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Back What I Did Save as PDF
Chapters (87)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Seventy-One
  75. Seventy-Two
  76. Seventy-Three
  77. Seventy-Four
  78. Seventy-Five
  79. Seventy-Six
  80. Seventy-Seven
  81. Seventy-Eight
  82. Seventy-Nine
  83. Eighty
  84. Epilogue
  85. Acknowledgements
  86. Extract from To Keep You Safe
  87. About the Author

I realise I’m holding my breath, waiting.

Waiting.

Save me from myself, Nick, I think savagely, desperately. Perhaps you were the only one who ever could. I love this man still, I suddenly think, both savagely and with sorrow. I love him and I have missed him and I have to stay silent about it. I suddenly feel the extent of how much I have missed him, through my addled, pain-filled, opiate-soaked brain. I want to step into his arms and press my face against his neck and inhale the smell of him. I don’t want to have to fight with our son anymore and I don’t want to try to save anyone anymore. I am tired and in him I could find rest.

I don’t want to do this, I realise. I don’t want to keep running. I don’t want to keep looking over my shoulder. I want to live somewhere where there are people; I want to drink a decent coffee; where I can get a dog and talk to other dog owners in the park; where Jack can go back to school. I want to smell the sea again. I want these things. These are normal things.

I think I even want a man. I can’t have this one anymore; there are too many feelings between us that aren’t just love. There’s too much disappointment, too much hurt for us to find a way back to each other. And he already has another – better – family. But I realise that I do want to love another man again. I want to be able to rest my head on someone’s shoulder again. I want to move to slow music with someone; I want to cook a curry for someone who wants to eat it. I want to go to bed with someone who makes me laugh; who thinks I’m interesting . . . sexy even. Golly, I want to find the depths of another who isn’t just me. I really, really want these things.

I can’t have any more of this: this isolation.

I’m an island and I have been all of my life. Growing up first with my maternal grandmother – and then when she died, my father’s sister – and my mother in prison, I never knew anyone who had the same experiences as I did. No one who knew what it’s like to look at your father dying with the blood pumping out of him, out of his neck, and –

– what it is to hold the knife. But holding the knife wasn’t the problem. It’s what I did before then that was the problem. That is what I can never truly, fully accept. It took anger, it took fear, it took force and it took for him to be asleep first. It took for me to feel it was the right thing.