All the Little Things by Sarah Lawton (the best books to read txt) 📕

‘Vivian! We do not hit! What’s wrong with you today?’

‘Nothing!’

Carol plonked down the plate next to the book and the hidden pages. ‘Suit yourself! And get changed please, jammies on. Bring your school shirt down and put it in the wash.’ As she came down the stairs the front door opened and Rachel came in, her phone pressed to her ear. Carol didn’t understand what was so important that her daughter had to be available at all hours, glued to that damned lump of metal and plastic. It was nearly seven o’clock! She opened her mouth to speak to her, but Rachel just raised a palm and went past her into the kitchen, leaving her stranded and gaping like a fish. Two generations of her family who didn’t think she was worth talking to.

The next morning after dropping Vivian at school – Rachel being long gone, as usual – Carol decided to spring clean. At least that was what she told herself. She ran a duster over all the furniture in Vivian’s room. Everything was as it always was – neat. Her books were aligned on the shelf by height. All her clothes were neatly folded in her drawers – refolded, in fact. Carol hadn’t put them in like that. Such an exacting child.

It was hard work, the cleaning. Tugging the drawers away from the walls to reach behind for anything that might have fallen. Nothing but a hair bobble and a lonely dust bunny. She changed the sheets, turning the mattress, even though it wasn’t the season.

It was when she pulled out the bed to hoover down the side that she noticed the threads in the box frame, where the fabric had been cut to create a hiding place.

Vivian

As soon as I get back I get straight in the shower. I want to wash tonight off me, rinse away the consuming anger that I’m still feeling – I can’t get rid of it. But it doesn’t work, it’s still there. We went through this so much in therapy: ways to get rid of these vicious feelings. It isn’t my fault, and what happened before wasn’t my fault, either. Our group is broken, Tristan’s stupid car crash didn’t bring us back together. It’s all broken apart and I can’t bear it any more. I can’t fix it now. It’s done.

The shower eventually gets cold and I step out and head for my room. I decide to text Alex, even though he’s probably dreaming. I tell him about what Molly did to me. He doesn’t reply, and I fall asleep looking at the empty screen. My own dreams fall into each other, Alex and Molly, I don’t know where one begins and the other ends. I feel pulled apart, like their hands have reached inside me. I hear the snick of the rat’s ribs breaking, only it’s my bones that break and my insides, thickly purple, meaty, that are exposed to their grasping, tugging fingers. I always dream of red hands, of bloody red hands. It wasn’t my fault!

I wake up late, sweating. The weather is insane this summer, it feels like it’s never going to be cool again. Memories from yesterday and last night crowd in like they do after that brief second of waking forgetfulness, and make me want to scratch at my skin, pull it right off, but I don’t. I just get up and shower, again. My arms are sore and aching and I struggle to lift them to wash my hair. I feel so heavy and exhausted.

All the lightness and excitement that I felt after my afternoon with Alex has just ebbed away, and I want to get it back as soon as I can. I want to smother the awful nothing I’m feeling.

As I get dressed I look at myself in the mirror that hangs in my wardrobe. I don’t look any different from yesterday morning, before Alex, before Molly. What is it that they see in me? Two people who could have anyone, not wanting each other, but me instead. I open my hand, look at it, at the lines on it. I make a fist, angry again that I didn’t realise what was going on with Molly before. I could have stopped everything that went wrong, if I hadn’t been so blind. She would have done anything for me, I could have made her do anything. I understand it now, the power that comes from being wanted, the control it gives you. How weak she must have felt, being the one wanting for once. But even now, in the bright morning, I can’t see any way it could have been fixed. It’s too late to use her wanting, everything’s too broken. And besides, I have Alex now. I don’t need Molly any more.

Mum is sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee. I hate coffee. I get myself juice from the fridge instead. It’s cold and sweet and I feel it sticking to my tongue. I sit opposite Mum but she doesn’t look up.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her, not actually caring but wanting a distraction from the pounding in my head.

‘Nothing, babe,’ she says, looking up but not at me, and plastering a weird smile on her face. ‘Just a bit tired. Work not going very well this week, what with everything that’s going on.’

As usual she’s commandeering other people’s drama and making it about her. She’s got a little purple mark on her shoulder and it matches the circles under her eyes.

‘Are you looking forward to Dorset next week?’

No. Our stupid annual painting holiday is the last thing I want to do; I want to stay here where Alex is, but then I think that getting away for a while could be a good thing, just in case.

‘Yeah, sort of.’

‘We can go straight from school on Friday if you get everything together. Have you got much washing that needs doing?’

‘No.’

The inanity. How can