Insidious

Chapter 1

Luna

I always thought the first weeks with a newborn would smell like milk and baby powder.

The books said hold her skin to skin, immediate bonding, you’ll glow, like motherhood was some soft-focus Instagram reel with gentle music in the background, while those filters make you look like you have soft, glow-y skin and everything is shining and bright.

No one mentioned the feeling that you are not quite you anymore.

No one mentioned that the baby bottles and muslin cloths pile up, and you don’t give a fuck.

Nothing you read implies that you would feel like you’re the only person left on Earth and still look fine to your husband and family. To Isaac, who I thought knew me better than anyone else on this planet.

I bounce Amelie with one knee, my palm pressed against my aching lower back.

She’s been crying on and off for three hours—hiccupping, hungry, overtired little sobs that scrape at my chest like tiny claws.

She is mine, but is it wrong to wish she would be quiet for just a little while?

My T-shirt is damp with milk stains, even though I don’t have enough to fill her little belly.

The midwife has asked me to put my baby girl to breast. Amelie gnaws at my nipples with her toothless little gums, and it hurts. Is it supposed to hurt?

I haven’t showered. I stink of sour milk and vomit. I can’t remember when I last brushed my hair. I don’t care, and it sometimes scares me before that feeling also disappears into the nothingness.

It’s nearly 7 in the evening.

He should have been home by now.

I hear the laptop ping again. It has been doing that all day.

I have been ignoring it. I used to be interested in Isaac’s work, his endless projects and deadlines. Now, there are late nights he “can’t get out of” and dinners I can’t attend. And I am too exhausted to ask him what his day was like. I just want to sleep.

I stop rocking for a moment, and Amelie’s cry spikes into a sharp, ferocious wail. I start to jiggle her again … and my fingers accidentally brush the laptop trackpad.

The screen wakes up and my brain seems to emerge from deep sleep. On an impulse, I reach over to key in the password. Maybe some music will stop this feeling that the world is ending.

An unread message blinks on the screen as if impatient for attention.

He has left his WhatsApp logged in.

Then another ping.

Then a whole thread. One name stands out.

Chloe.

The Chloe.

His ex—the one he insists he loathes because she is so selfish, but he still feels obliged to help out when she calls. Which is often. The words blur as I read.

You must miss the freedom.

Kids change everything, don’t they?

Bet you wish you could escape for a few days. Come down one weekend. I still know what you like.

My burning eyes skim, my pulse strangely thrumming its normal, unaffected beats.

God, I found our wedding album. We were so young.

A photo of a smiling Isaac carrying a shrieking Chloe over the threshold pops up. They both looked so young.

The messages pile up but there are no replies from him.

And then three dots, followed by a reply bubble from Isaac—

I still dream about you.

Something inside me folds into itself and dies. But there is this buffer between what should be pain and myself—a thick wall of ice, numbing everything.

Amelie screams again—a wet, exhausted cry—and I jolt because I have been holding her too tightly. My hands shake as I look down. It feels like holding an alien being.

I close the laptop, but it’s too late. The words are carved somewhere behind my ribs. At some point, I will take them out and allow myself to bleed.

Isaac wasn’t supposed to be talking to her after we had that talk about boundaries.

He isn’t supposed to be missing her. And he definitely isn’t supposed to be telling her she is right, that he does miss his old life.

That he still dreams about her. How can my husband dream about her when he said everything about their brief marriage was a mistake?

The numbness creeps over my skin like a cold, settling mist.

I scoop Amelie up, tuck her against me, and sway. She quietens, but sniffles escape, soft hiccups into my shoulder. She likes it when I dance.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, though my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “It’s okay, my little robin.”

But I don’t feel okay. I am crying, but it feels like I am outside, looking in.I feel … drained. Flat. Someone has pressed a hand to my chest and scooped out everything inside. Empty. A husk of nothingness.

He should be here.

He should see me drowning.

He should care.

Instead, he’s telling another woman his life would be better without all this. Without us.

Maybe his life can be better without me.

I settle Amelie back down into her baby carrier, still rocking her gently with one hand. She is dozing, and I walk towards the bathroom.

The tiles are cold under my feet.

The mirror catches my reflection—pale skin, unbrushed hair, shadows under my eyes like bruises.

Haggard. That’s how I look.

I open the cabinet.

The old sleeping pills sit at the back, the bottle a little sticky where the label has come off. The doctor prescribed them two years ago when I couldn’t sleep. I never took them then—told Isaac sleeping pills are for pussies. I should have thrown them away when they expired … but I didn’t.

My fingers close around the bottle without a plan.

I feel like I am outside, watching this woman as she tips them onto the counter and watches the reflection in the mirror.

They scatter, white and small, like tiny flower petals.

Daisy petals. I arrange them, without thinking, into a circle; petals around an invisible centre. It looks stupidly pretty.

Unlike me.

I don’t realize I am crying until tears splatter on the counter.

Amelie sniffles again from the next room.

I close my eyes.

It feels like a part of me detaches from the rest of my body as the walls seem to wobble before they steady. Just … distance. Like watching myself through frosted glass.

I take one pill and put it on my tongue with shaking fingers. It doesn’t dissolve. I hold it there and look at myself in the mirror, my tongue out, then swallow it dry. It goes down easily.

Then another follows it.

And another.

A slow, heavy warmth unfurls in my throat. My hands are light but clumsy. Panic cuts through the fog.

What am I doing?

From somewhere within the haze, I reach for my phone.

Not him.

He is too far away, dreaming about Chloe. I call my person.

The one person who has seen me at my worst without flinching. She will take care of Amelie.

It takes me five attempts to find her number. It rings twice before Lily picks up.

“Luna? You finally return my call? I am not talking to you, you dumb bitch.”

“Lily?” My voice crackles like crumpled paper.

There’s a pause, and then her tone sharpens instantly. “What’s wrong? You sound—where are you?”

“Can you … Can you come get the baby?” My words slur just slightly. I swallow and try again. “Please. Just come. Take her.”

“What? Why? Are you hurt? Are you safe?”

My head swims. My knees feel soft. The counter tilts slightly under my palms.

“I’m just … tired,” I whisper. “So tired.”

“Oh, god.” She breathes. “Stay on the line. I’m coming right now. Don’t move. I am getting into the car.”

But my eyelids already feel heavy.

The flower-circle of pills blurs into white smudges. I swallow one more.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble around the little pill that feels like a stone stuck in my throat, though I’m not sure who I’m apologizing to.

Lily?

Amelie?

Isaac?

Maybe all three.

The last thing I hear before the phone slips from my hand is Lily’s voice, urgent and breaking apart.

“Talk to me. I’m coming. Just stay with me.”