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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

And when it was there I could finally stop thinking of my mother. Because I don’t know if she remembered or not but she’d bought me one of those kits when I was a kid. I’d opened the paint pots before making the cast and used them to paint a picture. I thought she would be impressed, but she only scolded me for not using the kit properly. She told me I was too impatient. I had so few memories of living with my mum before she was sent to prison, I was sorry to be reminded of a negative one.

But my sad childhood and extra cleaning aside, I was pleased that Jack was finally showing some passion. Then one day I’d had too much codeine and made a very stupid, very regrettable mistake.

Seventeen

seventeen:

– before –

My love for codeine meant that I sometimes took risks.

I’d been able to take more than I’d hoped because I’d done an agency shift at a private nursing home and the senior nurse on duty was a very lovely, very unobservant woman.

It felt great to have a proper stash and I was feeling a bit off because it was my mother’s birthday and, when push came to shove, I just missed her and wanted to be with her, and although it’d been years, I wished I could turn back time and use the poster paints differently. I knew it seemed like a strange thing to get hung up about, but losing her at just eight-years-old was just painful. Every time I went into Jack’s room, seeing the Peter Rabbit opened up old wounds of missing her and missing her and missing her, and I just wanted to escape feeling crap.

It was a lovely day in June and the sun was shining; it had been a hard spring because Nick was working extra shifts to pay for the new bedroom carpets and a few other bits and bobs we’d splashed out on, and I was feeling low.

So I popped an extra tablet and maybe a small amount – maybe even only a couple of milligrams of diazepam – but it made all the difference and I finally felt candyfloss happy.

I’d put my new headphones on so I could listen to my music without Jack covering his ears. With Nick out of the house I could clean as much as I liked without any snide comments.