When is a lie a lifeline? To Tori lies are everything.
ZOE wants to end her life. But she can’t just leave a note. She needs to say goodbye to boyfriend JAMES and best friend ALISON.
TORI is waiting in the wings to fill the space ZOE will leave behind, wanting to claim both James and Alison for herself.
But with ZOE still alive and Alison’s childhood friend RUBY now on the scene vying to fill the gap, TORI realises she has her work cut out.
Just what lengths is TORI willing to go to in order to claim Alison and James for herself?
Extract
I’m sharing an excerpt from Chapter 2 when Alison finds out her best friend Zoe was discovered collapsed on the London Underground after taking an overdose. Enjoy!
***
I have no idea how to process this – any of it. Not only Zoe wanting to die, but her choosing the tube as her final resting place? Surrounded by strangers?
There’s a junior doctor staring at me, waiting for me to say something. Words rush through my brain faster than any train on the London Underground, but none of them make the short route to my tongue. So instead I concentrate on staring back at him.
He’s skinny, but seems surprisingly normal in comparison to the news he’s just delivered. Considering his build, the long sleeve T-shirt he’s wearing under his scrubs is probably to keep him warm in the cool hospital air. But it could also be a makeshift force field between him and his scrubs, to protect him from the emotional side of his job.
The hospital is the only place I’ve been today that hasn’t been like a sauna – the tube, the office, the client meeting. But after the news I’ve just been given, I long to be anywhere else, melting on the outside not the inside. I flex my tongue.
“The tube?” – it’s all I can manage.
But it’s enough. He was simply waiting for me to speak as a sign that I was ready for the next piece of information. He shifts forward in his seat, the way someone does when they want to be gentle, protect you, treat you like a child. I mentally brace myself – what could be worse than the news I’ve already been given?
“The overdose Zoe took was a serious one, and her liver is in distress, but she’s very much alive. At the moment.”
He waits for more words from me. I want to ask what he means by “at the moment” – is she still dying or not? I search the trains of thought hurtling through my head for the right words.
“But the tube?”
He doesn’t know the answer. How can he? What explanation is there for such alien behaviour?
“A Paracetamol overdose is potentially a slow death. It can take a good few days, often a week or more. People take an overdose, pass out and wake up shortly afterwards, believing they’ve survived their actions. But often they are just at the beginning of their problems. So she might very well be relieved to be alive, not realising that she could have done irreversible damage.”
I stare down at my feet while I let the words sink in. I look up at him again when the pause becomes uncomfortable.
“It will take a few days before we can fully assess the situation,” he explains. “And the treatments we have don’t always work. Unfortunately, we can’t always offer a liver transplant to someone who chooses to take an overdose.”
I wait for him to tell me how Zoe is one of the ones that’s going to be saved.
“She’s sleeping at the moment, but I can take you to her if you want.”
I nod. He can’t make me that promise.
Thank you, Sarah Marie Graye and RachelsRandomResources
About the author
British writer Sarah Marie Graye is the author of The Butterfly Effect series, which looks at suicides and those left behind. The Second Cup, the first book in the series, was published in July 2017, and this Blog Tour is to celebrate the launch of the second book in the series, The Victoria Lie
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