Darling: The most shocking psychological thriller you will read this summer. Rachel Edwards

      ‘OK then.’

      I walked out of the room. Lola got up and followed. I stopped by the stairs; she stopped.

      ‘What?’ I said.

      She moved closer.

      A loud purr, gravel. A car. Lola edged me forward along the landing, seeming to hear something that made her cry out:

      ‘Why? Why do you need to be like that?’

      ‘Like what?’ I said, literally on the back foot.

      ‘You act like you hate me the whole time!’

      She was shouting now, a full-throated yell.

      ‘What? You can’t be—’

      ‘It’s true! No. You talk like you like me, but—’

      ‘Lola!’

      ‘You—’

      ‘Lola—’

      ‘Hi, Darling!’ called Thomas.

      And, poor silly girl, in that one weird second she heard not Darling, but darling, and she rushed to the top of the stairs.

      ‘Hello?’ called Thomas.

      But I was still moving forward and she pushed, pushed at me, then more shouting, screaming, a heart-jerking lurch – she was screaming? – and then my arm flew out somehow, anyhow, but she flailed, flew backwards.

      Down she fell, a tripping, twisting, puppet’s dancefall right down to the bottom of the stairs.

      I looked at Lola lying there, one arm up in a question mark above her small fair head, one arm down, legs bent. A beautiful catastrophe: her broken swastika of a body.

       Lola

      DONE LIST 2

      You’ve got to be joking, right?

      They’d been together for a few days and he wanted to fucking marry her? Well, at least that’s never going to happen now.

      Trust her to try to spoil the most important time of my life, ever. I have the most unbelievable, amazing, freaky-deeky news. We did it. How fucking crazy is that? No one can know. I’ve always wondered if he felt like that about me deep down and turns out he does. He really does. And the weirdest thing of all is that he does not realise that he is more or less a total god to me. Especially now.

      But of course Darling has to ruin my life at the same time. Did she mean to push me down the stairs? What was that? I’ve told Dad she meant it, of course, over and over … but deep down I’m guessing the silly cow would not have had the bollocks to risk prison over me. I heard Dad coming back and got distracted so, who knows? She may harbour a criminal intent, it happens. OK, so I did sort of want to catch her out, make a scene – but not that much of one! #familiated

      Between you and me, kiddos, I might just have got it into my stupid skull that I could try to fly, as high and as far as a bouquet tossed over a bride’s head …

      Anyway, I’m alive.

      I don’t want Darling White in this family.

      I’ve tried to do us all a favour, give her the stinky fags she craves. Everybody would win that way. If Dad had caught her smoking, that would have caused a total shitstorm, or at least made him wonder about her. Much better than me grassing her up, which she would have soon wriggled out of.