The only one who could stop him.

Chapter Forty-Four

Marie

One week ago

Marie drifted around her flat after her sisters had left. Although they hadn’t been here for long, their absence was noticeable everywhere; from the dip in the sofa where Carly had sat, to Leah’s untouched tea on the table, and the pangs in Marie’s heart. They hadn’t agreed to the TV interview but it hadn’t gone as badly as it could have done. Despite their initial outrage – the awkwardness that always seemed to settle around them whenever they met – there was something else. Hope. This year, Marie hadn’t tried to justify the unjustifiable – absolving herself of the blame that pressed on her shoulders like a concrete cape – by steering the annual conversation in its usual direction – the it wasn’t as bad as we thought, was it? and it’s made us into the people we are today – as though the abduction had been a good thing.

It hadn’t.

And that knowing. That godawful knowing – crawling across her skin – that she could have stopped it. That she should have stopped it. The constant itch of guilt that she couldn’t scratch, that alcohol couldn’t numb. That couldn’t be sated by the stream of men that woke up in her bed. She didn’t trust any of them and she wondered if she had ever been really loved by the many hands that had touched her. She didn’t believe she had.

But her sisters had loved her once. They still did. She knew this from the way they would drop everything to sit in a freezing theatre while she overacted for a barely-there audience, Leah’s hands slapping together like an over-enthusiastic seal, the way they had done when Marie had put on plays when they were small.

‘Again, Marie, again.’

The way they scolded her when she returned after disappearing on a tour she hadn’t told them about, promising them she’d let them know next time. Not telling them that there hadn’t been a tour, instead a round of dirty bars and faceless men and a pounding headache that she dulled with vodka whenever her hangover crept back in. Whenever her thoughts crept back in.

Sometimes it got too much, their love – and yet she craved it, but not as much as she craved forgiveness. She tried to be a good sister but she was the shadow twin. The darkness to Leah’s light. As much as she needed to be around her sisters, the burden of truth always sent her scuttling away from them again. She wanted them to miss her but equally she wanted them to forget her.

It was all such a mess.

Marie picked up the plate of biscuits before setting them back down again. She was twitchy, unable to settle. Her veins felt empty as her craving built until the thought of a hit was all-consuming, but her stash was as empty as her purse. God, why had she slipped into drugs? It was so much easier, so much more socially acceptable when it was just the alcohol. But she’d gained a reputation as a drunk and once the acting offers dried up she had thought that if she stayed sober but dabbled in substances occasionally just to take the edge off, it would be easier.