come sooner and stopped it. But Lydia knows what happened back then, and here I am covered in a Beaufort-Bradley’s blood.
78
NOW
‘When did it start?’ I ask.
I don’t know how much time has passed while I was reading the diary. Ava and Ash are still crying, cuddling, arguing with Mina while Tristan stands staring out the window. Lydia, who has come in now, sits with her head between her knees on the side of the bath, even though it’s full of bloody water.
