‘I’m not made of glass,’ she said firmly. ‘It took being mugged by a stranger, years of mind games from Matthew, never mind Rob the Tinder twat, but finally, I get it. Life is too short to be trapped in a prison of anxiety all the time.’
Jessie could feel herself getting stronger with every word.
‘That’s amazing to hear,’ Priya enthused: she’d never heard her friend sound so resolute.
‘I’m going to rip the plaster off and call Matthew. He needs to hear it directly from me that whatever he tries to do next won’t hurt me.’
It was frustrating to Priya that her years of endlessly advising Jessie to cut ties with Matthew hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference, but she understood it was a conclusion she had needed to reach by herself. It was better late than never.
‘To tell you the truth, I was a bit worried that you still had feelings for Matthew,’ Priya confessed. ‘And that if he suggested giving it another go you’d drop everything here and run back to him.’
She felt bad for saying it, but Priya had watched Jessie live under Matthew’s spell since the first day they met at university and that relationship had never been a balanced one, or a source of joy, it was only anguish, willing the phone to ring (or not ring) and long car journeys across the country.
‘That’s fair,’ Jessie conceded. ‘A few months ago, I probably would have.’
There was something else still worrying Priya.
‘What about that video he has of you, though?’
It was another problem Jessie had turned over and over in her mind. Eventually, she’d reached the conclusion that really, if Matthew decided to share the explicit clip around social media – and she wouldn’t put it past him – what could she do, other than report it to the police? Who were unlikely to be able to help and by that point it could have already been seen by hundreds of people, maybe even members of her family.
‘Of course I’m still worried about him sharing it, but I can’t stop him,’ Jessie replied, closing her eyes. ‘The police weren’t able to do anything last time, so I’m trying to reframe my thinking instead – which is the one thing I do have control over. Shit things happen to people all over the world every single day; it’s how you respond to them that matters the most.’
She was trying to be brave and the more she faked it, hopefully, the more genuine a reaction it would become.
‘The people I care about won’t watch the video if I tell them not to.’
Priya stayed quiet. She worried about how Matthew might respond over the phone and whether Jessie should really be calling him.
‘Do you mind if I ring him from your bedroom?’ Jessie asked, as if reading her mind. ‘I think I need to be alone, but it would be reassuring to know you’re just in the other room.’
‘Go for it, I’ll be right here. I’m really proud of you, Jess,’ Priya replied, crossing her fingers in solidarity.
Jessie sat on the end of Priya and Zoe’s bed. It was one of those cheap divan bases that looked like a giant quilted mattress, with an actual mattress on top and sliding drawers on one side. After a few deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, she searched through her blocked list for the number Matthew had last contacted her on and pressed ‘call’. She could feel her temples pulsing harder with every ring. Why wasn’t he picking up? He’d been plaguing her for months, requesting that they talk. She couldn’t wait for it to be over with, once and for all. Nothing. She went back to her blocked list and tried his old number, the same one he’d had when they were together.
‘Here she is.’ Matthew sounded as though he was smirking down the line. ‘I wondered when I’d be hearing from you.’
Jessie felt her legs go numb. His voice still made her nervous, but she knew she had to push past it. The fact he’d dared to greet her so casually had knocked her sideways. A pool of rage began to bubble.
‘This is the last time you’ll be hearing from me,’ she said hard-heartedly, which only made him laugh.
At least it sounded quiet wherever Matthew was. Jessie had worried she’d catch him while he was out with friends as it was a Saturday night, and that he’d put her on speakerphone, letting them all have a good laugh over her.
‘How did you know I moved to Brighton?’ she asked, already dreading the answer before it came.
Maybe he’d tracked her phone – she hadn’t considered that until now. Matthew wasn’t all that technologically advanced but he could have asked a friend to do it, somehow. Jessie could feel her resolve crumbling away and the paranoia creeping back in. How foolish she had been to think she could sweep years of psychological torture under the rug and scare Matthew off with a simple phone call.
