We even startedrunningtogether. Usually, I’d begrudge having to run for a bus, but it meant I got to spend an hour before work with my amazing new friend and keep fit at the same time. It also meant I wasn’t as desperately lonely.
Sometimes, we’d meet during my lunch hour at work, grab sandwiches and sushi and still lemonade from Pret and eat them under our favourite tree in the park, a comfortable silence passing between us as we people-watched the world go by – it was a glorious summer that year, days of endless sunshine just rolling into the next. That’s how it felt, being with Sam, like I was standing in eternal sunlight whenever I was around her, and as a result, I began to view the world through a different lens. Slowly, I was starting to build the confidence that I lacked and that had held me back for so long. I felt so grateful to have met her.
There was one particular night when we got dressed up and she doused me in Baccarat Rouge perfume – her ridiculously expensive signature scent. We spent the entire evening flirting outrageously with these three slick city traders in some achingly hip and expensive hotel bar in the city – something I would never have had the guts to even think of doing before I met her. I gasped out loud when they footed our champagne bill for the night – it was topping £500!
‘See,’ – she’d nudged me, giggling as we’d made a hasty retreat, trotting off in our heels – ‘I told you that stuff is magic, didn’t I?’
But even after a few intense weeks of seeing her practically every day, and as heavily invested in our friendship as I had become in that short time, I knew very little about Samantha Valentine. She was an open book and an enigma at the same time – a complete paradox, looking back on it. Intermittently, I would ask her questions about family and life, just stuff that would come up in general conversation, only she was masterful in the way she could divert and deflect any topic, quickly turning the spotlight back on to you without you even being aware she was doing it. She often used humour to distract – she would sometimes randomly just burst into song, or start speaking in a daft accent. Ah yes,accents– Sam wasbrilliantat them,exceptional even, better than most trained actors on the telly. She could mimic anyone from any place or region or country, even, and sound like she was born and bred there. I’d be in fits of laughter, stunned, and so impressed at how effortlessly she could seamlessly slide from Cockney to Geordie to Scouse to Scottish to Spanish to South African – like it was second nature.
‘You’reridiculouslytalented!’ I’d tell her, seriously. ‘Honestly, you should have your own TV show!’
Now, of course, I see it for what it really was – diversion tactics.I see everything now. In retrospect, by showcasing her incredible interchangeable, chameleon-esque talents in a bid to distract me from asking questions, Sam was also showing me who she really was – someone who could transform into anyone at the flick of a switch, a pretender,a fake. Only I didn’t identify it back then. I didn’t recognise the red flags, even though they were waving at me like a Soviet Union protest march. I didn’t even know what to look out for. I certainly couldn’t have had any idea I might be in any danger. Also, and perhaps importantly, Samantha was a woman, and I had learned, been taught even, to mostly be wary of men – they were the true enemy, not beautiful, funny, kind, intelligent women, like her.
One thing Ididknow about Sam, however, was that her mum now lived in Perth, Australia – ‘She remarried some alcoholic hillbilly,’ or so Sam told me – and they weren’t particularly close. I clearly remember her telling me that because looking back, it had felt somehow different when she’d said it, like on a subconscious level I instinctively knew she was telling me the truth, perhaps the only time, as it turned out.
‘She’s also an alcoholic.’ She sighed. ‘We don’t really communicate much anymore. Sometimes I think I would like to pick up the phone, but I already know howthatconversation would go… What doyouthink you would say to your mum now, Erin, if you could have one last conversation with her?’
I’d never had a friend like Samantha before. The time and attention she gave me during those few months was heady and seductive. Like the drugs I was doing my best to steer clear of, I lapped it up like the starving, lonely addict that I was. But I knewsomethingwasn’t quite right. Little things didn’t add up.
TWENTY-THREE
Sam said her car – a BMW, 2018 plate – was written off in an accident she’d had some months before I met her. As a result, she was nervous about getting back behind the wheel, so I would always drop her home in my shabby old Fiat Punto that I could barely afford to run. She’d ask me to stop a little short of her apartment building, and I would watch from a distance as she disappeared, waving, through the revolving doors. I was desperate to see inside her fancy-pants apartment – and meet her fiancé, Ari – but she never once invited me up there. There always seemed to be a legitimate reason why.
‘Ari’s asleep and he has to get up early…’ ‘Ari’s got a business associate over tonight, so I don’t want to disturb him.’ ‘Ari’s family are visiting…’
After six weeks, whereby we had now officially become ‘besties’ and I could no longer imagine or bear the thought of my life without her in it, I finally managed to pluck up the courage to mention it.
