Today, when I woke up, I opened my eyes and saw a man sitting on a chair in the room in which I found myself. He was sitting perfectly still. Watching me. Waiting.
I didn’t panic. I didn’t know who he was, but I didn’t panic. Some part of me knew that everything was all right. That he had a right to be there.
‘Who are you?’ I said. ‘How did I get here?’ He told me. I felt no horror, no disbelief. I understood. I went to the bathroom and approached my reflection as I might a long-forgotten relative, or the ghost of my mother. Cautious. Curious. I dressed, getting used to my body’s new dimensions and unexpected behaviours, and then ate breakfast, dimly aware that, once, there might have been three places at the table. I kissed my husband goodbye and it didn’t feel wrong to do so; then, without knowing why, I opened the shoebox in the wardrobe, and found this journal. I knew straight away what it was. I had been looking for it.
The truth of my situation now sits nearer the surface. It is possible that one day I will wake up and know it already. Things will begin to make sense. Even then, I know, I will never be normal. My history is incomplete. Years have vanished, without trace. There are things about myself, my past, that no one can tell me. Not Dr Nash — who knows me only through what I have told him, what he has read in my journal and what is written in my file — and not Ben, either. Things that happened before I met him. Things that happened after but that I chose not to share. Secrets.
But there is one person who might know. One person who might tell me the rest of the truth. Who I had been seeing in Brighton. The real reason my best friend vanished from my life.
I have read this journal. I know that tomorrow I will meet Claire.