1

LUCY

MONDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 2019

HAMILTON HUME UNIVERSITY

BROKEN HILL, NSW

AUSTRALIA

900 KILOMETERS INLAND

It’s the scream that wakes her.

The room smells of must and sleep. She can feel the rapid beat of a pulse, the tender cords of a throat. Fingernails rake at her hands.

A gray dawn filters through the slats in the blinds, and in its light Lucy sees Ben below her, his eyes bright with fear. A blood vessel has burst in his left sclera, forming a red star. She stumbles back from the bed.

“Lucy,” he splutters, one hand clawing at his neck. “What the—”

The words choke out of him, his voice strangled.

Strangled. Her hands on his neck, the bulge of his eyes.

She’d been strangling him.

He sits up in bed, switches on a lamp. She bucks away from it like an animal. There is movement outside, in the corridor. A knock at the door.

“Ben, mate? Are you all right? I thought I heard—”

She moves slowly, as if through water. Her pulse hammers at her throat. The knocking intensifies; Ben is coughing now. Calling for help.

The press of the door at her back. She grasps the doorknob with sweaty fingers, uses it to ground herself. The door is already unlocked, the faulty dead bolt jangling. She wrenches it open, pushes past Nick, Ben’s roommate, and runs down the corridor up the flight of stairs to her own room.

Once inside, she leans against the door, breathing heavily as she struggles to process what just happened. Her dorm room is pin neat as always, the books in careful piles on her desk and bedside table. But the bedclothes are rumpled, the air stale. Her sheets feel damp, as if she’s sweated through them.

She tries to draw the events of the evening back to her. Not willing to face the canteen, she’d skipped dinner, soothing her anxious stomach with ginger tea in her favorite mug brought from home. Then she’d put on a podcast and settled in for an early night, hoping the distraction would vanquish thoughts of Ben and what he’d done.

There’d been a dream, she remembers now: cold water licking her skin, stones digging into her feet. The scrape of rock against her skull. A man’s hot breath in her face, his fingers digging into her flesh—fear warring with the desperate need to fight, to survive—

And then she’d woken to find herself straddling Ben’s chest, her hands clawed tight around his throat. Horror sweeps through her, numbing her fingertips, her lips.

She’d been sleepwalking. Something she has never—not once in her life—done before.

She looks at her hands, watches them tremble. Had she wanted to hurt Ben—to kill him, even—after what he’d done to her? Or had it been the dream, which lingers still like a bad taste in her mouth—the gnaw of fear, that primal need to fight, to survive? It was as if some limbic part of her brain had directed her to his room, a puppet led by its master.

A panicked glance out of the window tells her that the sun is rising now, turning the sky pink. She sees a dark blur of movement in the quadrangle: a uniform with neon lettering. A campus security officer. Ben—or his roommate, Nick—must have called after she fled.

She imagines what he’ll say: I woke up, and she had her hands on my throat—she was trying to kill me. Her thoughts whirl; she tries to slow her breathing, but finds that she can’t. The panic rises and rises, an awful heat in her blood.

There’ll be an investigation, she’s sure of that. She’ll be suspended, possibly even expelled. God, could they get the actual police involved? Could she be arrested—charged—with assault?

Everything she’s yearned and worked for. Gone. She pictures Ben: bruises blooming around his throat, the gouge marks from her nails in his flesh. She did that. Even if she doesn’t remember it, even if she wasn’t awake.

But who would believe her, especially after what happened?

After all, they’ve already taken his side.

Sweat dampens her armpits, the urge to flee rising inside her.

But where can she go? She can’t go home to her parents. That would mean telling them that she, Lucy, their good girl, attacked someone. And, worse, it would mean telling them why, telling them what Ben had done. No, she could never. But then, who? Who will help her, provide refuge while she works out what to do, how to fix things?

And then the answer comes to her. She changes quickly, scrabbles inside the small cupboard for an overnight bag. Underwear. Clothes. Wet wipes. Moisturizer. Laptop. Laptop charger. A notebook. She packs with shaking fingers.

She opens the drawer of her desk, retrieves a battered postcard, runs a fingertip over the address scrawled on the back.

Cliff House, 1 Malua Street, Comber Bay.

There’s only one place she can go, one person who might understand.

* * *

The road stretches on endlessly in front of her, merging with the horizon. Around her there is nothing but empty gold scrub, miles and miles of it. Dusky pink corellas—her mother’s favorite bird—burst from a withered tree as she passes.

