The Rule of Three

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UPAlready a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox. For Liz DON’TFORGET THERULE OF THREEIT’SCOMING FOR YOULIKE ITCAME FOR ME First thing: take a deep breath.I can’t overstate how important it is to breathe. Do it now. Inhale, long and slow. Hold it in. Exhale even slower. See, you’re calmer already, aren’t you? I need you calm because you need to listen.I know you. I know you’re terrified and overwhelmed. I know no one believes you, and you’re desperate and going out of your mind. I know you because I was you. I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I knew it all. I was so very, very wrong.I’ll tell you everything that happened. Every little detail. As it happened, how it happened. Because maybe you’ll see something I failed to notice. I know the answer is here somewhere. I just couldn’t find it myself.So pay attention. Pay attention to every single detail.Before we start, you must remember one important fact.What you’ll read didn’t save me.But perhaps, together, we can save you.Good luck,[Redacted] AMY OneI wasn’t always crazy, but I was never sane.I learned this the hard way, of course, and as with all the best lessons, I understood it too late to heed it. What should I have done? Could I have changed things? The questions don’t so much swirl around my mind as circle the drain of my sanity. Which leads to another question: would knowing what I know now have helped me at the beginning?Maybe by the end you’ll be able to answer that.You better hope you can.I’m no longer scared, which is a first. I’ve spent my whole life afraid: of the world, of pain, of fear itself. Fear has been my lifelong companion, the friend I didn’t want but who never took the hint. In that way, it was my one true friend, my most loyal friend, yet now even that friend has deserted me.I can’t say I’m at peace – the mad can never rest – but I’m content as the end draws near. I’m content because I now understand what I can do. What I should do. A final good deed. One for the road, so to speak. This, what you’re reading now, is that good deed.You’re welcome.But let’s not be any more morose than we need to be so early on when there’s plenty of misery to come. Let’s start with a celebration instead, a party. They’re fun, right? I’ll tell you about my birthday.Not the most recent one. I don’t want to overburden you before you’re ready. Besides, you don’t need to know that I didn’t even notice when the clock struck midnight, or that I spent the hours that followed lost in my work, in my research. Too busy to see, too determined to listen. Too focused on trying to stay alive. So there’s no point starting there.Stay tuned for more of that fateful day later.No, I’ll begin by telling you about the last birthday I enjoyed, the last birthday that meant something. It meant so much in so many ways.Ready? Here comes the flashback:Steve said, ‘I don’t expect you to listen to us.’Jenny said, ‘But you really should.’I wasn’t listening because my heart was racing as I tried to make sure I had everything. The holy trinity: money, make-up and medication.My parents were exchanging looks and gestures. A whole silent language at work. I could see them out of the corner of my eye as I checked the contents of my bag. I felt like I was forgetting something but I was so out of practice socializing, I didn’t really know what I should be taking with me. My first house party at eighteen years old.‘You’re going to be freezing,’ Steve said.‘I’ll be outside for like a minute tops.’‘If you take a coat, you can take it off. You can’t put one on if you don’t have one.’‘I have a jacket.’He gave a sort of snorting huff. ‘If it doesn’t cover your behind—’‘Leave it behind,’ I finish, rolling my eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’‘Don’t “yeah, yeah” me. I’m only trying to—’‘I think you look lovely, dear,’ Jenny interrupted, her soothing hand finding Steve’s arm.I didn’t respond because I didn’t like all this talk about what I was wearing. I was self-conscious enough as it was and terrified my clothes were just as lame as I thought. Missing so much high school meant I didn’t know the rules. There was only so much magazines could teach me about the outside world.Jenny brushed a stray hair from my shoulder. ‘Your father doesn’t remember what it was like to be your age because he was born a grumpy old man. At the hospital they skipped the neonatal ward and took him straight to geriatrics.’She smiled, pleased with herself. She was on her second glass of wine already. Steve made a throaty grumble of displeasure Jenny’s way, which seemed to give her a small measure of extra satisfaction. I guessed the pills were starting to kick in, given the glassy sheen to her eyes. I was glad she was feeling upbeat.In the past they would have laughed, perhaps Jenny continuing the gentle mockery for a few more barbs as Steve stumbled over his words to defend himself. No doubt I would have joined in the fun, and Maya too, the three girls in his life ganging up and taking turns to tease him, the big cave bear. And he, in response, probably chasing us around the house as we squealed and screamed, while he bellowed threats to make us pay by way of raspberries, noogies or the dreaded wet willies.I realized they had both been silent