But it turned out I hadn’t been able to keep my identitycompletelyhidden.
Just before Christmas, Justin’s first ex-wife had found my account, put two and two together and slid into my DMs. For years I’d believed she was the evil witch who’d broken Justin’s heart, made him who he was today, but when I met up with Paulina, I’d discovered he’d treated her exactly the same way he’d treated me. It had been cathartic to talk with her, to share stories and realise that I wasn’t crazy or overdramatic.That had done more for me than months of journaling could have accomplished. I’d begun to feel as if I was at leaststartingto move on.
Unfortunately, instead of finding peace from digging through our shared experiences, Paulina had found rage – perfectly understandable, justifiable rage, in my opinion – but it had consequences. For both of us.
She’d sold her story to the papers and the article had gained more traction in the slow news period after Christmas than it might have done at another time of year. Then more women had added their voices, either in interviews or on social media – dancers who Justin had bullied in the rehearsal room, ex-girlfriends he’d terrified and controlled. The dance world’s golden boy had begun to look a little tarnished, to say the least.
That’s when the phone calls had started again. Never texts, never voicemails. Never anything I could save as concrete evidence – because it would always be my word against his as to what had been said, and he wasn’t the one who’d had to see a therapist for emotional instability, for anxiety and ‘spacing out’, was he? And even if I changed my number, he always seemed to be able to find the new one, probably by charming someone in my wider family who didn’t know what he was really like – I hadn’t really wanted to share the details of our marriage with anyone but my immediate family. I was too ashamed.
I’d logged it all as my therapist advised me to and then had refused to answer any more of his calls. They’d doubled in frequency after that, and I’d started jumping every time my phone made a noise, even if I had it on silent. Then, two weeks ago,I’d seen his car parked in the road where my new studio flat was. And then again the next day. It had freaked me out. I knew what he was doing.We might be divorced now,I could hear him whispering smoothly in my ear,but I’m in your life still. You’ll never truly get rid of me.
The only way I could think to counteract the gathering sense of panic and helplessness was to collect the evidence I’d been keeping on him ever since we’d separated and file an application for a non-molestation order. Justin had been served with notice of it yesterday, so he could prepare for the court hearing that would decide if it was granted or not.
Which would make it stupid of him to phone me once, of course, let alone twenty-four times. At least, it would have been stupid if he hadn’t thought to get himself a burner phone. I’d been distracted getting ready for Lo’s hen night when I’d picked up the first call, even though I was usually wary of numbers I didn’t recognise. The screaming at the other end of the line had made my eardrums ache: how I’d better not ‘tell tales’ as all the other lying bitches had done. How he’d make me sorry if I did. My stomach had rolled as my shaky fingers had fought to end the call, to make him go away.
Because I had ‘told tales’ already, hadn’t I? Only Justin didn’t know I had. Not yet. But I was kidding myself if I didn’t think that moment was just over the edge of the horizon. Every time I thought of what he might do if he found out, I felt sick.
A hand fell heavily on my shoulder and I almost jumped out of my skin. A moment later, I felt Lo’s tequila-soaked breath on my neck. ‘You okay, sis? You’re looking a bit queasy.’
I stretched my lips into the widest smile I could manage. ‘I’m fine – probably shouldn’t have had that last cocktail.’
Lo pressed a wet kiss to my cheek and grabbed my hands to pull me into the circle of dancing women nearby. I played along, bumping hips with Lo, waving my arms in the air along with everyone else. Even though I’d turned my phone off before putting it back in my pocket, I could feel the heat of all the missed calls. I wouldn’t tell her about it tonight. Maybe after she came back from honeymoon. She’d put her own life aside too much for me since I’d left Justin, letting me live with her and Isaac for a few months until I found a job and a place of my own. I wasn’t about to ruin her hen night – or her wedding. She was so happy with Isaac, and I was so pleased for her, even though it had been hard to watch their relationship bloom as my marriage had deteriorated into something dark and toxic.