‘Nicole’s sister,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ve been seeing her since you left.’
His words were like a punch in the gut. She’d seen Demi-Leigh, Nicole’s younger sister, over Christmas in the pub. On the same night that she’d last seen Matthew. They’d sat around the same table and clinked glasses, shared a taxi home. Demi-Leigh had always been a sweet girl, quiet, and as far as Jessie knew, had never had a boyfriend before. Exactly like her when she’d first met Matthew. Demi-Leigh must have kept the fact she was sleeping with him from Nicole, otherwise she’d have definitely put a stop to it.
‘If you’re with Demi-Leigh, then why are you still h-hounding me?’ Jessie stammered, her mouth dry.
She imagined Matthew back in the flat they’d shared together and wondered how different it must look now. Did Demi-Leigh stay there often, in the bed she used to sleep in? Would she sit docilely by his side as he played video games, too?
‘She doesn’t mean anything, Jess. You know it’s always been me and you,’ Matthew said, gently this time. ‘So you can stop with your big adventure by the sea and come back now.’
Jessie wasn’t sure whether he genuinely believed that she had planned to come back all along or if he was just trying to tug at her strings, testing to see if he could still make the puppet dance. Either way, it didn’t matter. She’d accepted that she’d never get closure from Matthew himself – he probably didn’t even know how cruel he’d been throughout their relationship, so she’d have to find closure alone – by letting go of all the pain he’d caused that she’d barricaded within her, and start moving forward, forcing it out of her system.
‘I’m never coming back,’ she said, with more conviction. ‘You’re pathetic.’
It was a sentence she’d rehearsed in her head countless times, after opening every email or text, seeing every withheld number call from him, and especially when she struggled to sleep. It was exhilarating to finally say it aloud.
‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ Matthew sounded surprised. ‘I haven’t got a bad bone in my body, not really. We had our ups and downs but—’
‘Which is why you’ve been threatening to leak a video of me, a video I never consented to being in? And sending me emails from weird, anonymous accounts, saying I make you sick?’ Jessie was almost shouting now. She’d found her flow and was on a roll with it. ‘I was attacked recently, Matthew, near enough left for dead. Did you know that? Were you involved? All I ever did was love you and all you did was hurt me, so I wouldn’t be surprised. You’ve turned me into a fucking wreck and I can’t live like this any longer.’
She took a deep breath, then went back for more, trying to ignore the sense that her legs were so numb she could jam a fork into them and not feel a thing. Her body’s visceral response felt treacherous.
‘You never loved me, not really. You might think you did, but you’re incapable of it. Your psycho text messages are the last thing I need too.’
In all the time he’d known her, Matthew had never heard Jessie raise her voice like this. A few times she’d feebly tried to push him back when he’d got a bit rough with her, but nothing like this. He sat up straighter on the sofa. She was making him uncomfortable and he didn’t like it. She shouldn’t be allowed to speak to him in this way, with such little respect.
> ‘I didn’t email you saying you make me sick,’ Matthew said, sounding genuinely confused. ‘And what do you mean you were attacked?’
Jessie felt her chest rapidly rise and fall. At least she could definitely cross him being involved with that off her list.
‘I haven’t messaged you since Christmas either, and never from another number. Only this one.’
Matthew looked around his empty living room, at the games controller abandoned on the floor and piles of washing-up by the sink. He thought about all the other women he’d brought back here, and then the nights he’d come home alone over the last few months. He’d always expected Jessie would come back eventually. Things had got heated, but they’d never gone this long without speaking before. Maybe she was right, perhaps he hadn’t been totally fair throughout their relationship.
Jessie had always been a constant in his life, the first since his own mother had left after divorcing his father. The same father who barely acknowledged him growing up, other than to ask him to buy more Jack Daniel’s from the corner shop, despite him being nowhere near old enough to get served. The thought of Jessie being far away like his mother, out of his control, had always been his biggest fear. He’d driven her away, then started lashing out. All the anger he’d unwittingly injected into his veins when his family split apart had constantly fired out in Jessie’s direction. He’d enjoyed damaging her because he’d been damaged. He held onto the moment of clarity that had arrived too late.
