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Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Dedication
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. Chapter Forty-Two
  46. Chapter Forty-Three
  47. Chapter Forty-Four
  48. Chapter Forty-Five
  49. Chapter Forty-Six
  50. Chapter Forty-Seven
  51. Chapter Forty-Eight
  52. Chapter Forty-Nine
  53. Chapter Fifty
  54. Chapter Fifty-One
  55. Chapter Fifty-Two
  56. Chapter Fifty-Three
  57. Chapter Fifty-Four
  58. Chapter Fifty-Five
  59. Chapter Fifty-Six
  60. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  61. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  62. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  63. Epilogue
  64. Acknowledgements

My heart is pounding. When I went to sleep I had about five thousand followers. OK, it’s disingenuous for any woman on the internet to pretend like she doesn’t know exactly how many social media followers she has at any given time. I had five thousand, two hundred and seventy-one followers, a slow to grow number that’s had the odd bump from a couple of web pieces for Panache and a very silly viral joke about bees. My Twitter profile tells me that I now have 28.9 thousand followers. And counting. They’ve fallen onto Internet Me in the night, like fresh snow.

Another tweet that has been retweeted into oblivion just reads ‘SLUT SLUT SLUT SLUT WHOR SULT SLUT.’ A celebrity dermatologist turned celebrity angry right-wing campaigner is taking aim at The Know—‘APPALLING example to set for young women’. But some people are kind. ‘So powerful!’ ‘LOVE your writing’. ‘Thank you’. ‘Brave’. It’s 7.48 a.m. I should have got out of the shower nine minutes ago. I’m damp with sweat. My pyjamas are sticking to me. What. Does. It. Mean? Am I in trouble? Am I famous?

I decide to turn my phone off. It takes a little while to remember how to do this—and then I get into the shower. Ariana Grande knows who I am, and I live in a flat where the bathroom has a carpet. Somewhere out there, Emily Ratajkowski is drinking champagne on a marble plinth and thinking about something that happened to me seven years ago, while old shower water squelches between my toes.

As always, I do not have the right outfit for the day ahead. I strongly suspect that all of us are shopping in an attempt to cosplay our own lives—and I can’t ever get it right. Where are the bold, sexy, edgy clothes I need? Who took them and replaced them with this stuff? Ironically, that former celebrity crafter would approve. At least until she saw the safety pins holding up the hems. Anyway, as much as I want to look glamorous and assured and be the poster girl for twenty-first century sex-having, I would prefer to leave the house disguised, swaddled in blankets, with a false moustache and a crash helmet. Jeans and a jumper it is.