There are no other cars. She is alone.

She reaches to the passenger seat for her iPhone, wedges it between her thighs as she calls her sister. After several rings—Lucy holding her breath in the silence between each one—the phone clicks.

“Jess?” she says, hope catching like a burr in her throat. But then her sister’s prerecorded voice comes bright and terse down the line.

“Hi, you’ve reached Jess Martin. I’m unable to come to the phone right now—”

“Fuck,” Lucy whispers as she hangs up.

Her eyes well with tears, blurring the landscape in front of her.

She tells herself that it’s all right. That Jess will answer eventually, that she’ll know how to help.

Won’t she?

2

LUCY

MONDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 2019

Lucy’s phone rings a few hours into the drive. She pulls over into a lay-by, relief thudding through her. For a moment, she’s sure it’ll be Jess, calling her back.

But the caller is her friend Em. Em, with her haywire curls and salon-sharp nails, who’d been expecting her in their 9 A.M. class. Em, who has already texted her five times.

Lol did you sleep in

Can’t believe you’ve left me to face a Monday morning lecture on my own. Harsh

Seriously though are you OK?

Hey—I just saw Nick. He said you attacked Ben?! Lucy, what’s going on?

Call me.

Lucy wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, takes a long, shuddering breath to compose herself.

But it’s no use. Already, her face burns with the memory: of how trusting she’d been, how foolish.

She and Ben had slept together just before the beginning of the summer holidays—the night before everyone left campus last December. Right away, it was clear that it meant more to her than it did to him: she’d read it in the practiced way he removed her bra, the ease with which he slid inside her. She can still remember every sensation, every whispered sigh. As if she’d known, even then, that it would never happen again. After all, how could someone like Ben—Ben with his beautifully muscled shoulders and dark glossy hair—be interested in someone like Lucy?

But then, he’d surprised her. He’d texted her over the break, sending links to cat videos and Twitter memes. Once, they’d even spoken on the phone, comparing notes on the books they were reading (he bought In Cold Blood on her recommendation; she read Joe Cinque’s Consolation on his). It had felt so easy, so natural, that she was worried they were falling into friendship territory. That she would never again feel his fingertips on her thighs, his lips against her ear.

And so, just days before the start of their final year, she’d plucked up her courage and asked him if he wanted a picture.

She’d never done anything like that before. For a start, no one had ever asked for one; and why would they? Who would want to see Lucy without her clothes on?

But she thought of Ben’s sigh as he sank himself inside of her, the way that he kissed the tender flesh above her collarbone. Like he didn’t see the rivulets of cracked skin between her breasts, across her rib cage. He was different, she could feel it. He was safe.

It felt like her heart ceased to beat as she waited for his reply, the minutes stretching on and on. First the blue ticks, then those thrilling words: Ben is typing.

That depends, he’d replied. On whether it’s a picture of you.

Again and again she’d adjusted the lighting, hoping the soft glow of her bedside lamp would hide the worst of her skin. She must have taken dozens, in the end. How badly she’d wanted to be beautiful for him.

She’d been happy with the picture she’d chosen: the dark glimmer of her eyes, the wet shine of her lips. The way the lamplight gilded the curve of her breast; the rest of her robed in silky shadow.

Wow, he’d told her. You’re gorgeous.

And she’d stared at the photo through new eyes and thought that maybe, just maybe, he was right.

She’d been so excited to get back to uni, to see him again, to pick up where they’d left off. But he avoided her eye in their Tuesday afternoon lecture, and rushed to his next class before she could say hello. The strange thing was, other people seemed to be avoiding her, too: her classmates fell back when she passed, murmuring to each other; a Red Sea of gossip.

She’d thought it was because people knew about her and Ben, that they were an item, or becoming one. She’d let herself feel a twinge of pride.

How wrong she’d been.

It was Em who saw the TikTok video first, who sent her the link.

I’m so sorry, she said. But if it were me, I’d want to know.

The shock of her own body in the video was magnified by the sick horror of its soundtrack: “Monster Mash.” It was all there, visible, even beneath the cruel distortion of the filter. The crusted white flesh on her torso, the silver streaks across her breasts, the insides of her wrists.

But the worst thing was the look on her face—the soft melt of trust.

Lucy flicks the indicator on before she pulls back onto the road, even though there’s no traffic—just a lone truck creaking up ahead. Her palms feel clammy on the steering wheel.