‘I did love you,’ Matthew said quietly. ‘Just not in the right way. I’ll delete the video, it was stupid of me to dredge that up.’
There was so much more that Jessie wanted to say to him, but at the same time, she’d heard enough. Something within her still ached at the familiarity of his voice, to hear it call her beautiful, but she knew she was setting herself free. Her own experiences of growing up had been a dream in comparison to Matthew’s, something he never let her forget. Memories of freshly ironed school uniforms, neat packed lunches and bedtime stories became shrouded with guilt after she listened to him talk about his own childhood in contrast, but no matter how bad Matthew’s had been, it still wasn’t an excuse for him to treat her so badly. All those allowances she’d made for him, because of his challenging past, had been a mistake. There was a glimmer of remorse in Matthew’s voice that she’d never encountered before. If she’d heard it a few weeks previously, it would’ve sent her back down the path of raking over every detail of their relationship. But not now. She’d also be phoning Nicole first thing in the morning, to ensure Demi-Leigh stopped having any involvement with such a narcissistic monster. Jessie couldn’t go back in time and tell her younger self to run fast and far away from Matthew, but she could at least try to stop history repeating itself.
‘You need to leave me alone,’ she said, her voice quiet and firm, brooking no argument.
Then she hung up the phone and her body flooded with relief.
After a few minutes of sitting at the end of the bed in silence, Jessie walked back into Priya’s living room and nodded. She doubted that any combination of words she could say to Matthew could ever really summarise or immediately quash all the knock-on effects of their monumental, life-altering relationship. That would take some time. But at last, she felt done.
‘Do you mind if I crash on the sofa again?’ Jessie asked quietly.
Any strength had all but left her body.
‘You don’t need to ask, of course you can.’
Jessie’s phone bleeped. She looked at it apprehensively. It was Lauren, asking where she was.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Judging by the lack of sad music piping through the corridor the next day, Marcus was out when Jessie got home. She was glad about that. She headed straight up to Lauren’s bedroom and knocked on the door, then pushed it open.
‘Oh look, it’s the dirty stop-out.’ She shot Jessie an accusatory look and closed the magazine she’d been flicking through. ‘You’ve been gone all night.’
Lauren clearly hadn’t slept. She was sitting in the same leather chair that Jessie had been curled up in herself, only the day before, wearing the same clothes.
‘I know, I’m sorry. Last night ended up being really draining,’ Jessie explained, meaning it. ‘I called my ex.’
Lauren’s face thawed a little at hearing that.
‘How was it?’ she asked, rubbing at her tired eyes.
Hearing that question was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The floodgates opened. Jessie started to cry, tears that were a mixture of both liberation for cutting all ties and fury that it had taken her so long to reach this point.
‘Oh no, not good?’ Lauren consoled, walking over and rubbing Jessie’s back.
Jessie wiped away a small slither of snot that had escaped her nose.
‘Really good, actually. I needed this to happen,’ she laughed, sniffing.
She looked at Lauren, whose face was so full of concern, and felt grateful she had women like her and Priya around. These were the relationships that would see her through while she rebuilt herself.
‘Shall we make some brunch and you can tell me all about it?’ Lauren asked, smiling with bloodshot eyes. ‘I think we’re home alone and I’ve got some charcoal facemasks we can do.’
It sounded like the perfect way to spend the rest of a lazy Sunday afternoon and Jessie was already more than keen to draw a line under the entire weekend. She headed across the landing to change, then met Lauren on the sofas downstairs. The facemask packet promised to cleanse, soothe and renew her from the outside in. She hoped it would. That night, she slept more soundly than she had in a long while.
