I’m at home, in your bedroom, where everything reminds me of you, and Mum is downstairs baking another cake. She doesn’t know what to do or how to help. I’m supposed to be leaving for London next week, but I don’t know if I can. I feel like my legs have been chopped off without you.
I love you so much, and I’m so sorry. I still can’t believe I did it. The most disgusting thing imaginable, on so many levels. I can’t stand Gareth – I’m sorry, I know you say you love him, but I hate him. I’ve always hated him. He’s too smooth and too smarmy and he controls you like you’re his puppet.
None of what happened can ever be justified, I know that, but I want you to understand some of why it happened. I’ve thought about nothing else since, I really haven’t. I just keep going over and over it in my head, trying to figure things out and piece it all together. It’s like a nightmare and there’s no way out, because it always ends the same way.
I think part of me was just jealous – because he was in your life so much more than I was, and I’d always depended on you a bit too much. You’d always looked after me, and then suddenly it felt like you were gone.
I know it’s pathetic. I’m a grown-up and there are no excuses. But as soon as you met him, it started – forgetting my birthday (which you did this year as well, not that I blame you), and cancelling weekends, and just never doing anything without him. It’s like nobody existed to you apart from Gareth, and I just wasn’t mature enough to deal with the change, because I’m a bit of a knob.
I was feeling awful at that party. I’d been doing nothing at home other than drink and go to the Tennyson’s and lie around in bed, for months on end. I had my new job coming up, but even that felt like a failure – I never wanted to go into bloody marketing, for God’s sake. I just didn’t know what else to do.
On the night, you didn’t seem to have any time for me, and you couldn’t see how much pain I was in. Writing it down now, I know how stupid I sound. Like a spoiled-rotten little girl, which is what I am. Like someone so selfish they wanted you all to themselves – which is just what I am accusing Gareth of, isn’t it?
When I got there, that horrible old house on the hill was full of people I didn’t know. A few old friends of yours, but mainly his, and Rose, they are such tossers! I still don’t know how you tolerate being around them so much, when all they talk about is money, and they act like they’re the kings of the fucking world.
I didn’t know anyone, and you were off all night being a good hostess. Every time I saw you, it was like the real you had been swallowed up and replaced with some fake Rose, like aliens had taken over your body. The clothes you were wearing and the way you were behaving. It just wasn’t you. And he was always there, hovering in the background.
I know you might find this hard to believe, but he was tormenting me, in his own way. It was like bear-baiting. I’d see him, draped all over you, and he’d give me a wink when you weren’t looking, like ‘look what I’ve got’. He’d pretend to be nice, and was always giving me drinks – all night, he’d find me, and give me more and more to drink. First it would be beer, then wine, then brandy, then Bailey’s.
I’m not trying to defend myself here. It’s not like he held me down and shoved a funnel in my mouth or anything – the way I was feeling, I was more than happy to get drunk. But this was a whole new level of drunk. This was the most smashed I’d ever been.
Then, after the New Year midnight thing, I felt so sick I wanted to go to bed. I felt like I was on another planet, like everything was just a huge blur. I was bouncing off walls and falling over and couldn’t even speak properly. I could see people dancing but wasn’t even sure they were human.
That’s when I saw him again, when I was trying to get up the stairs. That staircase was so big, and the steps all seemed huge, and I was trying to crawl up them but I couldn’t even do that, so I gave up and just sat on them, about halfway up, clinging on to the banister. You know that feeling when you’re drunk and you go to bed but you can’t get to sleep, because every time you close your eyes the room spins? It was like that, even though I was awake.
Gareth came up to sit with me, and I was too far gone to even tell him to shove off. And he made a big deal of looking after me, and saying how much he wanted me to have a good time, and how he loved me because I was your sister, and then he said he had something to ‘give me a little boost’. That’s what he said – give me a little boost.
He said I couldn’t pack in now because I’d spoil your party, and a bit of me thought he might be right, and mainly I was just so off my head I didn’t know what I was doing. So I took the coke, snorted it all, and washed it down with some vodka straight from the bottle.
To be honest I was behaving like one of those people in an anti-drugs video, and I’m lucky I didn’t drop dead. Right now I wish that had happened rather than what did, I really do.
After a bit I started to feel even more weird – like I was seeing everything through a big kaleidoscope. I know you’ve never been a drug girl, but basically it felt like the world was taking on a life of its own. Everything felt better, even the touch of the scrappy old carpet under my legs, and the wood of the banister. It was a big, giant, insane whirl of colour and sound. Like the trippiest music video ever.
He sat with me for a while, and then said he thought I’d had enough, and I needed to go to bed. I didn’t really know what was happening, and he helped me up the rest of the stairs, and took me to my room. I thought he’d leave me there, and I could collapse and look at the ceiling swirling around or be sick or something.
But he didn’t leave. He started stroking my hair, and telling me how much I looked like you, and how pretty I was. It was so weird – part of my brain wanted to scream and kick him in the balls, but part of me, the part that was just totally fucked up on drugs and booze and neediness, was listening. You’d always said he could make a woman feel so special, and for once I was on the receiving end of it, at a time when I was feeling far from special.
He didn’t force me into anything. I have to be clear about that. I’m not saying he made me do anything, I’m not. But I just felt like I couldn’t stop it, I was so off my head. Or maybe that I didn’t want to stop it enough to figure out how. I feel sick as I write that, but I’m trying to be honest.
He stroked my hair, and then he started kissing me, and … well, you know the rest. You found us like that, and even then I didn’t really know what was going on – he ran off after you, and I fell down, and I couldn’t even move again. Not for hours.
By the time I could, you’d gone, and he’d gone, and I couldn’t get hold of you no matter how many times I called. The house was wrecked, and I was a mess, and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stop puking up, and crying, and I ended up walking to the station in the snow. There were no trains, obviously, because it was New Year’s Day, and I slept in the waiting room with all my clothes on top of me. I thought then it was the worst day of my life, but every day since then has just got worse.
I’m not blaming anybody but myself, and I’m not trying to worm out of it. I’m really not. I hate myself so much, more than even you could hate me right now. I’m so, so sorry – I don’t know what else to say. I’m desperate to talk to you Rose – even if it’s just for you to scream at me, or come home and beat the crap out of me, anything. I’ll take any punishment you want to give – anything at all. Just please, please, please get in touch.
I love you so much and I can’t believe I did this to you. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but please at least call me – and let me try and explain. Please.
Poppy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chapter 39
Rose
Istuff the letter back into the envelope with the rest, and stare at Ronan Keating’s giant face on the wall.
I know what he’d say – he’d tell me life is a rollercoaster and you’ve just got to ride it. And I know what my mum would say – that now I know more about what happened, now I’ve seen another side of the truth, I need to forgive her.
And I get why she would say that, and she would probably be right. But it’s not that simple, no matter how heart-wrenching those letters were. I chose to believe Gareth when he said she made the first move; I chose to listen to him when he begged for forgiveness, and I chose to ignore Poppy.
