She stares at him with so little emotion it sends a shudder through his body. ‘Tyler, you also need to understand women in order to understand this. I may have been angry with Holly, I may have even hated her, but that only made me want to watch her even more.’
Chapter 24
Holly
The girls are coming. She can smell them getting nearer. She can hear their whispers approaching her door.
Since the fateful BBC incident, Holly hasn’t done any more media interviews, but Zanna thought it would be a good idea to nurture a relationship with the people who are on her side. The #JusticeforHolly girls.
‘I know you feel awful, Holly, but there are some incredible people out there fighting in your corner. Trust me, just an hour in their company will make you feel a whole lot better,’ she said.
Her good intentions only make Holly feel more frantic. It will take more than some positive social interaction to make her feel as if this is all going to turn out fine in the end.
Today feels like a test. Can she still pretend to be the person she was? The past few weeks have changed her. The nights spent going over all the things she’s done wrong are mapped in her red, fragile eyes. Her uncertain, stilted voice hints at all which has been taken from her. The illusion has been broken, and as it shattered, so did her strength.
Will going through the motions miraculously change her back? She’s been preparing the lunch since yesterday. There is a selection of raw nut cheeses in the fridge, as well as a jar of basil pesto. She has made seed crackers to accompany it, and a big bowl of vegan pad thai. She’s just filled two jugs with her signature green juice recipe, and has checked the coconut and berry cheesecake in the freezer. It was touch and go when she bought the ingredients at the market. Somehow her card was not declined – not just yet. She’s jittery, like she was the first time she prepared her recipes for her editors and she wasn’t sure they would be good enough to publish.
Of course, they were. She was on the cusp of a wave as people started discovering how incredible vegan food could be. Watching the editors tucking into her raw chocolate brownies and Greek-style tapas board was the most inspired she has ever felt. She felt so lit up that day, like she could illuminate the whole room. For a time, it felt like her backstory was her only ticket to standing out, to feeling this way forever. But that day, she forgot about the cancer – she had the talent all on her own.
There is a pounding on the door. The girls are here, looming behind a flustered Zanna.
‘Hey, lovely, sorry we’re a bit late. The traffic is heinous out there! Anyway, meet Brooke, Candice and Nicole. These three have been total digital superstars in their own right and part of the amazing group of women behind the epic campaign to find your attacker. I don’t understand the half of it, but you’re lucky to have such incredible ladies on your side.’
It takes Holly everything she has not to run to her bedroom and hide. Her interactions with fans always used to feel so imbalanced as their wonder at her real-life beauty was always so palpable. Now she is the one who feels unworthy, the one who feels the need to explain her appearance.
Brooke, the obvious leader, steps forward first, grabbing hold of Holly with an unnaturally soft hand. She’s wearing the same Adidas by Stella McCartney floral tracksuit Holly posted on Instagram once. Deliberate. In her eyes, Holly instantly recognises the hunger of a person who wants exactly what she has. She’s seen it so often in the lithe women who come to her book launches and tag her in their recipe pictures. As much as her fans adore her, so many have that slight female edge which says that, if they had the same opportunities, they could have done better. Shame sticks in her throat. She has never thought about this so clearly before. She’s always thought of their ambition as flattering, never sinister. This new-found cynicism is another way her attack has coiled its filthy roots into her brain.
She won’t let it. She refuses to let some sick anomaly erode her belief in the goodness of humankind. These girls are angels in a world of online jealousy and attack. Zanna’s right: she’s lucky to have them on her side.
‘It’s an honour to meet you, Brooke.’ She smiles.
‘No, no, it is a massive honour to meet you! Although, I’m not sure you remember but I actually did meet you just last month at your breakfast event. I was the one in the audience who told the story about how your eating plan balanced my hormones, remember?’ That thin smile, that barbed accusing tone. It brought back a moment in her walk with Jack. That moment when his tone turned sour. Her hand unconsciously travels to her face, touches the scars she should have so easily avoided.
‘Oh, the breakfast event! Of course!’
The day of the breakfast was, in fact, a blur. Although Holly has built a following fast online, replying to comments and thanking people for their compliments is different from engaging with them in real life. She is naturally an introvert, content to style pictures of food behind closed doors. Any personal interaction beyond her smartphone has to be forced. That day fear pulsed behind her eyes, and lodged in her throat. Surely they would notice she is not as assured as they were? Surely they could read all her lies on her face?
But these events, as Zanna always emphasised, allowed people to connect with her recipes and see how down to earth she really was. She got through the breakfast event with the unnatural help of some quietly prescribed anti-anxiety pills. Publicly she only backed natural supplements, but privately she needed something stronger to face the room of expectant faces. In the fog of her mind, every word she said and person she met had soft edges that melted into each other to form one marbled memory.
Holly pushes Brooke’s hand aside and moves forward to hug her. The other two move in and soon she is enclosed in the gentle mingling of floral perfumes. It feels so good to be loved, to be in the warm embrace of others.
