‘Sure.’
‘I’ll get changed while you’re doing that and then you can show me which books you chose.’
I wandered towards my bedroom but, as soon as Zoe closed the door, I scooted back to the table and lifted the laptop lid. Even if Zoe had managed to close down what she’d been looking at, I’d be able to find it in the search history. I didn’t need to go that far as Zoe hadn’t managed to close the site down and my stomach sank as I glanced at the screen – a website for support with self-harming. Her arms! Those cuts hadn’t been inflicted by Griff. Zoe had done that to herself.
I dashed across to my bedroom and did the quickest change ever then plonked myself back at the laptop just as Zoe returned to the flat.
‘Here you go.’ As she handed me the water, her eyes flicked to the screen.
‘I thought I’d have a quick look at your basket – make sure you had gone for eighteen books – but I saw this.’
Zoe wrapped her arms across her body, tugging on the cuffs of her long-sleeved T-shirt.
‘I saw the cuts on your arms at that first meeting of The Friendship Pod.’
I wondered if Zoe would deny it but she sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have pushed my sleeves up.’
‘I’m glad you did because I know now. I assumed it was Griff.’
‘No. It was me.’ She said it with a resigned voice and, yet again, my heart broke for her.
‘I haven’t done it since I got here. I feel safe with you.’
My throat tightened because I was fairly certain that feelingsafewith me wasn’t just about being out of Griff’s reach. I suspected it went back to whatever caused her to flee from Teesside in the first place.
‘Is it okay with you if we talk about it now?’ I asked.
She nodded so we moved into the lounge and I suggested she take me back to the beginning.
‘It started when I was seven, a couple of months after my dad died. I was so upset and I needed my mam but she was a mess. I knew she loved him and wanted him there but so did I and so did our Jacey. Mam was the adult and she should have been there for us but she wasn’t. I had this big ball of anger growing inside me, although I didn’t realise that’s what it was at the time, and I felt like I was going to explode.
‘I had a fringe back then. Dad loved me having a fringe – said he couldn’t see my pretty face if I had hair hanging in it. It had got really long and it was in my eyes all the time. I kept asking Mam to cut it for me but she kept telling me to go away and stop bothering her. She kept some hairdressing scissors in the bathroom cabinet so I decided to cut my own fringe. Nightmare! There was hair all over the sink and taps and I couldn’t get it straight. I kept snipping and snipping, trying to even it up and, in the end, I had this tiny little tuftinstead of a fringe.’
She paused and shook her head, a ghost of a smile on her lips, but then she dipped her head and sighed.
‘I was so angry with my mam for not doing it for me, leaving me to hack it myself, and I remember staring down at the open scissors in my hand. I’ve no idea why I did it but, next second, I’d sliced them across my arm. The cut wasn’t deep but it bled and, even though it hurt, somehow it eased the pain inside me so I did it again.’
I swallowed hard on the lump in my throat, picturing Zoe as a little seven-year-old so overwhelmed by her grief that she could do something like that.
‘Jacey found me in the bathroom. She saw the cuts – three of them – and she cleaned them and put a big plaster on. She told me never to do it again and that I must tell her if I felt the need. She was only ten but she must have known what I was doing. Why else would she have thought I’d do it again?’
That a ten-year-old would be aware of self-harming broke my heart too.
Zoe told me how Jacey fiercely protected her from that point and, after their grandpa died a few years later, she encouraged Zoe to cry but insisted she never pick up the scissors again.
‘She sounds like an amazing sister,’ I said.
‘She was. I miss her every day.’
I was curious as to what had happened to Jacey but that line of questioning might detract Zoe from telling me what prompted her to self-harm again. She’d pushed up her sleeves and I could see dozens of silvery scars all the way up both arms among the more recent cuts which were still healing.
‘You mentioned before that your grandmother died a few years after your grandpa?’ I prompted, hoping to refocus her.
‘Yeah. I was thirteen when Granny died but Jacey was sixteen and she wasn’t around much. Mam had this boyfriend – SolAtkins. We used to call him Twatkins. We both hated him and he was vile to Jacey, always shouting and swearing at her and she’d had enough. Her boyfriend’s parents let her stay at theirs so it was just me, Mam and Sol.
‘I was gutted when Granny died and Jacey came round and made me promise not to play with the scissors. It had become a bit of a joke cos I’d never actually done it again since the fringe incident. I told her I’d be all right. She went to her boyfriend’s, Mam was working a late shift, and I was alone with Sol. After our Whitsborough Bay holiday, Granny and Grandpa had given us a photo album each with photos from the holiday and other photos of them with us and with Dad and I looked through it and got really upset. Sol heard me crying and came into my bedroom. I thought he’d tell me to shut up but he was really nice.’
My stomach lurched as I recalled the conversation I’d had with Jim the first time I saw Zoe and his belief that she’d fled from abuse. I had a sinking feeling Sol wasn’t going to be soniceafter all.
