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Back The Things We Don't See Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. PART ONE: Who is She if Not Everyone Else’s?
  4. CHAPTER 1
  5. CHAPTER 2
  6. CHAPTER 3
  7. CHAPTER 4
  8. CHAPTER 5
  9. CHAPTER 6
  10. CHAPTER 7
  11. CHAPTER 8
  12. PART TWO: Take the Bullet Out
  13. CHAPTER 9
  14. CHAPTER 10
  15. CHAPTER 11
  16. CHAPTER 12
  17. CHAPTER 13
  18. CHAPTER 14
  19. CHAPTER 15
  20. CHAPTER 16
  21. CHAPTER 17
  22. CHAPTER 18
  23. CHAPTER 19
  24. CHAPTER 20
  25. CHAPTER 21
  26. CHAPTER 22
  27. CHAPTER 23
  28. CHAPTER 24
  29. CHAPTER 25
  30. CHAPTER 26
  31. CHAPTER 27
  32. CHAPTER 28
  33. PART THREE: Orion Waves
  34. CHAPTER 29
  35. CHAPTER 30
  36. CHAPTER 31
  37. CHAPTER 32
  38. CHAPTER 33
  39. CHAPTER 34
  40. CHAPTER 35
  41. CHAPTER 36
  42. CHAPTER 37
  43. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  44. AUTHOR INTERVIEW
  45. COPYRIGHT

Weeds grow from her hollow eye sockets. Slowly at first, but then they’re growing towards me, and there’re vines and thorns and they’re digging into my eyes too, and it burns. It burns – I’m sorry, stop, stop! – and I try to bat them off but they won’t go, and it feels like I’m striking something solid and I –

Open! My! Eyes!

Hit, hit, hit.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Mona! Mona, stop! Stop! Stop!’

Peyton. Not Celeste.

I settle my arms and lower them to my sides. I’m straddling her. Her stomach rises and falls rapidly.

She stares up at me, face ghoulish and shadowed, eyes cutting through the dark. ‘Mona?’

I’m here. I’m in the room.

‘Peyton – what was I …?’

‘Were you asleep?’

‘Yes. Oh my God, I was dreaming.’ I hold my head in my hands, squeeze my skull together to try and stop the throbbing, try to coax myself out of the murky fog of unconsciousness. I move myself off her bed and hover there, next to her, unsure what to do now. ‘I’m sorry. Are you hurt?’

Even in the dark I can see the inflamed rims of her eyes. ‘No.’ Peyton rolls over and faces the wall. ‘No, I’m not hurt.’

I can’t stop clenching and unclenching my fists. ‘Peyton, I’m so sorry, I –’

‘Just go to sleep, Mona.’

Clench, unclench. ‘I get nightmares sometimes; it’s not me, it’s –’

‘Go to fucking sleep.’

I’m losing it. I can’t stop seeing the woods. I want to vomit. Her face my face her face my face.

I get back into bed and close my eyes. I count to ten. I count down from ten. I think of drowning. I think of falling from a height. I lie in the dark like a corpse until the day’s first small light, an awful dead forgotten thing.

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24

WEDNESDAY 9 JUNE

I’m in bed all morning, motionless, I think, because I can’t stand the thought of opening my eyes. Especially not while Peyton’s still there – her stirring wakes me up but I don’t let her know. I can’t bear to face her. I almost want to sit up, to mutter an apology bleached and exposed by the daylight instead of my hurried and strange night-time one, but I have no idea what the words even are. Humiliated is an understatement.