But playing the part of the upbeat maid of honour was exhausting. All I wanted to do was go home, crash into my bed and pretend this night had never existed. I managed to dance my way out of the centre of the circle, letting Lo’s friend Annie take my place, and hovered on the fringes of the group, turning my phone back on so I could check the time. Surely it couldn’t be too much longer until they all got tired and started making noises about ordering cabs?
What I saw on my phone screen stopped me in my tracks. I opened the picture message up without thinking, my fingers tapping on the screen before my brain could shout ‘No!’ at me.
It was a picture of me, slightly blurry, taken from a distance. In it, I was wearing the sparkly (and rather revealing) top Lo had lent me for this evening. My stomach turned to cold, hard stone. It had come from Justin’s burner phone.
Where had this been taken? When? I forced myself to scour the background of the photo for more information and realised it had been taken outside the restaurant we’d had dinner at earlier on.He’d been there? Watching me?
I spun around, trying to see into the shadowy corners of the club, my heart clenching hard with each rapid beat. I couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.
Lo waved from the back seat of the cab as it pulled away, blowing me drunken kisses. I stood at the garden gate of a large Victorian house split into six small flats, smiling and waving. Once the car had disappeared around the corner, my arm fell heavy by my side and I turned and walked swiftly up the path, feeling all the while as if unseen eyes were watching me from the bushes. I wasn’t going to feel safe until my flat door was bolted and triple-locked behind me.
Because Justin clearly wasn’t done with me yet. Not by a long shot. Punishment for filing the injunction against him, I guessed.
Another picture message had arrived twenty minutes after the first, a snap of the entrance of the club we’d been in. I’d almost lost it at that point. I’d had to go to the ladies’ and lock myself in a cubicle until I’d stopped hyperventilating. I hadn’t stopped shaking since. It was just as well my sister was too squiffy to notice I was behaving oddly.
While the building my flat was in was old, it had a very modern entry system, and I held the electronic key fob in my hand as I walked down the path, and I’d just begun to lift my arm, ready to wave it against the sensor beside the hefty black front door, when there was a shift in the shadows of the porch.A figure stepped out of the darkness and blocked my way to safety. I froze.
‘Ju-Justin,’ I stammered, trying to sound calm and in control and failing completely. ‘What … What are you doing there?’
‘Waiting for you, Angel,’ he said in that silky voice that made my skin crawl. ‘Nice night out?’
My attempt at composure crumbled at that point. I tried to dodge past him, waving my key fob madly in the direction of the lock, and I caught the side of his face with the back of my hand. Almost instantly, his fingers closed around my wrist and he pulled both my hand and the key out of reach of the door.
‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on me,’ he barked at me, any pretence of civility slipping quickly away. ‘Not after what you did. It’s all your fault!’
I held my breath. Did he know? Because it kind ofwasmy fault. My videos had been the catalyst for everything that had happened since.
His fingers dug into the skin of my wrist, burning with friction. ‘If you hadn’t left me, things would be different. I’d have had someone by my side when Paulina made all those wild allegations, someone to tell the world it wasn’t true. But instead of helping me, the way a wife issupposedto do, you left me to struggle with it all on my own, and thenthis…’ He pulled a crumpled wad of paper from his pocket. ‘A non-molestation order? I never laid a hand on you, you know that! You’ve got to drop this, tell them it’s all lies!’ He threw the papers on the ground, and they lay in the flower bed, soaking up the beginnings of a hefty dew.
I knew I should tell him calmly that it wasn’t lies, that he needed to let me go and leave, but my heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to faint and I could feel a giant wave of terror hovering over me,threatening to obliterate me in its wake.
That’s when the floaty feeling began. The sense that reality was too much, that I needed to slide through a secret door and protect myself from it.
No. I’m staying here this time. I’m staying in this moment. I’m not letting him have that power over me any more.
