‘Why don’t you start at the start.’ Chase smiled in such a way that Rosy didn’t feel mad, or judged or embarrassed and, as she sifted the sand through her fingers, she started to tell him the story of Matt moving to the village and the friendship that they had shared. She talked and talked and Chase wordlessly listened, sculpting pictures in the sand alongside her until she had finished.
He fixed her with a stare and, holding her eyes with his, responded to all that she had told him.
‘Look, don’t hate me, but from all you’ve told me, he sounds like a pretty normal bloke, who you have a lot of fun with, who wants to help you win your battles at work and you both seem attracted to each other. Like I said, I’m no professional but there doesn’t seem to be a whole host of signs of psychopathy so far. Not once did you mention pulling the wings off butterflies, or a sudden up-spike in the disappearance of all the local cats. There’s something else going on here, Rosy, and no one is forcing you into anything, but everything you’ve said, well, I’m trying to marry it with your reaction to him and it just doesn’t quite add up.’
Rosy took a deep breath in and looked at the man in front of her. ‘It’s Josh,’ she said and sat back to see his reaction.
‘I don’t know what that means but I think it’s going to make a lot more sense. Tell me about Josh.’
‘I met him at university – he was living in the room next to me at halls. He was so so handsome, dark curly hair, sparkling eyes and a way of lighting up a room when he walked in.’ She quickly sneaked a peek at Chase, who was smiling and nodding. The world hadn’t exploded. She had never told a single soul in Cornwall any of this and it actually didn’t feel frightening, right here and now, more like it was something she needed to do. ‘I couldn’t believe that he was interested in me, plain little Rosy Winter.’ Chase didn’t interrupt with the whole ‘no, you’re not’ thing, he just kept nodding, his silence encouraging her to continue.
‘It didn’t take long before we were completely intermeshed, I was so in love, or thought I was.’ She couldn’t stop the little harrumph that escaped her lips at this point. ‘I was so stupid.’
‘You were eighteen, away from home for the first time and fell in love. Honey, that’s not stupid – that’s learning about life.’
‘No, in this case it was stupid. Although I did learn a little, I’ll give you that. Anyway, we did everything together, he even dropped his course and started mine, in the very first half term. All the friends I had made within the course and in halls were suddenly his. It wasn’t until years later I realized that should have been a red flag, that it’s not normal not to have friends of your own…’
‘But you were young and in love, and you wanted to share your world with him.’
‘Yes, yes, that was it exactly. I was so happy. I couldn’t believe that life could be this great. He would come everywhere with me. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve such huge affection. He wouldn’t even let me lift a shopping bag, he was devoted. Or that’s what I thought. I didn’t even think it was weird that he would drive me to and from work – I was tutoring school kids privately just to top up my student loans – and he would come too, introduce himself and wait in the car until I had finished. It didn’t take long before the parents would be inviting him in for coffee whilst I would be dividing fractions and teaching simultaneous equations. At that point I felt so lucky, so blessed, to have this movie star of a boyfriend that everyone adored because he was so charming, and so invested in me.’
‘And then what happened? Cos it’s real clear that something did.’
‘Yeah, it did.’ Rosy mimicked his Americanism without even realizing she was doing it. ‘To cut a long story short, he hit me…’
‘He did what! Oh, Rosy, I’m so sorry, but not all men—’
‘I know, but some are. And that wasn’t the worst of it – he locked me in our flat for days. I’d banged my head when I went down and came around in the bathroom, locked in. I couldn’t get out and when I finally managed to escape, nobody believed me.’
‘Oh, Rosy, I am so sorry that this happened to you. Why would they not believe you? Who wouldn’t believe that? You seem pretty darn trustworthy to me.’
‘It’s all right, Chase, it’s not your fault, it’s not anyone’s fault apart from Josh’s.’ As she said these words, Rosy realized that she had relayed this story without tears, without the iron knot that sat in her stomach when she recalled it to herself, alone as she tried to sleep, as she had done on and off for years. That this time the telling of it was just like telling a story, a story that had happened to someone else.
‘It turned out that all the time I had been studying or working or socializing he had been drip drip dripping lies into their ears: Rosy drinks too much; Rosy is a little wobbly, you know; it’s not all her fault, her whole family struggles with issues, and so on. Then, when he had me prisoner in the house, he told everyone I was having some kind of psychotic break so when I escaped, ranting like a madman about being his prisoner, everyone believed him. He’d been suggesting this was going to happen for months, and after all no one knew me like he did, and it was no surprise for anyone but me when I behaved true to the type he had cast me as.’
‘Well, what happened next? Did you go to the police? That’s battery and kidnap at the end of the day.’
‘No, apparently it’s a domestic, or it was back then. Plus when they asked around everyone backed up Josh’s version. I lost my friends, my job – no one wants an alcoholic with psychosis tutoring their kids – and of course my flat, because we were living together by then. Everywhere I went those first couple of days people were looking, talking about me, and how my poor boyfriend had to put up with so much, even the friend I stayed with.’ She took a big shuddering breath as Chase put his arm around her and gave her a reassuring squeeze. A much needed it’s-OK-you’re-safe squeeze.
‘Rosy, that’s one hell of a trauma. You lost everything. Losing a relationship is hard enough at the best of times, even one so toxic. More so, maybe, because it was such an utter betrayal of all you believed it to be. And then to have all the security you had there, your friends, or those you thought to be your friends revealed to be false as well. Of course it’s going to have an impact. What did you do?’
‘I went home, home to Mum and Dad, transferred my uni credits and finished my course at the local university, did my teaching qualification and then got a job locally, only finally moving away again once my confidence had been rebuilt. Oh, and I came up with The Rule.’
Chase let out a little laugh, one of those gruff, what-else-can-you-do laughs.
‘You mentioned The Rule earlier. What is it? Presumably it’s what you came up with to prevent this ever happening again. Also, and you don’t have to answer, but what happened to Josh? Do you know? Did he really get away scot-free?’
‘I don’t mind answering that. No, he didn’t, not really. He got his degree, went to Australia and was in a fatal motorbike accident. It was reported in an alumni magazine that came to my parents’ house. I almost felt guilty when I found out because of the huge sense of relief. I couldn’t stop crying. I know that sounds weird, but I felt like I almost had a responsibility to make sure he couldn’t do this again, and I didn’t know how to ensure that. Especially with the police refusing to take action. What he did to me was, well, I’ve told you, but the thought he could do it to someone else, that was such a burden. And now he can’t.’ She let out a littlehuhnoise, one that seemed to encapsulate the whole range of emotions that Josh’s death had raised in her, before she continued. ‘And yes, that’s exactly why I came up with The Rule, and so far it’s worked. As long as I’ve stuck to it. It’s simple really. I don’t blur boundaries. Everything is kept in compartments – my dating is completely unrelated to any other arena of my life, so when it goes wrong it doesn’t blow up every aspect of me.’
‘And let me guess, The Rule obviously says no dating your neighbour!’
‘Ha! Damn right it does, I won’t be caught out twice.’
‘So, does it not get lonely living your life in such a fashion? Expecting things to go wrong instead of anticipating they’ll go right? And, oh please don’t bite my head off for this, but is it possible that not every man that moves next door is a monster’ – Chase paused to give Rosy time to throw something at him, but she nodded and waited for him to continue – ‘and that just maybe, Matt—’
The sounds of petulant squawking interrupted him as someone hurtled down the little slope leading to the beach, and from the noises emitting from the path, in both high heels and bad temper.
‘Who is…?’ Chase started to ask. It was hard to make out much more than an outline now the light had gone.
