Louise O`Neill

There was no one there to hear them scream no. Or maybe there was; but that no wasn't deemed worthy of being heard.

Fantasizing about taking a strange man home with her, hoping he would break her in the ways she needed to be broken in order to forget.

The Ballinatoom Girl. Her story told and retold until it's not her story any more.
She alleges. She claims. She says.
I don't have anything to say, but they want to hear it anyway. Journalists from Jezebel, from xoJane, from the Guardian, from the New York Times. Everyone wants me to tell my story.
I don't have a story.

'No.'
The word comes automatically. No. No. No. It's all I say these days. It is as if I am making up for the time when I couldn't say it. When I wasn't given the chance to say it.

I wish l could tell Jamie that I did her a favour. I wish, could explain to her that she is the lucky one. If could go back, pretend like nothing had happened, I would.

The therapist says it's important to process the memories, it's important to feel your feelings, Emma, but if I don't even know what I actually remember, what are real memories, what are mine, and what's been implanted inside there by the Easy Emma page, and Ms McCarthy, and the guards, and Bryan, and Ali and Maggie, and my parents, and the newspapers, and the outraged callers to The Ned O'Dwyer Show. What if I am just making it all up, like Paul claims? Veronica Horan wrote about the increase in false accusations, how women were claiming that they had repressed memories of sexual abuse, when in fact it was all in their imagination.

'What's prompted this decision?'
"Oh,' I say, and I sound like I mean it, 'you know what the statistics are like for conviction. I just don't see the point of putting myself through all that when I'm never going to win anyway.'

Mon corps ne m'appartient plus. Ils ont gravé leur nom partout dessus.

Son visage se décrispe quand je lui tire la langue. Il croit que chaque pilule que je prends dissipera le brouillard opaque qui me cache de lui. Il veut Emmie. Il veut retrouver sa vraie sœur, pas cette version d'elle.

Elle me glisse un regard en biais pour voir si j'ai remarqué, et je joue l'innocente. Elle descend le petit flacon jaune, et je sens que je me détends rien que de le voir. Elle les compte.

Je me demande si Conor sait combien je lui suis reconnaissante pour ses mails. Je me demande s'il sait qu'ils sont le meilleur moment de ma journée.

Je ne comprends pas comment, dans un pays où il pleut autant que celui-ci, nous pouvons subir une sécheresse.