Page 2 of You Can't Hurt Me

“Well, that was all highly entertaining, wasn’t it?” says a woman next to me, her breath ripe with wine and crisps. “Whowasshe?”

“I’m not sure,” I lie. “Eva’s sister, I guess?”

“Ah, the disgruntled sibling desperate for the true story to be told. Delicious.” She regards me for a moment and there’s a flicker of recognition in her eyes. She seems familiar, but I can’t quite place her.

“Maybe a bit misery memoir for my liking,” she says, her tone conspiratorial. “But a great idea. Whoever got him to do it was completely on the money. Even more so if the sister doesn’t like it. I’m Jane. Jane Burton by the way. And you?”

She swooshes the bubbles around her mouth and studies me as if I’m a puzzle to be solved. There’s that familiar glint in her eyes that I have grown to recognize down the years, a precise and very familiar brand of curiosity, watching from the sidelines, prying, insinuating, picking away. It’s part of the job, until it becomes part of you.

“So you’re covering the book,” I ask.

“Yes, we ran first serial last Sunday. Triumph over tragedy, the usual.” She shrugs lightly. “Still, if you cry, you buy, they say.” She smiles briefly, moves in a little closer so I can see a smear of fuchsia lipstick on her front tooth. I’m repelled by something in her that feels too close to home. I shudder slightly, step away from her, but she inches closer, as if we’re both coconspirators.

“Good-looking, isn’t he? In that rather obvious way.” She crooks her head to one side, her eyes slide over him.

“I guess, I hadn’t really noticed.”

“What a horrible thing to happen. I don’t think you ever get over something like that, do you?”

“I hear he’s doing pretty well.”

“I wonder if he wrote it all himself?” Her steady look unnerves me. “A lot of them get help these days, don’t they?”

“I wouldn’t know. If they choose to have a ghostwriter, it’s usually kept a secret.” A flush prickles my neck and spreads upward.

I make my excuses and head for the exit, via Memoir & Autobiography for old times’ sake. The siren-call of those glittering lives on display spilling all—fame, grief, misery and addiction. “Read all about me, me, me,” they seem to echo, screaming for attention. I walk to the end of the aisle and stop in my tracks. There he is with Priya, standing just yards away.

Something in me deflates, and I know that it’s all over. He talks quietly, rapidly, and Priya nods in affirmation, her head dipped.

They carry on, deep in conversation. As I walk briskly past them toward the door, he looks up and our eyes lock. Priya reaches for his arm, but he pushes her away, starts toward me as I turn to the exit.

“Wait, Anna,” he shouts after me. But I don’t turn back. I have spent too long under his skin and now it’s time to burrow out. I won’t be another acolyte like Priya. I don’t deserve Eva’s fate.

I take off my heels, stuff them into my bag and start to run. Away from him. Still, I hear his voice, urgent and cracked, calling my name. I turn a corner and break into a sprint, my bare soles slap the cold wet pavement.Keep going, I tell myself, my breath ragged, my lungs burning. Only two questions keep circling.

What did you do to Eva?

What could you do to me?

One Year Earlier—December 2021

Publishingweekly.com

Renowned neuroscientist Dr. Nate Reid is tipped to land a “hotly contested and significant” advance for his memoir, say industry insiders.

At a post-award speech in Geneva last week, where Dr. Reid was the winner of the prestigious Ackerman research prize, he hinted that his next book project would most likely be a “personal one, close to his heart.”

Bestselling author ofThe Pain Matrix, a guide to his work on the neuroscience of pain, Dr. Reid also directs the Pain Laboratory at London’s Rosen Institute. His scientific research appears in journals worldwide includingScience,The LancetandNature.

According to sources, this next work will be a radical departure, focusing on the loss of his first wife, Eva Reid, and how her rare condition still inspires his work to find a cure for pain. Two and a half years ago, his wife was discovered dead from a drug-induced heart attack on the floor of her riverside studio in West London.

“He has still never spoken about her death publicly and everyone wants to know what really happened,” says another source close to Dr. Reid. The only mystery remaining is whether he’ll require professional help.

“Writing of this nature has always been a struggle,” he once admitted. “One I’m not sure I’m really born to.” While his previous works were solely scientific, Dr. Reid believes that “a personal memoir may require a more ‘collaborative’ partnership... It’s just a question of choosing the right ghostwriter.”

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One month later—January 2022

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