The girls are obscenely beautiful. Their faces are rosy and flushed, probably from a recent yoga class. Their eyes are framed by perfectly groomed eyebrows and eyelash extensions. Their obvious effort with their appearance stokes the paranoia in Holly’s chest that she looks as bad as she feels. She’d spent an hour holding a heat pack to her face this morning, but it only made the scars more inflamed. Are they holding in their revulsion at her appearance? Should she draw attention to it or behave like everyone else and just pretend it is the same as before?
‘Um, should I show you guys around?’
She doesn’t want to go there, she can’t let herself go there, but her eyes do it for her. They glide over their three identically taut stomachs as they pull off their coats. They settle on their round, hard arses, undoubtedly earned through a daily regimen of squats. She eyes them like a prospective date, assessing and evaluating. A voice in her head screams they are better, they are hotter, they are so much thinner than you are right now. This is what it is to be a woman, always leaving your body and looking down on it, weighing up your flesh in comparison to everyone else’s.
No, no, stop. They’ve done nothing to offend her besides having the perfect, normal life she had a week ago. And they must have demons too. No matter how adjusted a person seems, there must be some disorder under their skin if they are willing to dedicate most of their day to worshipping a random girl on the Internet.
‘Here is the lounge area, and then the kitchen – my pride and joy – and my bedroom is down the hall.’
They linger in the kitchen, of course, picking up jars and powders while conferring excitedly about their favourite ingredients.
‘Where did you learn to cook, Holly?’ asks Candice.
‘I taught myself actually. It was just a process of experimentation with the ingredients I like.’
‘And striking out the ones you couldn’t have?’ Brooke asks. Holly realises with a jolt that she has forgotten to move the rainbow of pills she takes every morning with her breakfast, currently on the top shelf. She prays Brooke doesn’t look up.
‘Yes, exactly. I’ve always thought that restrictions actually help your creativi
ty grow in a way.’
She’s performing now. Her hands arch unnaturally as she desperately tries to be the girl connected to the smiling face on the inside of her book jacket. Though it’s only her familiar face that has actually gone, the rest of what made her unique and relevant has also disappeared along with it. Now, she’s guessing at what it means to be normal.
The girls nod at her in unison, seemingly unaware of the toll this is taking on her. She forgets that all they know is the flattened version of her on their screens. They don’t know the difference between the old Holly and the new. In fact, they probably created a fictional Holly in their own imaginations months ago. What would the woman who matched those filtered selfies be like? So much better than her, no doubt.
There’s an unspoken conversation going on among the girls. They think she doesn’t notice it, but she does. Holly sees it as they dish up their food, placing minuscule samples of her cooking on their plates. Don’t they like it? Hasn’t it lived up to their expectations? Oh fuck, girls like these probably make her own recipes better at home. As always, the fear that she has somehow included some ingredient recently been maligned as non-vegan creeps up.
The discrepancy between her own personal recipes and the way they live on in the lives of her followers is something she has never got used to. Today, it makes her feel uneasy, on the brink of being exposed. Zanna looks over to her, giving her a firm nod and a thumbs up. That woman can detect the scent of Holly’s imposter syndrome from a mile off. She nods in return and manages a weak smile. She’ll be strong, if not for herself, then for her friend.
Brooke clears her throat again. Out of all the girls, she appears to want something out of this meeting the most. It burns behind her eyes. ‘So, Holly, I know this is painful for you, but we wanted to ask a few questions about your attack?’
‘It’s fine, Brooke. I’m getting used to talking about it now.’ There’s an unconscious edge in her voice. The strangeness of the situation suddenly hits her. What right do these women have to take ownership of her tragedy, of her endangered life?
Brooke looks brightly towards Holly and touches her own unblemished face. Smooth, thin cheeks without an ounce of extra fat. The way girls cut each other is different and, sometimes, so much worse.
‘OK! Well some of my questions might be a bit different. Some of us have studied the safety of women in digital media. See, from what we have researched, trolls don’t select people randomly. They go for targets that represent something or someone in their lives that causes them distress.’
There’s something in the half-smirk on Brooke’s face that makes Holly want to get up and run. It’s finally happening. It’s here.
‘So, you think there was something about me that made this happen?’ she asks, her bitterness dribbling like saliva, stinging the split corners of her mouth. Zanna stares at the girls sternly. Holly feels a rush of love for her friend, who she knows will blow this interview apart if she has to.
‘No, no, we’re very against the idea of women “asking” for anything. We just wanted to know a little bit more about your story.’
Suddenly, they all appear a lot older than she first thought. People always write off the pretty girls, the thin girls. But these are the ones who are the most strategic, managing their bodies and the world around them until it bends to their will.
She should never have agreed to this.
‘OK, sure. Well, ask anything you want.’
Brooke looks to the other girls. Candice whispers something in her ear, ‘First, we’d like to know a bit more about your life before the blog. Were you happy? Did you have a close group of friends?’
Andrea. It’s a door at the end of a dark passage she doesn’t want to walk down.
‘There isn’t much to say really. I lived a boring life in Exeter and managed the Topshop on the high street. I lived with my mum and dad, and had a few acquaintances, but I was closest to my colleague and best friend Andrea. For a while, we did everything together but eventually we grew apart.’
