Saving April

by Sarah A. Denzil

  “Doesn’t matter,” April says.

  I move towards her and put an arm around her shoulders. The act feels odd, like I shouldn’t be doing it, like I’m encroaching on a stranger’s personal space. April tenses up beneath my touch. I try to remember how I have to be patient with her.

  “It does matter. I love you. You know that, don’t you?” I say.

  April’s body quivers when I say the word love. “Yes.”

  I kiss her on the top of her head and let her go. “We’ll spend some time together tomorrow, okay sweetie?”

  “All right,” she says.

  I begin to leave, but then I change my mind and look at her one last time, staring out of the window towards Hannah’s house across the street. The sight of her standing there in silence—doing nothing but watching—makes me feel uneasy.

  “You and Dad fighting again?” she asks, jolting me from my thoughts.

  “No, honey. We’re fine.” I smile at her and back out of the room. For some reason, all I want is to get out of there.

  But as I close the door shut, I could swear that I hear her whisper: “Liar.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hannah

  I watch as the last drop of wine falls into my glass, creating ripples on the golden liquid surface. Since Laura left, I’ve been what my mother used to say: a bag of nerves.

  Moving here was supposed to be calming after everything that happened before. I never wanted this dilemma to plague my mind in the way that it has. I never asked for this.

  That woman left without knowing I’d called the police to her house because I suspected her husband of hurting her daughter. And now I have to decide whether to tell her everything—including the girl I saw Matt with in the pub—or telling her nothing. There’s no middle ground here, either I break up a marriage on the slim chance that April is being hurt, or I potentially let a thirteen-year-old girl continue to be hurt. The police were so convinced that nothing was going on. So why am I still concerned? What could possibly make me believe April is in danger?

  After sitting and finishing my wine, I yank my laptop onto my knees and open Facebook. Maybe if I can get more evidence. Maybe if I find out more about Matt Mason… My heart starts thumping as I click “create an account” on the Facebook page. I can’t quite believe I’m about to do this.

  First, I have to find the right profile picture. That’s where stock image websites come in. I’ve used them a few times when creating anonymous profiles for my editing services. I don’t like people knowing what I look like, so I usually use a vector image of a smiling cartoon character. Anything that hides who I truly am. I can’t remember who said it, but they remarked that everyone on the internet acts like they’ve had three glasses of wine. Well I’m on the internet and I have had three glasses of wine, so maybe I’m on my hypothetical sixth glass, and that’s why I’m setting up a dummy Facebook account to befriend Matt Mason.

  I find the perfect image of a smiling girl—probably about seventeen years old—with jet black straight hair and a cute button nose. I mentally apologise to the random model whose image I’m hiding behind, then upload the image to my new account. My name is Amy Manford. I am seventeen, I’m from Rotherham, and I’m studying sports science at college. I’m perfect. But I need something extra. My profile page is too thin, even after uploading a cover photo of a pretty landscape somewhere in Yorkshire and writing a couple of statuses about enjoying hiking and the gym.

  I need friends. No one is on Facebook without friends. But how am I going to do that when I’m a fake person? I have to make more sock puppet accounts.

  It’s a good job I have a subscription with the stock image accounts. Before I know it, Amy Manford has a number of friends and some distant family members from overseas. I have to be careful not to do too much. It has to seem realistic that Amy joined Facebook today, and her friends are posting messages on her wall saying how glad they are she finally joined.

  When it’s done, I reach out for my wine glass but it’s drained. In desperate need of more courage, I hurry into the kitchen and pour a measure of vodka. Allowing myself to sober up and realise what an idiotic thing I’m doing would be a very bad thing.

  No, it’s not idiotic. It can’t be. This is about Matt Mason. I’m almost one hundred per cent sure that he’s not a good guy. I know it. He has a skeevy air about him, and about the way he lives. I can’t get the image of him in the pub with that young girl out of my mind. Men shouldn’t be allowed to get away with behaving like that. It’s not right.

  Amy Manford—my health conscious vibrant young woman—requests friendship from Matt Mason. Now, I wait for him.

  I get up off the sofa to shut the living room curtains. April is standing at her bedroom window again. She’s so frail and vulnerable. Am I the only one who sees it? Am I the only one who believes he could hurt her? I shake my head and snatch the curtains together. Then I pace around the room waiting for a Facebook notification. The vodka doesn’t last long. Before I know it, I’m pouring another. The bottle is draining fast, but I won’t be able to go to the co-op to buy another one tomorrow. I don’t leave the house when I have a hangover. I can’t.

  I refresh the page. Matt Mason has accepted Amy’s friend request. I finish the last of my vodka and stare triumphantly at the computer screen. Now I’ve got him. Now I can get to the bottom of this once and for all.

  A few seconds later, a red box with a one in it appears next to the message icon. I click on it eagerly, exhilarated and sweaty from the vodka.

  Hey, hun. Do I know u?

  I type back: no, babe. Just liked ur profile pic.

  Matt: like what u c?

  My heart is beating so fast I’m terrified it might pop.

  Me: yeh. Ur hot.

