by Claire McGowan
Prologue
This is it, she thought. Her head was strangely clear despite the blood filling up her nose and mouth. An inch from her eye, the floor of the toilet was that kind of speckled plastic you got in public buildings, the dots like islands marooned in a sea of blue. Funny how she'd never looked at it properly before. But yes, that was it, little islands, on a vast blue sea, and every one filled with small people, somewhere a million miles from here. She heard distant sounds, like someone talking far far away, a voice on a crossed phone line. It was a whimpering, like an animal in pain. It was coming from inside her.
This is it. She was bleeding from her mouth, one eye wouldn't open, and she couldn't get up; something had happened to her legs, they'd given way or they wouldn't work or...something. Maybe she would lie here forever. Maybe if she just stayed here and closed her eyes she could go back and none of it would ever have happened.
This is it. Through the roaring in her ears, she had the thought very clearly, as if looking down on herself crumpled up on the floor. This was what it felt like when you hit rock bottom, when you'd lost everything that mattered. Rock bottom, and it smelled of bleach, and tasted like the sour, metallic tang of blood.
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