The next morning, however, Jessie awoke to an ice pick smashing through her right eyeball. She hauled herself out of bed and squinted. Next would come the shooting stars that had terrified her so much the first few times she experienced them, tricking her into believing that she was going blind or mad, until a doctor explained that she was having a migraine. She knew she needed to heed the warning signs and make her bedroom darker, immediately. The gap in the curtains that she could usually ignore suddenly became her sworn enemy, mocking her with a stray sunbeam. Jessie dragged the chair out from underneath her dresser, picked up the silver metal clip she secured her hair with in the shower, and used it to pin the fabric together, then flopped back down into bed with relief. Her migraines were usually the result of stress or strong coffee – both of which she’d consumed far too much of lately. She emailed Pamela to explain she wouldn’t be in, then took some of the sleeping pills stowed away in her top drawer and hoped they’d kick in fast, knocking her out before the worst took hold.
After a couple of hours’ rest, Jessie came to, still feeling drained. Although the migraine seemed to have passed, her body was weak from it and the lack of food. She pulled on her old dressing gown, which smelled of clean detergent, something she always found a comfort, and made her way downstairs slowly, gripping onto the bannister as she went. This was the start of her living as her new self so maybe after some toast she’d get back on Tinder again, see who else was out there. Reaching the fifth step, she paused, convinced she could hear a rustling sound coming from the kitchen. A mouse? Maybe next door’s cat had wandered in somehow? Because it sounded like a hungry animal making its way through the bin in search of scraps and Lauren had definitely said she had an early morning shoot today. Marcus and Sofie usually worked Mondays too, so today was one of those rare ones when she had the flat to herself.
The rustling started again. Her heart began beating a little harder as she rounded the corner – one more step and she’d be able to see into the kitchen. This time she knew it was real. Her legs stiffened. It wouldn’t be surprising if they had a mouse, due to Marcus’s inability to ever scrape a plate clean properly, but surely they weren’t this loud? Jessie dared to look directly into the kitchen. She saw a flash of long, dark hair. A woman, a stranger, was in the kitchen – in her kitchen – reaching up into a food cupboard. Her face was
hidden by the open door, but Jessie could tell that she was loudly shovelling handfuls of cereal into her mouth, crunching them down hungrily. Jessie couldn’t move, rendered immobile from fear. She had to get back upstairs without being heard and call for help. That was the only option. The crunching was replaced by a tuneless whistle, as the woman performed a slow and lazy song to herself. Goosebumps prickled at the back of Jessie’s neck and ran along her arms. Trying to move as silently as she could, she turned and placed one foot lightly on the ascending step. Her palms were sweating. So long as the off-key whistling didn’t get any closer, she’d be fine. Just keep going, walk back up to safety, she repeated silently to herself. Until a high-pitched jingle shot through the air. Her phone! It was in the pocket of her dressing gown; she patted herself desperately then pulled it out. ‘Mum mobile’ was calling.
The whistling stopped and something clattered to the floor in the kitchen. Jessie’s phone continued to chime as she jabbed at the side buttons, desperately willing it to stop. Not that it would make a difference; it was too late for that. The animal had already seen her and was coming to pounce. As it ran towards her, Jessie clenched her eyes tightly closed, waiting, having already surrendered to it. The footsteps kept running. They ran all the way to the front door. The woman turned to look at Jessie on the way out. Her eyes, two dark coals pushed deep into a skull, sat above hollowed out cheekbones. Her skin was marked with pocks. Jessie screamed, the sound that had been forming in her throat over the last few minutes, finally erupting like a tin kettle on a stove. The intruder screamed back, looking equally as terrified.
‘It’s not …’ came a strangled, stuttering voice, ‘it’s not what it looks like. I’m so hungry and …’
The smell of stale sweat assaulted Jessie’s senses. She noticed the woman had stains all over her grey tracksuit bottoms too and her face was familiar.
‘Get out,’ Jessie cried, utterly horrified. ‘Get out, get out!’
The Wrong Move Page 21
