The Truth About Julia: A Chillingly Timely Psychological Novel by Schaffner Anna Page B

between her and Jeremy. We’d laugh about it and all would be as before. But that wasn’t what happened. Julia didn’t come home before two in the morning. When she checked in on me, I pretended to be asleep. I had cried so much that night I’d run out of tears.
    From that day, the rift between her and me grew wider and wider. She spent all her days and most of her evenings with Jeremy, and when I saw her in the mornings and sometimes on the school bus – the only occasions when we still spent time together – she seemed totally preoccupied. She didn’t share her thoughts with me anymore. She never said a single negative word about Jeremy and only ever told me how fantastic and beautiful and intelligent he was, you know? Most of our conversations revolved around what Jeremy thought about this and what Jeremy thought about that. It was tedious, and I began to really hate the guy, more than I’d ever hated anyone in my life. He had taken the only thing I ever really cared for away from me. He had changed my sister beyond recognition.
    I think it must have been around that time that my health began to deteriorate. I mean, I obviously didn’t plan this or anything, I just felt really down and lost my appetite and grew more and more listless. I spent a lot of time lying on my bed. I just didn’t know what to do with my life without Julia in it. Mum tried to speak to me about Julia a couple of times, but in a fairly half-hearted way. She must have noticed that she couldn’t really rely on Julia to care for my wellbeing anymore, and considered it her duty to at least pretend to care. One evening, when I had again refused to leave my bedroom and have supper with my parents, she came upstairs and sat with me on my bed. She took my hand and talked about first experiences of love, and explained they can be intense and all-consuming and all that. She said she was sure that Julia loved me just as much as before but that I had to give her some space for a while and allow her to explore her feelings. She said that Julia had been the most selfless and caring sister imaginable, and that I had to accept that there were parts of her life now in which I could no longer participate. She reminded me that I wasn’t a child anymore, and that Julia had grown into a young woman. She suggested I get out more, find some friends, play sports, and so on. What any half-decent mother would say. I’m sure you can imagine it.
    I lost a lot of weight in the first few weeks after Jeremy had destroyed the only close bond I ever had. I missed school a couple of times because I just felt too ill to face the outside world. On a Sunday afternoon, about two months after Jeremy had first asked her out, Julia returned home earlier than usual. She said she wanted to spend some time with me. She said she was worried about me and that she felt we’d lost touch. Those were exactly the words I’d been dying to hear for weeks, but when I finally did hear them I just couldn’t believe that she really meant what she was saying. It had taken her too long, you know? Far too long. I kept thinking that our mother must have asked Julia to talk to me, that she’d much rather be with Jeremy and that I’d become nothing but a nuisance and a chore, a limp, sick albatross around her neck. But she still managed to coax me into getting dressed, and to go out and have coffee with her.
    ‘What’s wrong with you, Amy?’ she asked when we were seated at a small table in the very same café where she and Jeremy had met for their first date, which I thought was a rather unfortunate choice, to be honest. ‘Why have you stopped eating? Why do you spend all your time locked up in your room? I so wish you could be happy for me – I’m in love, you know? It’s wonderful, and it’ll happen to you soon, too, I’m sure. This should be a special time for me, but I feel like you’re punishing me for something. I haven’t abandoned you, you know? You’re still my lovely little