Now sitting on the floor, surrounded by stinking boxes, she chokes with the unfairness of it all. She’s only had four years to show the world the person she really is. There was the fame, of course, but also opportunities that she really loved, like speaking at cancer events or reading to the sick in Hospices. The charities that approached her were always so grateful for her time, but Holly knew that she was the one who benefitted the most. All her life she just wanted to make a difference, to be good.
Now she can feel a lack of purpose creeping back and settling into the blank greyness of her skin. She built her life on being nourished, inside and out. She created a career out of being well. Will people still be interested in her story now that she has been robbed of the parts that made her? Body, legs, face? Even curiosity has its limits, and one day soon the world will grow used to her scars and turn their eyes to something brighter. She’ll have no other choice but to sink back into the despair from which she came.
Why did he hate her so much? All she ever did was strive to be better, cleaner, washed out and pristine from the inside out. That’s what succeeds on the Internet these days – the good girls, the clean girls, the fit girls. This is the new holiness, this is the new way to mark yourself as chosen and stay safe. She was a shining example to them all and took her role seriously. This coveted corner had to be constantly defended. You can always be a bit more perfect. With every picture she braced herself for underhanded jeers that she wasn’t being quite healthy enough.
@Trixie21
Babe, should you be eating all that fruit? You’re looking a bit rounder lately.
@FitgirlsIG
What training are you doing love? Good on you for promoting a chunkier, healthier look?
@Plantbasedandproud
Is honey vegan? Not saying you’re wrong or cruel to the animals for having it. Just asking out of interest, you know?
This girl-on-girl violence she was prepared for. But a gorgeous man coming at her face with a scalpel?
Holly’s tried to hold tightly on to her mind, forbidding it to endlessly loop over every detail of that night. But sometimes the effort is too much and the grip loosens. The actual cutting is still unclear. Sometimes she thinks she spots the flash of a memory but is it real, or just something she spotted in the endless stream of photos from the night? Mostly her brain sticks to all the things she did wrong. Why was she so quick to talk to him? Why did she follow him out of the door and spend the whole evening with him? Why was she so damn confident that she could just close her eyes and turn to kiss a stranger in a dark street without anything going wrong? It was reckless, foolish. There were so many moments when she could have turned around and said, ‘No, it’s time to call this a night,’ but she never did.
Worse still is the waiting. She keeps telling herself she is waiting for something definitive, something she could pin on him, then maybe she’d change her mind. But then why did she stupidly throw away those horrifying photographs? Or hysterically push all the urine-soaked boxes in the trash? The police could have got some DNA, maybe even find out whether he had done this before. His harassment of her is so brazen, so assured, as if he knows she won’t have the guts to report him. This can only mean one thing: he knows that she is hiding sins of her own.
So she continues, frozen in fear, scanning her inbox every day for something new, picking through the new comments on her Instagram and Facebook to find something, anything that stinks of his spite. When she leaves the house, all footsteps behind her sound like his. In a gust of wind, she feels the warmth of his breath. But it’s never him. He crouches in the shadows silently, gleefully, waiting to unfold some new horror. He is everywhere but nowhere, impossible to pin down. And she is powerless to stop him.
Chapter 14
Tyler
What was it like to love Frankie? Tyler tries to remember but it has the fuzzy texture of a dream. As much as he tries, love doesn’t live in the big moments. Rather, it is a shapeless force that occupies every inane moment, just out of his field of vision.
She loved marcasite jewellery, the genuine antique kind. She collected so many pieces, some small and elegant, some loud and dramatic. Together they’d make up ridiculous stories of each piece’s origin. According to their folklore, she was the keeper of treasures last seen on duchesses, fortune-tellers, performance artists and concubines. She had the charm and danger of all those women dangling against her skin, with the freedom to choose, or discard, whoever she wanted to be that day.
He could go on forever listing the things she liked and didn’t like. He was the one who knew her best. He had made a study of her, down to every freckle on her soft skin. He willingly lost hours of his mornings to the intoxicating pull of her, the magic she conjured. This was no ordinary love affair, but one that rearranged the very atoms of his body into something better. Though she felt the same, Frankie was always charmingly perplexed at the level of his devotion, always coyly batting him away, always just out of his reach. This only made him love her more.
Her jewellery seemed so inconsequential at the time, mere possessions contributing to a sensual whole. Now she lives on in them, a most welcome haunting. Tyler still likes to walk through Portobello market and pick out pieces she would have loved, imagining how they would rest against her elegant collarbone. Today, the rain taps against his clean-shaven face and his fingers flex against the cold. A few traders brave the dismal weather, including his favourite, a withered man with perfectly round spectacles and the most authentic antique jewellery collection.
‘Good morning, sir.’ He coughs. ‘Are you back for more of the marcasite?’
‘You’re a perceptive man.’
He reaches beneath the trestle table and pulls out a wooden box.
‘I have some new stock then, not even unpacked yet. Did your fiancée love the rose you got her last time?’
Tyler grinds his teeth. Smiles. ‘Oh yes, she wears it all the time.’
He holds up an intricate necklace of marcasite lilies, all bending into and away from each other in endless symmetry. He can imagine it lying against her freckled skin, leading down to her chest and her beating heart.
