THIS BOOK WILL KILL YOU

5_pinch_

But here I am, back in my room, looking at stories. I don't even remember the walk home, not that it takes long. My laptop's open and humming, and creeepy.com's on screen, Cara's page staring back at me. I'm crosslegged on the bed and I feel okay. This is my room, my house, my space. I won't let her scare me here.

No more stories, Flint had said. But I think the stories are important. They were important to Cara, anyway. And I can't just forget about it. It's like telling somebody to forget about the fact they're bleeding out. I'm not even sure why I feel that way, but there's a ball of anxiety inside my chest that's bigger than my heart—that seems to have swallowed my heart whole—and I know if I don't do something about it then it's going to start eating me from the inside out.

I scan down her info page again, but I didn't miss anything. There's a box for comments she's made on other people's writing, and I read the first two. Both are for a story called _pinch_.

hey wait I used to have bad dreams about being tickled too, when I was a kid, and I thought I saw this building, but is this something you madr up or did you here it from somewhere? iv got chills.

It was dated over a month ago, and the second comment was added a few minutes after the first.

like, when I say I saw it I didn't mean for real or anything. I'm not crazy. Or maybe I am lol. How do you delete comments???

It's like listening to a ghost talking, and I still can't quite fathom the idea that the girl who wrote that, whose delicate fingers traced their way over her keyboard, isn't here any more. I'm suddenly wondering what will happen to my stories when I die, and the thought of them being up there forever, a little piece of me left behind for eternity, makes a shaft of dread yawn open inside me. I click on the link to the story because it's the only thing I can do to chase the cold away.

_pinch_

added by _unknown_ on 21.02.2016.

I haven't read it before, and the author is anonymous. It's a popular story, though. There are almost a thousand likes, over a hundred comments. I slide down the page to see that it isn't long.

I don't want to read it, and I don't even know why.

I don't want to read it, but I do, because she did.

_pinch_

added by _unknown_ on 21.02.2016.

When I was fourteen my parents divorced, and being the kind of girl who loved her fun dad more than her bitch mom, I went to stay with him. He lost most of his savings and his pension in the split, though god knows mom didn't deserve it, so he could only afford a gnarly apartment on the second floor of a ten storey walk-up in Sh--di--h. He lost my brother, too, because Jason was twelve and too young to detach himself from mom's teat, so to speak. But Jase would come visit us every now and again, sleeping in my room, and my dad had a PS4 so he was happy about it.

Dad's place was... I guess old is the best word for it. Not, like, antiquey, or quaint, not Downton Abby for sure. It was more like an old person. It stank of piss out in the corridor, pieces were falling off it—wallpaper peeled like old skin, and the ceilings were broken-boned, bowed in the middle. It was a building that sat there day after day waiting for death, and I was amazed it held on for as long as it did.

To begin with, it was good. After months of listening to my parents threatening to knock each others' teeth out I relished the silence, the calm. I mean, it wasn't actual silence, you could hear everything from every single apartment in the building (and you heard some weird things, for sure), but it was a kind of silence because I wasn't crouched in the corner of my room trying not to hear it. I wasn't waiting for the door to smash open and their rage to spill inside and drown me. The rooms were big—mine easily wide enough for two beds—and I felt like I had a palace all to myself. I'd sit and read, or listen to music, or draw. I was actually happy, for the first time in forever.