I stare at the woman who’s been a more permanent female role model in my life than any other. Her glassy eyes flicker away, settling on the head with an expression of relief because she’s an employee, someone she can push around.
This woman is my role model, so it’s no surprise I’m fucked.
My stomach aches as the painkillers fade from my system. The knot of agony isn’t the worst I’ve endured, not by a long shot, but it still fuels my anger.
“He did this to me,” I shout, pulling up my tee shirt and exposing the bruising that’s blossoming wider and more colourful with each passing minute. “Joseph did this to hurt me and you’re rewarding him?”
Marnie casts her eyes across my stomach, a small frown the only sign she sees anything amiss at all. “Darling. Considering what you do to yourself, that’s nothing.”
* * *
I’m giventen minutes to pack, and I use them to bang on Rowena’s door. Thumping until she answers, her frown morphing into concern. “What’s the matter?” When I can’t immediately answer, she decides herself. “They’re not letting that arsehole stay on, are they?”
I shake my head even though what she says is true. “I’m leaving,” I gasp, clenching my hands so the tremor in my fingers doesn’t spread to my arms. “The head’s already signed me out and have ten minutes to pack my belongings.”
“They’ve signed…?” Her eyes widen as she stares at me. “What? How can they do this?” She folds her arms, staring at the floor for a second, then shaking her head. “No. What? What’s happening with Joseph?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. It’s not…” I close my eyes, trying to find the rest of the words I had cued up a moment ago. “It’s not important. It’s not the school, my parents want me to leave.”
“This is bullshit.” She grabs me, hugging me so hard my stomach flares in agony, but I don’t flinch away. “Should I talk to them? Tell them what happened. Perhaps I can explain better.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. I just wanted…” Tears threaten, and I sniff them back. They’ll have all the space they want on the other side of my time limit. “I just wanted to thank you for being my friend and I wanted to say… goodbye…”
Despite my wishes, I dissolve into tears, sobbing so hard for a moment that I don’t think I’ll be able to regain control. Then I force them back because I have to. My deadline is ticking away, and I won’t get another chance to say what I need to say.
Rowena wrings her hands together, face showing the strain of following what I’m saying. “I’ll get Seb,” she bursts out with, turning toward the cafeteria. “He’ll have a better idea of what to do.”
“No!”
She flinches at the shout, and I feel the last of my hope shrivel into a tiny shell of itself. This is happening. I always knew it would but thought I had so much longer to go before the cruel reality reasserted itself. At one time, I’d even hoped I’d get to university, learn some proper skills, work out how to get myself free.
But that won’t happen. I’ve been gone for close on a year, and I don’t have a single clue on how to extricate myself, no more than I did when I first escaped.
“No,” I say, trying for calm, trying to sound like myself. “You tell him it’s over. Tell him I never want to see him again.”
I twist, peering along the corridor to make sure he’s not there yet. That he’s not striding along to ruin his future in a doomed attempt to save me from mine.
“Promise me, you’ll keep him here. Make sure he goes to all the meetings Coach has arranged with his sponsors. Attend his training. Do everything like he should. You tell him it’s useless for him to follow me.”
“Honey, no. Just… no.” She clutches my forearm, squeezing. “He loves you.”
I swallow hard, staring at the floor, my brain a mess. “He raped me,” I say, taking her hands in mine. “At the party. He blackmailed me into having sex and he told me he’d use a condom but he—”
My voice breaks off, trying to avoid forcing the last words out. Each one of them truthful but the meaning behind them so fundamentally twisted that they don’t add up to what they should at all.
“He stealthed me and it mightn’t show a lot on the video, but it shows enough.”
It’s such a strain to raise my eyes again to meet hers, but I force myself to. “Make sure he knows if he comes for me, I’ll go to the police. Just like I did with his mother. Tell him that. If you care for either of us, make sure he believes it.”
I turn, tearing my hands from hers because to touch her for a second longer will make it so much harder to leave and I must go.
This was always my destiny, the trajectory set from the time I was eight and the facts of life were laid out in such a black and white scenario that even my young brain could understand.
“Keep in touch,” she begs, reaching out for me again as I dodge away, just as desperate to stay free of her as she is to connect. “We don’t have to stop being friends just because you’re leaving. I’ll blow up your phone with so many texts, you won’t believe it.”
“Of course,” I tell her, ducking in for one last kiss on the cheek, the pat on the shoulder.
I grab hold of the loose thread and pull, unravelling our friendship as I force a smile onto my face and tell the biggest lie of all. “You better believe I’ll stay in touch.”