‘It’s incredible. I’ll take it.’
Tyler loves this part of the ritual, where the old man creaks around and finds a soft velvet box and paper bag to wrap it in. Today he puts it all in another layer of plastic, to protect it against the rain.
‘Is that all for today? What about another antique bronze spoon for your mum?’
He gestures to a row of patterned bronze teaspoons, just like the ones Tyler’s mum used to hang from the wall in the magic house. He has too many already, filling up his cutlery drawer.
‘Oh, go on then. Better get something for the old duck,’ he laughs good-naturedly. Just an ordinary guy with too many women to please.
He paces down the street, oblivious to the people stepping out of his way. The new treasures clang in their bags as he places them on the floor of the café opposite Holly’s apartment where he settles down, unfolding his copy of The Economist.
‘Nice to see you again. Can I get you anything?’ the waitress asks, smiling as she pats down her sleek, pixie-cropped hair. Her eyebrows are distractingly perfect. Tyler has her pinned as one of those try-hard women who came to London to make something better of themselves, but got sidetracked along the way. Everybody thinks that they will be the one buying the lattes, warming their hands on a takeaway cup, and not the one serving them.
‘My usual please – cortado, with one of those shortbread slices. Do you have them today?’ Tyler asks this casually, as if he is merely interested. The truth is he needs the sugar more and more these days. A little sweetness takes the edge right off.
‘Of course! There’s a fresh batch about to come out the oven in a few minutes. Anything else?’
‘No, but leave the menu here. I’m going to be here a while.’
This place, with its hand-illustrated cups and perfect photogenic lighting, is a pretentious shith
ole. The servers have to be professional models with a bachelor’s degree to even have the chance of a job. His waitress – Eyebrows – gets flirtier with every visit, as if he’s coming for her, as if he is going to reach down into the pit of her mediocre life and save her. The forced genteelness makes him want to douse the place with acid, but it happens to have a perfect view of Holly’s front door.
It’s almost time for her to leave the house. After a few days of observation, it turns out that Holly is quite the creature of habit. He taps on Instagram to pass the time. Visits her profile first. She’s not as high-pitched as usual, but she’s still out there, healing herself for the whole world to see. Today she’s posted a tidy little shot of a self-help book, with some healing essential oils. ‘This is the only thing I trust to help me heal my scars!’ Oh, baby girl, those ragged red gashes aren’t going to calm down any time soon.
There she goes, walking out of her door in yoga pants and a sweatshirt. His fingers tighten around his espresso cup and he bites his lip as he spots her familiar hunched posture. She only leaves the house once a day to hurry to the Bikram yoga studio down the road. There is always a floral scarf wrapped around her face like a balaclava, complemented by oversized sunglasses. From afar, she could just be another starlet in the city, skipping to a secret location in disguise so she’s not photographed before hair and make-up people smooth her over. But he knows. He knows. She paces quickly, hands in tight balls next to her body, looking hunted.
It’s his fifth day here and every time he sees her, the muscles in his thighs strain to get up. His hands involuntarily clench into fists. He should follow her. But every time, he doesn’t. He just lets her leave. He gets the bill, feeling a bit sheepish. What’s stopping him? He can’t even say, except that it doesn’t feel quite right to see her face to face. Not yet. His next move should have the same poetry as his first. So he watches Holly as she disappears down the street, feeling the imaginary warmth of Frankie next to him, watching him and egging him on. Go on, darling, show that bitch what happens when she hurts your girl. Running her fingers through her red hair, which is long gone now. Fuck forgiveness. It’s time to deliver justice.
Chapter 15
Holly then
The deepest pain is not the one you would expect. It pulses beneath the skin incessantly. It is a nail being pressed into a nerve. People have gone crazy over less.
For Holly, that pain is made of tiny beads of anticipation. Every night she goes home and scans the horizon for signs of a threat. Her dad has triggers – mess, gluttony, noise, jokes he cannot understand, sex scenes on television. If something is not godly enough for him, the devil comes out.
And how the devil is going to come out today! Holly thinks, as she walks home from school, her mid-year A-level results shaking in her hand. She did OK in English and French, better than she expected actually, but her Maths and Science marks are atrocious. She’ll have to make some big changes if she wants to pass by the end of the year. He’s going to zone in on that, no question. He’s going to explode and she can barely breathe with the fear of it.
She pushes her bedroom door open and feels under her bed for her asthma pump. ‘Spontaneous seasonal asthma,’ the doctor calls it. Holly knows better. It is her throat seizing up with panic, reacting to the world closing in on her. A few puffs opens her airways, but her mind turns in circles. This day will only play out in one way. They will go to his leather-scented office and she will quiver beneath his gaze, like an employee. The envelope will crack open, and he will read its contents.
Two hours until her mum and dad get home. One unused razor in the bathroom cabinet. Holly stamps on it until the plastic edges break off and she can pull a thin silver blade out. She turns her music up, hikes up her school pinafore and takes a jagged breath. In a lightning motion, a deep red line appears on her pale thigh. Finally, the pain turns into substance, scarlet and glistening. It drips down her leg, away away. For a second there is only the bright sting of agony, nothing more. The music on the radio swells around her, she reaches for a tissue next to the bed and cleans herself.