This is why she has to get away. Why no one will believe that she didn’t mean to hurt Ben—that she’d been sleepwalking, in the midst of a nightmare. That she hadn’t known what she was doing.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen, Ben said when she confronted him. Yes, he’d shared the picture with some friends on WhatsApp, but that was just something they always did. He’d never expected—he couldn’t believe!—someone would be so cruel as to put it on TikTok.

He was sorry.

Lucy swallows, remembering the caption, the comments.

Tfw your friend’s girl is a literal gorgon

Hideous

Talk about a graveyard smash

Perhaps naïvely, she’d been surprised how little the university was willing to do, how dismissive they’d been.

“Isn’t it a crime?” she’d asked the student welfare officer, a fortyish woman with multiple rings in each ear. “Sharing an intimate image without consent—I looked it up. I want to make a report to the police.”

The woman had winced, sliding a box of tissues toward Lucy, even though she wasn’t crying.

“I’d ask that you think long and hard about taking such a step,” she’d said. “I understand that you’re upset—truly, I do—but everyone makes mistakes. Something like this could really derail Ben’s life. As a mother of a son myself—”

Furious, Lucy had risen from her chair and walked out.

Hadn’t Ben derailed her life? Since the discovery of the video, she’d spent most of the week in her room. In lectures, she’d sat as close to the exit as possible, leaving before the others rose from their chairs, before a hundred heads could swivel to stare at her. The post had been removed for violating TikTok’s policy, but she had no doubt that people had taken screenshots; that it circulated still, via Facebook and WhatsApp and Snapchat. The previous day, she’d ordered a coffee from the campus café, and the boy serving her squinted with recognition before blushing a deep red.

It felt like the whole world had seen it. Like it would follow her forever.

At the welcome assembly two years before, the university chancellor had told them to look around at the students sitting on either side of them. “This is the best journalism course in the country,” he’d said. “We have alumni working everywhere, from Sky News to the New York Times. The majority of journalists working at the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age studied at Hamilton Hume. Remember that, during your time here. The young man or woman sitting next to you isn’t just your course mate, but your future colleague.”

It was a phrase Lucy couldn’t get out of her head. All of her future colleagues had seen her disgraced. How could she possibly have a career after this?

But despite her fury, the meeting with the student welfare officer had got under her skin, planted seeds of doubt. What if the police dismissed her, too? Then she’d be out of options. Besides, Ben’s father was an employment lawyer, at a fancy firm in Melbourne. “The kind who represents the employers instead of the employees,” Ben had told her, with a sneer in his voice. He hated his father, he said, for “greasing the capitalist machine.” But Lucy doubted that hatred would prevent him from asking for help if he needed it. That’s who she’d be up against, if she made the report.

For three days, she’d faltered, unsure of what to do. And then this morning she’d found herself with her hands wrapped around Ben’s throat, like her body had made the decision for her.

Well. She can hardly tell the police about the video now, not after what she’s done.

She needs to focus on getting to Jess. On staying awake: another twelve hours to go. Her sister recently moved to Comber Bay on the South Coast. Lucy’s never been there, and she only has the address because Jess sent her a postcard for her birthday in September; the same postcard that now rests on the dashboard. A cliff looming over the sea, sunset etching shadows in the rockface. Garish font announces the location as Devil’s Lookout, Comber Bay. It’s touristy, tacky—which is strange, not like Jess at all. She normally makes her own cards—if she remembers to send them, that is.

Happy birthday, Lucy, it reads. I know I’ve been distant the last few months, and I’m sorry. I’d love to see you, though, and catch up properly. Let me know if you ever want to come and stay—it’s lovely here. Anyway, hope you have a great birthday. Love always, Jess x.

But for Lucy, it was too little, too late. She was still hurt by how cold Jess had been the last time she’d seen her—over a year earlier, the Christmas before last, in 2017.

She had just begun to think that it might be in reach, the bond they’d shared when Lucy was younger, now frayed by years of distance. She had gone to stay with Jess in Sydney for a weekend over the previous school holidays. It had been Jess’s idea, and Lucy was nervous: she felt like such a child in the passenger seat of her sister’s car, hugging her backpack tight as Jess asked hesitant questions. Was school OK? Did she still go to choir practice? Did she still want to be a journalist?

Copyright © 2025 by Emilia Hart Limited.