“Sort of. You can’t avoid yourself with a bottle of lemonade. Not that alcohol really lets you do that. It’s just a trick of the light. You still end up face-to-face with yourself in the end, you’re just doing it with a hangover and no idea what you did last night.”
“Ah, sitting with the uncomfortable sensations instead of avoiding them. Yes. I’m trying this. I’ve been reading about anxiety.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s good. I feel hopeful. Maybe I won’t always feel so afraid.”
“Have you thought about medication?”
“I have. I think it’s not for me right now. But I’m not ruling it out. I’m trying the Ormer method of managing the mind.”
“Which is?”
“Fresh air, proper food and talking the bad stuff out loud to anyone who’ll listen, which is probably everyone because this is an island full of eavesdroppers. And if those tricks fail you, go and pet one of the cart horses.”
“I’m sure the National Health Service will be prescribing cart horses in no time.”
She smiled, and then yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “I should get to bed. Sleep is part of the Ormer method, too. I’m in the little room, right?”
I didn’t want her to go to bed. I wanted her to stay here and talk to me all night, or at the very least to go tomybed, to slip into the double with me tonight. Every night.
Completely fucking obsessed.
“Before you go…Coming back to the trusting-each-other thing,” I said, trying to gather myself.
She paused on her way toward the bedroom door. “Yeah?”
“It would be a lot easier if you didn’t lie to me.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You didn’t tell me what you saw Rog doing. If you had…”
“I get I did the wrong thing. But I wasn’t being dishonest. There’s a difference between withholding something and lying, Jones.”
I let her go with that, but I pondered it for a while.Isthere a difference between withholding and lying? I’d have said yes, once, but now I’m not so sure. A lie is a lie, right? However you tell it, or don’t.
Which makes me a total hypocrite, doesn’t it?
CJ
Sunday September 21st 2025
OK. So, in the interest of talking the feelings out loud to anyone who will listen, including my own diary: my anxiety has been bad since the argument with Jones. Feel like the whole of my insides are sort of poisonous. Churning and swilling around like something toxic in my belly. And my brain’s full of panicky white noise, and I’m justworseat everything right now, which makes me more anxious, because I get anxious about being bad at stuff, so here I am, swan-diving into a vicious spiral.
Right! Cheering up now!
Sorry, I’m actually done with this fake positivity. This is my diary, for God’s sake. Who am I pretendingfor?
Guess it was naive, really, thinking this place could be my dream life. Your dream life isn’t a place, it’s not a job, it’s not a persona you give yourself: independent mama-to-be in her Boden dress! It’s a dream. Not real.
The fear’s real. That’s about it.
Tuesday September 23rd 2025
Hey. It’s me again. Charlie Jones, instead of a terrified little fawn-type creature wandering around in her clothes.
It’s good to be back. The feeling is still there, but I can see glimpses through the clouds now. The world doesn’t look totally terrifying, all is not lost—I know I’m OK, even if I don’t completely feel it.