  Matt: k, but tell me who u r. Did u really just find me?

  I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that Matt Mason is flirting with me as Amy Manford, or that he speaks like a fifteen-year-old on a chatroom, complete with text speak. It makes me wonder why Laura, an intelligent and together woman, would ever be with a man like him. They must’ve been young. I doubt that Laura is much older than thirty-five and April is thirteen. That would make sense.

  Matt: Well?

  Me: I just want 2 chat.

  Matt: k

  I settle into the sofa, and get to know the real Matt Mason.

  Things are different now. I think it might be because of moving house, but Dad has changed. He used to tell me that he loved me more than anything in the world, and I should be grateful to have a father who loves me so much. I liked that. It made me feel special. But now I think he loves someone else more. Mum keeps asking him if he’s having an affair. Then they fight some more.

  I don’t know if I want things to go back to the way they were. I was scared before, too. I guess sometimes I felt weird about everything. Sometimes I wonder if what happens in our house is normal or not. The only thing I do know, is that I don’t want to listen to Mum and Dad fight anymore. Sometimes I hate them both so much. I hate Mum for never being around and always shouting at Dad until he yells. I hate Dad for what he does to her. And what he does to us.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Laura

  What the hell are these things? They resemble baby formula but smell rank. I pull out a large tub of Matt’s protein supplement and remove the top. The powder drifts up to my nose and makes me sneeze. I wipe my nose, look around guiltily, and put the tub back in the cupboard. Matt changed when he started becoming obsessed with all this stuff. Before then he would never fly off the handle like he has been doing.

  It’s Sunday, and I had told myself that I’d take April to the shopping centre, but I woke up with a splitting headache and no desire to try to force April to have fun. Matt soon disappeared to the gym, leaving me with my teenage daughter. She wanted nothing to do with me. Instead she put her nose in a book, and went into the garden to sit in the sunshine.

  I make my way upstairs with a duster and decide to quickly
tidy April’s room while she’s out. I try to convince myself that I’m only here to dust and not to snoop, but deep down I know better. Matt’s words cut me yesterday, when he said that April was a mistake. It was supposed to bring us closer together, but instead, she has driven a great big wedge between us. I run the cloth over April’s chest of drawers. She used to have knick-knacks on all surfaces, little photo frames, ornaments of cats—she loved cats, always wanted one, but Matt won’t have pets in the house—now there’s nothing. There’s only a lamp and her e-reader on her bedside table. Even the novelty alarm clock with the wagging tail hasn’t made it out of the boxes.

  I duck under the bed, checking there. I know she keeps her diary under her mattress, but I can’t bear to open it. I won’t be that kind of mother. Not like mine. She snooped on everything I did. Both my parents were complete control freaks. They had to know everything all the time. Maybe that’s why I ended up with Matt. I shut that thought down. If I go there, I’ll let those feelings in, and I don’t want to do that.

  My fingers find a piece of paper under the bed. I pull it out and am about to screw it up when I notice the word scrawled across the page. I’m standing there, completely transfixed by this one word, trying to think what it could mean. Then I turn around and I gaze out of the window towards Hannah’s house, remembering the way April was staring out of the window yesterday. Could this be a sign? It can’t be. Can it? She wouldn’t.

  I hurry out of the door and down the stairs, taking them so fast I almost collide with the front door on my way down. I must’ve burst through the back door into the garden because April lifts her head from her book and appears completely gobsmacked. Her jaw hangs open as I stride across the grass. In fact, it’s the first real expression I’ve seen on her face for months.

  “What is this?” I hold up the sign.

  April’s face drains of blood. Her already pale skin fades to ivory in the summer sun.

  “What have you done?” I insist. “Tell me.” The fact that she’s still holding that book infuriates me all the more. I yank it from her hands and toss it onto the floor. “Please tell me that you haven’t been holding signs that say help against the window. Tell me you haven’t.”

  She doesn’t say a word. I watch as she looks away, finding some spot out in the distance to stare at.

  “Why would you do this to us, April? Don’t we take care of you?”

  Then she meets my gaze and her eyes flash with anger. Her upper lip curls up as if in a snarl, but then the expression breaks, and tears flood her eyes. She’s back to being a young girl again. I take a step back, surprised by her reaction. She was genuinely angry with me. What am I missing? What has caused her to be like this?

  “Everything all right?” Matt saunters into the garden with his gym bag slung over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  I hold up the sign. “April has been holding this sign up in her bedroom window.”

  “Oh,” Matt says.

  I stare at him, aghast. “Oh?” I see the warning in his eyes. I see the lack of surprise in his expression. “You knew about this, didn’t you? That’s what you’ve been keeping from me. I knew something was going on. What the fuck, Matt? You don’t keep something like this from me.”

  “Don’t overreact,” he says. “It was just a prank. April and I sorted it all out. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Nothing to worry about, are you kidding me? Our teenage daughter holds a sign up in the window asking for help and you think there’s nothing to worry about?” I chuck the paper to the ground and put my head in both of my hands, completely at a loss as to why all this is happening. After a few deep breaths, I say, “April, why did you do this?”

