The worst part of it wasn’t the end, it wasn’t the jeering and the mockery, the insulting her appearance, it was what Laura had said earlier. You’re lonely and you’re bored and you think I’m like you. And Miriam did, she did think Laura was like her. That was the worst part of it, being seen for what she was, what she felt. Being read and being rejected.
In the cabin of her boat, in her sleeping quarters, Miriam had an annotated copy of The One Who Got Away, a copy on which she’d marked up relevant sections, on which she’d noted key similarities to her own memoir. The pages toward the back of the book were thick with her scrawl, blue ink soaking through the pages where she had pressed her pen against them, her notes all but unreadable to anyone but her, where she railed against Myerson’s twisting of her tale, against all the things he’d got wrong, all the things he’d got right.
* * *
Small things throw your life off course. What happened to Miriam wasn’t a small thing. It was a very big thing, but it started with a small thing. It started when Lorraine said she couldn’t stand two hours of Mr. Picton’s coffee breath, and biology was so boring anyway, and there was a sale at Miss Selfridge. Miriam didn’t even want to bunk off; she thought they’d get into trouble. Don’t be such a wuss, Lorraine said.
Miriam didn’t want to argue—they’d only just made up from the last fight, over a boy called Ian Gladstone whom Miriam had liked for ages and with whom Lorrie got off at a party. Miriam found out about it later. I’m sorry, Lorrie said, but he’s not interested in you. I asked if he liked you and he said no. It’s not my fault he chose me.
They’d not spoken for a week after that, but neither of them really had any other friends, and it wasn’t like Ian Gladstone was even worth it. He kisses like a washing machine, Lorrie said, laughing, making circles in the air with her tongue.
A small thing, then.
At the farmhouse, Jez rolled a joint. He was sitting on a legless sofa in the main room of the house, his long legs bent, knees up by his ears. He licked the paper, running his fat tongue along the glue-tipped edge, rolling the cigarette gently between forefinger and thumb. He lit it, took a hit, and handed it to Lorraine, who was standing awkwardly to one side of the sofa. Miriam loitered near the door. Lorraine took a toke, two, then waved it at Miriam, who shook her head. Lorraine widened her eyes—Come on—but Miriam shook her head again. Jez hauled himself up to his feet, took the joint from Lorraine, and wandered slowly out of the room, heading deeper into the house, away from the front door. “Anyone want a beer?” he called out over his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” Miriam hissed to Lorraine. “I want to get out of here.” Lorraine nodded okay. She looked out the dirty window, toward the car, and then back at Miriam.
“Maybe I should say we need to go back to school?” she said.
“No, let’s just—”
Jez came back, too quickly, holding two beers. “I think,” he said, not looking at either of them, “Lorraine and I are going to spend a bit of time on our own.”
Lorraine laughed and said, “Nah, that’s all right, I think we actually have to get going now,” and Jez put the bottles down on the floor, stepped quickly over to Lorraine, and punched her in the throat.
Miriam’s legs were jelly; they wouldn’t work properly. She tried to run but she kept stumbling over things, and he caught her before she reached the front door, grabbing hold of her ponytail and pulling her back, ripping the hair out of her head. She fell to the ground. He dragged her back into the heart of the house, through the filth on the floor, the cigarette packets and the mouse shit. Lorraine was lying on her side, her eyes were open, wide and wild, she was making a weird, rasping sound when she breathed. Miriam called out to her and Jez told her if she opened her fucking mouth one more time he was going to kill her.
He took her into another room, an empty one, at the back of the house, and shoved her to the ground. “Just wait here,” he said to her. “It won’t be long now.” He closed the door and locked it.
（What won’t be long?）
She tried the doorknob, pulling at the door, then pushing it, running at it, crashing against it.
（What won’t be long?）
She couldn’t be certain, but she thought she could hear Lorraine crying.
（What won’t be long?）
Behind her, there was a sash window, big enough for her to climb through. It was locked, but the thin pane of glass was old and cracked. It wasn’t double-glazed. Miriam took off her T-shirt and wrapped it around her hand. She tried to punch through the glass but she was too tentative. She didn’t want to make too much noise. She didn’t want to hurt herself.