‘How come I haven’t met this amazing fiancé of yours yet then? Is he actually real?’ I ribbed her, light-heartedly. She’d told me all about the lavish and glitzy wedding they were planning in Dubai next year, and admittedly, I was desperatelyhoping she would invite me. Secretly, I’d even fantasised about her asking me to be her bridesmaid, because that’s what best friends do, right?
I could picture us both on her wedding day, standing together in front of a mirror, Sam looking like a celebrity, dazzling and gorgeous, in her ridiculously expensive handmade designer gown that showcased her incredible figure. I am next to her, wearing a simple yet chic silky slip dress, admiring how beautiful she looks as we toast each other with vintage pink champagne…
My greatest concern at the time though was that Sam might be embarrassed by me and that’s why I had not yet met him. I was paranoid that perhaps I wasn’t cool or clever enough to meet what sounded like Ari’s exacting and high standards. Ari, the fancy financier in London who travelled all over the world. Educated Ari, who was loaded and hung out with CEOs and influencers I’d never heard of. The dynamic city boy who drove a brand-new soft-top Mercedes that was probably worth a small house somewhere. Sam had pointed it out to me once, in the private car park of their apartment complex. It was sleek and black as vinyl, shiny enough to fix your make-up in the reflection on the paintwork. I could just picture her in the passenger seat, next to her husband-to-be, stereo cranked up, platinum blonde hair whipping in the wind, like something from a slick social media marketing campaign.Iwanted to do life like Samantha Valentine did life, big and bold and brave and beautiful and bombastic. I was completely in awe of her.
Some people, it would seem, have all the luck because on top of the above, Ari Hussain was also seriously fit. Dark-haired, dark-skinned and dark-eyed, he looked like some kind of AI-generated Arabian god. Or at least he did in the pictures I’d seen on her phone – pictures she showed me of them together on dates in opulent and trendy five-star hotels and restaurants,where the food looked like art and way too good to eat. There were photos on bright white beaches with crystal-clear waters in the background, Sam in a sparkly diamanté bikini, Ari, tanned and toned, his arm draped around her waist.
‘You will, I promise,’ she said. ‘He’s desperate to meet you too! He’s just always so busy, working, travelling…’ But I could sense something was off.
Whenever Ari returned from one of his business trips, Sam would disappear for a couple of days, though she always kept in regular contact with me on Snapchat.
It was following one of these occasions that I first noticed the bruising.
The UK summer weather was breaking records that year, someone had made the local news for frying an egg on their own doorstep, and the annual, mandatory hosepipe ban had been put in place – but that day, when she came to meet me for lunch, Sam was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. It was tipping thirty degrees outside and the humidity was uncomfortable, so it struck me as odd, though it was more a passing observation than an immediate concern.
‘So, how is it, having your soon-to-be betrothed back home?’ I asked her, keen to get the gossip. Everything about them as a couple seemed so perfect, I imagined the sex had to be incredible too. ‘Did he have a good trip? Did he bring you back anything gorgeous, something sparkly and expensive?’
‘He hasn’t mentioned it much… and of course, it’s wonderful to have him back.’ But I could tell instantly in her voice that something was wrong. She wasn’t her usual effervescent self. Her tone was flat. She was masking upset – something my mum had done regularly – I had no difficulty recognisingthosesigns.
‘Are you OK, Sam?’
‘Yes. Sorry, I was miles away, hun.’ She sipped her iced latte and brought the conversation back round to me again. ‘So,how’s work going? Have you managed to seduce that filthy rich, gorgeous boss of yours yet then, or what?’
Some weeks later, while we were out running together, I noticed a particularly nasty-looking, large bruise on her upper thigh. It was dark and purple, the colours of a storm.
‘Ari and I were messing around in a hot tub. It’s a sex injury, sweetie.’ She brushed it off with a wink, but it felt disingenuous, and horrible little maggots of doubt started burrowing their way into my thoughts.
I was at work when I got the message from her asking me to meet her, urgently, at my place. Sensing an emergency, I left immediately, giving my supervisor the excuse that I’d been violently sick in the toilets with a stomach bug. She couldn’t really argue with me, though it looked like she had wanted to.
Sam was waiting outside my apartment when I arrived. Her left eye was badly swollen and I could see she’d been crying.
