But the world won’t keep it a secret. On my phone, I have the newest episode of my favorite true-crime podcast queued up, waiting, and I can feel the pressure building. This is the first time I’ll hear my story told start to finish by someone else. These hosts—Helen and Julia—sound like friends, but now I wonder what they’ll think of my choices, what version they’ll share.

How do you know you’re living a true-crime story? Maybe the better question is, how do you know you’ll survive?

C2C TRANSCRIPT

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Helen: This is a story about friends.

Julia: Friends like us.

Helen: Not exactly like us.

Julia: Hey, I’ve always said I’d kill for you.

Helen: And you’re the one I’ll call to help bury the bodies.

Julia: But if I did the killing, wouldn’t I be the one calling you?

Helen: That kind of thinking is exactly why we won’t get caught. Anyway, on this episode of Crime to Chat, we’ll introduce you to an idyllic neighborhood, a storybook life, two friends—and the twisted, bloody secrets underneath it all. But first, let me tell you about some of our amazing sponsors, who make this podcast possible.

CHAPTER

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AFFIRMATIONS ARE JUST lies we wish we could believe. But that didn’t stop me from using them.

The drive from New Jersey to Sugar Land, Texas, was mere minutes less than twenty-four hours, so I’d had ample time to practice, mentally chanting positive thoughts as if they could conjure a sunnier future. I couldn’t say whether or not they would, but the words did fill the space in my head where regret and fear usually bloomed. They’d gotten me through the drive, through the delivery of our furniture, all the way to this, our first morning in the new house.

If I repeated them faithfully enough, maybe I could forget that these unpacked boxes were all that remained between me and actually starting over.

My therapist back in Jersey had prescribed antidepressants, but first he’d made me promise to embrace his ideas for cognitive behavior modification. The first one I’d tried was keeping a bullet journal of goals for each day, then updating it with a record of what I actually did. For weeks, bullets written in brightly colored ink promised that I would take a walk, try a new recipe, call a friend. Finally I’d given up, leaving the pages blank.

Because writing stayed in bed for over a month was even worse than actually doing it.

So affirmations were my new thing. Along with everything else. My whole life was new.