“Well, I’m from Exeter originally. Only child to loving parents, Diane and Richard. At least they were loving, until Dad caught me with a guy in my room when I was seventeen.” She winces.
“Not a fan of the gays, I take it?” I smile at her inappropriate comment, fully aware this is her sense of humour in its purest form.
“Not one little bit. He kicked the guy out, then kicked me out, and gave me a black eye for the road.” Emma’s eyebrows almost meet in the middle with sympathy, and I can’t take it, so I swallow almost half of my wine in one go.
“That kind of story, eh?” she asks, and I nod. Dipping her chin firmly in understanding, she swallows her whole glass as though it’s juice, then pours herself another and tops mine up to the brim. I smile at her again, warmth filling me at her quiet support…and her Scottish capacity for booze.
“So, after I was kicked out, I lived with my gran. She was furious with my parents and didn’t speak to them again after they kicked me out. She just cut off her son because she couldn’t believe how he’d treated his. She was more of a parent to me than my actual parents. She supported me through uni—”
“Ooh, what did you study?” she interrupts.
“Early Childhood Education. I wanted to be a teacher.” My heart twinges at the realisation of how that goal is pretty much dead and buried for me at this point. I suppose it’s just one of those pipe dreams that never came true for me. Emma sits up straight in surprise.
“No way. Me too!”
“Really?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, babe. I do have a brain in this pretty head of mine.” Her teasing wink allows me to breathe again, my lungs having seized at the thought she might have been offended by my comment.
“I know you do. I just had no idea.”
“I hated the rigidity of the education system in this country, so I worked in Switzerlandas an au pair for a while, then in London. Man, London rich people can be total wankers, and a lot of them spend a surprising amount of time avoiding their children.” She sips her wine again, and I join her, relishing the heavy flavour. God, it’s been ages since I had a good glass of wine.
“I can imagine. I never actually got my teaching certificate because Gran died before I could finish my postgrad.” Sadness threatens to swallow me whole, and only Emma’s hand on my knee keeps me in the moment. She smiles at me sadly, and I take another sip of wine before I continue.
“She had a massive stroke, and before I could even get to the hospital, she’d passed away. I went to the house, but my key didn’t work. My dad was there, and he practically threw my stuff at me and told me to get lost.” Emma turns to face me more fully.
“But I thought she didn’t speak to your parents anymore? Why were they even there?” I huff a rueful laugh.
“She never changed her will, so Dad inherited everything. And he decided the best thing to do with his newfound wealth was to make sure I had literally nothing.”
Emma squeezes my knee firmly.
“I’m not being funny, but your dad sounds like a total cunt.” A laugh bursts out of me, breaking the heavy emotional tension immediately.
“He is,” I say through my laughter, while Emma giggles beside me.
“What did you do?”
“Well, I’d stayed in the halls of residence my whole three years at uni. I didn’t really make any friends I wanted to live in a shared house with, and thank goodness, because my rent and utilities were all paid during my undergrad, but then once I finished, I knew I couldn’t stay on, so I moved to London.”
“Aw, like a little Dick Whittington. You went to seek your fortune on the streets paved with gold?”
I grimace at the irony. “Something like that. Turns out the only thing the streets offered me was somewhere to live.” It takes a minute for my words to hit home before she looks at me with concern on her face.
“Babe. You were homeless?” The use of the past tense isn’t lost on me. She has no idea I am, in fact, homeless. But that’s how I want it.I know what she’s like. If she has the slightest inkling I’m sleeping rough, she’ll offer for me to stay on her sofa, and I can’t.
I just can’t.
I swore when I left Dominic that I wouldn’t be dependent on anyone again. I can’t have my living situation be at the mercy of someone else. The only exception would be if I found Rain somewhere. We’d spoken a few times about how we would live together and support each other to get on our feet if we ever managed to get out of the mess we’d gotten ourselves into.
The pain of realising Rain did get out, and that he left me behind, burns a little, but I honestly can’t blame him, given the rage Dan was in with me the next day. Rain must’ve been terrified to disappear the way he did.
“Yeah,” I reply. “But then I met Dominic.” I tell her the whole ugly tale. How I met him when I was at my lowest. How he promised me the world and told me he loved me. How I got myself in so deep trying to please him and cling to his affection that I couldn’t see a way out. God, I was so naive.
“D-did he hurt you?” Emma asks, in a broken whisper. Tears fill her eyes, and I take herhand in mine, squeezing it reassuringly, before reaching forward and opening the second bottle of wine.
“He did. He thinks he’s some kind of Dominant, so he often wanted to tie me up and use toys on me.”