  She shrugs and sniffs away a few tears.

  “Laura, you’re overreacting to this. She’s acting out, that’s all.”

  “Was it a prank?” I say to my daughter, ignoring my husband.

  April turns to Matt before she answers. “Yes.” Why is she always seeking out his approval before she answers every question?

  Now I don’t know what to think. Do I really believe that April wants help from a stranger? Not really, no. But there seems to be more going on than what April and Matt are letting on.

  “Tell me. Tell me now why you did this.” I put both hands on April’s shoulders. She angles her head down and I see a tear drip from the end of her nose. “No more crocodile tears. Tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “Stop pushing her,” Matt says. “She won’t talk to you like this.”

  “Would you just shut up,” I snap. “Stop undermining me.”

  Matt laughs without humour. “That’s fucking rich coming from you.”

  April wriggles out of my grip and goes back into the house.

  “Hey, don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you.” I snatch up the sign and follow her into the kitchen.

  “Stop yelling at me,” April whines.

  “I’ll stop yelling when you tell me why you would do this.” My hands are shaking when I point at her. Even in the heat of the moment I’m beginning to wonder why I’m acting like this, why I’m flying into such a rage. Matt and I can go at it when we’re mad at each other, but I’ve never been like this with April before. But for some reason I can’t calm down, and I keep blurting out whatever comes into my head.

  April pours herself a glass of water and hovers next to the breakfast bar. The fact that she paused to do that mid-fight is ridiculous. Before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve closed the space between us, snatched the glass out of her hands, and thrown it at the wall. April screams and dives through the open kitchen door into the living room.

  “You’re insane,” she screams. “This is why I want help. To get away from your insanity. From both of you!”

  “What are you saying, April?” Matt says in a low, menacing voice. “Maybe you should be careful about what you say that you can’t take back.”

  April’s chest rises and falls quickly as she backs away from us. I’m crying, she’s crying. Matt drags his hands through his hair. Everything is a mess.

  “April, I’m sorry,” I say. The silence that comes next hangs in the air like low fog. No one moves. Then April runs up the stairs away from us, her footsteps soft on every step.

  Matt’s hand is on my arm and he twists me around to face him. His hand is up and the next thing I know, I’m reeling from two short, sharp slaps around my face. “What did you think you were doing? Why did you react like that? Look what you’ve done to our daughter. Fuck! That busybody across the street was right to call the fucking police.”

  “What did you just say?” I stroke my sore cheek. “Did you say the police?”

  Matt pushes his hands into his pockets and hangs his head. His nose whistles as he exhales. He’s been caught out and he knows it. “The police came round and asked some questions.”

  “What?” I can’t believe the amount of lies that are between us all. I was wrong about being able to fix my broken family. This is too much. It’s all too much of a mess. “The police were here about our daughter and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I’m sorry, all right. I didn’t want to worry you.”

  I half-collapse onto the sofa. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I can’t believe her.” Matt’s voice comes out in such a low growl that my head snaps up. I follow his gaze out of the window. On the other side of the street, with her hand pressed up against her living room window, Hannah stands, staring at us.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hannah

  It was the sound of the glass smashing that caught my attention. I pulled myself off the floor to go to the living room window. All of the Masons were there, and they seemed angry. April screamed before running upstairs, then Matt slapped Laura across the face. I stood there, completely frozen, completely transfixed by what I was seeing, like a person watching a soap opera. Then they both turned to me, and I have never seen hatred in anyone’s eyes like I did Matt Mason’s. I rushe
d straight to the phone and called the police.

  After making my Facebook profiles, Matt continued to flirt with me for a while longer, but he didn’t do anything that could be construed as cheating. Things didn’t get sexual, but it was still very inappropriate coming from a man his age directed at a girl Amy Manford’s age. If she was real, of course. But I ended up finishing the bottle of vodka and falling asleep on the living room floor. At about 4am I awoke startled from a nightmare, the same nightmare I have almost every night. But this time it was different. This time I saw April’s face in my dream, and I think even then I knew something bad was going to happen today.

  Now I’m pacing the living room, wearing a track into the carpet. My hangover is contributing to the rising nausea. I’m waiting.

  I didn’t call 999 this time, I called PC Baker, who left me his card on his way out the door. But now I regret that decision. I thought he might react faster, and I thought I come across saner, but now I wonder if he had already decided I was a whackjob and decided not to take me seriously. Why did I drink last night? Why did I befriend Matt like that?

  I try calling Laura’s mobile to see if she and April are okay, but after five attempts and two texts, there’s nothing. The curtains are shut across the street, so I can’t see anything. I go through to the kitchen to make a drink, just water this time. I stand by the kitchen sink waiting for the tap to stop spluttering. Then I lift my head and drop the glass when I see what’s in the garden. It smashes all over the kitchen tiles.

  The glass is on me.

  I ignore it. Instead I grab my keys and hurry out into the garden. There she is. April. There she is before me.

  “April,” I say. My voice is breathy and rushed. “Are you all right? What are you doing here?”