Six o’ clock but his car doesn’t appear in the driveway on schedule. Holly helps her mother prepare dinner as they wait. Every minute burns like acid and makes the end of this evening disappear even further from sight.
They run out at seven o’clock to greet him. He enfolds them both in an embrace, enveloping them in the scent of beer and meat.
‘You ate already?’ her mother asks quietly, careful not to use a tone.
‘I can always eat more!’ he laughs. It’s a whooping, uncontrolled laugh, like a wild animal. It’s utterly disproportionate to the joke. Holly digs her fingernails into the wound on her thigh. Tonight, she is a rabbit in the den of a wolf.
Her eyes narrow on his signet ring as he slices through a piece of dried chicken schnitzel. Will it be too dry for his liking? Will he notice how Holly is pushing her food around her plate? Starvation is as much a sin as gluttony in his eyes.
He took some of the boys from work out for a drink, that’s why he was late coming home. They had a cracking sales day, with everyone meeting their targets and more. ‘Lucky girl.’ He gestured to Holly with a giant hand. ‘Looks like I’ll have the money to keep you in that posh school of yours.’
She jolts in her seat at the imaginary blow. Not that he notices, his mind is manically jumping from one topic to the next.
‘Speaking of which, aren’t your A-level results coming out soon?’
Her mother looks panicked.
Holly freezes. Her heart can’t take being ridiculed again. Her body, if shaken and pushed around, may break. She runs a finger over the scab beneath her skirt, her pain made concrete. Another path begins to take shape.
‘Oh, yes! Mrs Ede spoke to each of us about them today one by one. She is so happy with my results. I’m averaging B’s in everything!’
‘Everything? Even Maths and Science?’ Her father almost looks deflated.
‘Yes!’
‘Can I see?’
It felt so easy. It just rolled off her tongue, ‘Oh sorry, Dad. We didn’t get a printed copy. It’s just mid-year results after all.’
It’s just a little white lie. She’ll fix it over the next few months by studying hard and going to extra lessons. He’ll be none the wiser. She’ll go to school and watch the girls stare at her long scar while they change for swimming, and hope they imagine the very worst. They will look at her twice in the school corridor now, and whisper tall stories. Hopefully they will be curious enough to ask, kind enough to reach out and touch her. Perhaps in the comfort of their concern, she will let herself cry. Her father nods appreciatively under the power of her lie, and her mother smiles in relief. They continue chewing in silence, while a whole new world opens up for her.
Chapter 16
Holly
Holly sits cross-legged on her bed, watching YouTube clips and picking through a kale salad. As she has mentioned many times in her recipe tutorials, the folate in kale makes it a great mood enhancer, so it is the ideal food to eat when you’re depressed. Today, it only tastes bitter. Maybe there are some things that food cannot fix.
Still, this is the most normal she has felt since the attack. She doesn’t have to be the sum of her injuries. She can still be an average girl, passing the time by watching video clips of other people’s interesting lives. She looks up at the time on her computer screen: 7 p.m. already! Time for a shower, some television and an early night.
No matter how content she is in her own company, there is always a moment when the silence turns sinister. Every creak of her wooden floorboards turns into a footstep. The sudden flutter of a pigeon perching on her windowsill makes her jump. This is even more pronounced since the incident.
She needs the comforting sound of bathwater and the blaring of the television in the background. She changes the channel to her favourite baking reality show, runs a bath flush with pink bath salts, shuts the bathroom door and closes her eyes.
Holly must have dozed off, because when she opens her eyes the water has turned cold and the house is silent. Did the television somehow turn off on its own?
A sharp, clattering sound, like a pot falling to the ground echoes through the apartment.
‘Hello? Zanna?’ says Holly, immediately feeling foolish. It must have been the wind, it could only have been the wind, but tomorrow she will take better safety precautions and change the damn locks.
Although the television is off and the clattering has ceased, the apartment is not quite silent. Holly can hear the sound of running water. She steps out the bath, dries herself off and braces herself for a leaking pipe or, worse, a flooded kitchen. She hasn’t been herself and keeps leaving the oven on, and taps running. As she rifles through her cupboard for a set of clean pyjamas, she notices her laptop has moved from her bed to her dressing room table. A voice inside her screams:
That’s not where you left it. That is definitely not where you fucking left it.
She inches closer and unlocks the screen.
YouTube is still open, but it is playing a different video. The title of the clip is HOT GIRL DANCING IN SHOWER and has over five thousand likes. Holly clamps her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream as she watches the tanned, lean woman dance in the shower. The glass door clearly shows the lick of her blonde hair that leads to her firm buttocks . In one frame, she turns to wash her hair, revealing the curve of her breasts and a taut stomach. Holly feels sick, she knows this body. She spent hours nourishing it with healthy foods and working out at the gym after all. She knows this shower. She was the one who thought the see-through glass doors were sexy and edgy when she first moved into the apartment.
Shame on You: The addictive psychological thriller that will make you question everything you read online Page 7