That’s not all, that’s not all.
‘Is there anyone there who would have ill feelings about you?’
What do they know?
‘Not that I know of. I mean there was the usual girl stuff, you know? Fighting over boyfriends, and what not.’
The usual, you know? Your best friend shouting insults at you as you tried to explain yourself.
‘Was it a hard decision to leave?’
It was the only possible decision. If she’d stayed any longer, her secret would have been exposed.
‘Yes, of course. But it was time for me to grow up, wasn’t it?’
Nicole, the quietest girl, speaks up, ‘D-do you have any particular bad memories of your time in Exeter?’
‘No.’
Her suitcase standing at the door. Her father in another room, refusing to come to say goodbye.
They’re closing in on her. She turns desperately to Zanna. They haven’t had their berry cheesecake yet, but they need to leave right fucking now.
Thankfully, Zanna steps in. ‘Hey, girls, I’m so glad you could make it. Holly and I both wanted to share our appreciation for everything you’re doing in the search for her attacker. I think our girl is getting a bit tired now, though, aren’t you, Holly?’
Hold back the tears. Don’t let the wolves see them. ‘I am, yes.’
‘Could we wrap this up with a fun group selfie?’ The kiss of Brooke’s smartphone camera feels like a burn.
The girls hug her in turn. As they walk away, Brooke turns around one last time.
‘Hey, Holly, how old are you again?’
‘Oh, twenty-eight?’
*
Nobody knows her real age. Holly has made up figures on the spot before to seem younger, or more mature, depending on what the person opposite her wanted. Why did she have to sound so unsure? Why do these girls matter to her so much? But then, girls like these always have.
‘Twenty-eight? That’s so weird, I’m sure I read in your book that you’re twenty-five.’
‘Oh, you know how publishing processes are: so many eyes, and typos still slip through.’
She could have imagined it, but she is sure Brooke just rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah. Sure. OK, bye, Holly. Well, it was a privilege to meet you.’
As she turns to leave, Holly catches Brooke’s eye. There is something in her pitying smile, a sinister glimmer in her eyes that is batted quickly away by a flutter of her eyelash extensions. There has been a shift. Brooke is no longer a fan but a leader, no longer enthralled but powerful.
Chapter 25
Tyler
It only took a few months of dating for Tyler to realise that Frankie was not good at mundane life stuff. She could secure millions in investment, but she struggled to open the packaging of her sandwich at lunchtime. As for those childproof pill bottles, God, he’d be bent over heaving with laughter as she tried to get the lid off. She let her car tax expire and always missed her doctor’s check-ups. But, how could he chastise her for it? She lived in the mystical complexity of her mind. She didn’t have time to concern herself with the little things.
Her driving was another issue entirely. It was if she had learnt to drive in a country in the throes of a civil war. Swerving, ducking, speeding and taking chances, she was always driving for her life. A few weeks into their relationship, he noticed her eyesight was so bad that she had lost all depth perspective in the dark. It was too soon to interfere, but he gently suggested she go see an optometrist. Frankie’s only vice was a stubborn sense of pride. She didn’t book an appointment. She simply stopped driving at night.
He should have pushed her harder, but it’s hard to see looming danger when you’re so close to it.
Yet how could he stay angry with his beautiful girl? Their quiet evenings together, spent drinking wine and talking through the small events in their day, introduced a calm he had been craving since the death of his mother. Suddenly, somebody cared about what he had for lunch that d
ay and asked how his patients were recovering. Living within her love was like finally reaching the surface to gasp for breath after swimming underwater for too long. He told her he loved her one morning after sleeping over at her apartment.
‘I love espresso so damn much,’ said Frankie, as he carried their coffee to bed.
‘Well, I love you.’ He smiled.
‘Oh, darling . . .’ She grabbed his hand and kissed him until their coffees turned cold. In that moment, he knew that one day their ringed hands would hold one another in this same bed. Husband and wife, family, preparing to reach into the morning.
*
Another night, her apartment, five months later. He was distracted that evening, scanning the titles on her bookshelf and picking up her eclectic selection of ornaments. There was always more about Frankie to discover. Always the scientist, he needed to decode the source of her magic. She waited until they were reading in bed and he was drifting off, breathing in the rose scent of her hair.
‘So, I went for a check-up today . . .’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘For my eyes . . .’
‘Finally! Hallelujah! You know I would have gone with you, right?’
‘Yeah, yeah. It’s OK, it was just a check-up.’ He was wide awake then, stoked by a rush of possessiveness. She should have asked him. He’s her partner now and he’s a doctor.
‘So, what did he say?’
‘Well,’ she laughed nervously, ‘it turns out that I’ve got a brain tumour.’
Nobody should ever feel the way he felt in that moment. His mind grasped for an explanation, a way out, but he could feel everything they had falling, falling down an endless black hole. He knows how this ends. He’s been here before, sitting on the cold floor outside a locked room, trying to block his ears so as not to hear the screaming inside.
He tried to turn to face Frankie but she clutched him as hard as she could, as if wringing out their final normal moment. Worse still, her laughing turned hysterical.
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