---

The last thing I will ever do is go to the police and change my statement, so Johnny’s cousin – or whoever he is – can go to hell. But for weeks now I’ve been constantly looking over my shoulder, my stomach lurching each time a new customer walks into the coffee shop, never heading out alone once it’s dark.

University is the only place I feel remotely safe – it’s always brimming with people so he’d be stupid to try anything here, at least during the day. But I know one thing for sure: I can’t live like this, constantly on edge, waiting for something to happen – and it will happen. I have no doubt he intends to carry through on his threat.

This is why I’m standing outside Zach’s office this lunchtime. There is nobody else I can go to. I don’t knock at first, but watch him through the narrow window in the door. His head is bent forward as he pores over some papers, so he doesn’t notice me. He looks so peaceful that it gives me second thoughts. How can I bring all my problems to him? The burden should be mine alone to share.

I’m about to walk away when his head jolts up and he sees me. A smile spreads across his face and he beckons me in.

‘Actually, don’t worry,’ I say, popping my head through the door. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Come in, Josie. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you. Sorry we haven’t chatted for a while. Do you mind closing the door?’

So now it’s too late and I walk towards him and sit in front of his desk.

‘My novel,’ he says, shuffling together the papers he was reading and putting them in his drawer. ‘I’m struggling a bit with chapter eleven so I printed it out to read it on paper to see if that makes a difference. Sometimes it helps, but not today. I just can’t get my mind into it.’

‘You need to distance yourself from it for a bit and then go back to it.’ I say this as if I’m an expert when the truth is I have no idea what I’m talking about. I can’t even imagine writing anything longer than a short story. Unless I wrote about her – then I’d have plenty to say.

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘I know that, but… I don’t know. I feel a huge sense of panic sometimes, like time’s running out and I have to get everything done now, before it’s too late. Sometimes it feels like there’ll be no tomorrow. Like I’m in a race and I can’t even see the finish line but I’ve just got to get there.’

This surprises me – Zach always seems so laid-back. ‘What do you mean by “too late”?’

‘Oh, I’m not being morbid. I just feel this huge sense of urgency about everything. Anyway, just ignore me. How’s everything going with you?’

But now I don’t want to talk about me. I want to hear all his thoughts, soak up every part of him I can. But there’s no way I’ll tell him this. Instead, I say, ‘Actually, things aren’t too good. That’s why I’m here. I was wondering if your offer still stands of listening to me if I ever needed to talk?’

He smiles. ‘Of course, I meant what I said. Tell you what, though, shall we get out of here? I could do with some air. Freezing-cold air, but at least it’s fresher than in here.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘Great. Just give me a few minutes – I need to quickly speak to someone – but how about meeting me in the park in ten minutes? I’ll find you there.’

---

Zach was right about it being freezing, and my short biker jacket is no barrier against the wind. I’m in desperate need of a new coat but I need all the money I can get right now. I can just about manage to pay my rent and keep my car running, but I’ve also got to be able to provide for Kieren if anything happens before I graduate. I can’t believe for one second that Liv has changed and is actually looking after my brother properly, so I need to be prepared for anything. What happened the other night with that man threatening me has made me realise this more than ever.

I wait for Zach on a bench by the lake, watching people as they walk past. Most of them are mothers with kids – something I can’t ever imagine being – and I wonder what’s behind their smiles and aura of normality, because we’re never just what we seem on the outside. Anyone passing me would think I’m a typical student. If only they knew.

A hand taps my shoulder and I flinch.

‘Whoa, sorry!’ Zach says, holding up his hands. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’ His smile fades. ‘Josie, what’s wrong?’

I shake my head. ‘I’m not okay, Zach. And I don’t know what to do.’

And that’s when I tell him, avoiding his eyes most of the time because I can’t bear to see his reaction.

---

When I was eighteen my so-called mother’s boyfriend attacked me and left me for dead. With his fists. With a knife. With anything he could get his hands on. He never liked me. Said I was too mouthy and didn’t know my place. He also said I should never have been born, which was pretty much what my mum had been telling me my whole life.

Liv’s probably right about that. She had no business having a child. She was sixteen, a kid herself, but that excuses nothing. My grandmother – an angel before she died – helped her out whenever she could and plenty of teenagers don’t have that support and still make a good go of parenting. But not Liv Carpenter. No, she gave birth to me and then treated me as though I had ruined her life with my mere existence. I was stopping her doing anything, meeting anyone decent, having a job. Partying. So she decided I would suffer for it.

As a young child, half the time she starved me, refusing to give me any food but eating her own dinner right in front of me. If anyone ever asked why I was so skinny, she would tell them I refused to eat, that she was doing everything she could to help me but I just wouldn’t open my mouth. And they believed her – because what kind of person would starve their child? That kind of thing only happened on TV, didn’t it?

She wouldn’t bath me for endless days and I’d smell so bad it used to make me feel sick. Once I snuck into the bathroom and tried to fill my own bath, but I didn’t realise I had to put the plug in and the water just kept disappearing. She came in and found me. Shame you didn’t get it right and accidentally drown yourself. Those were her exact words. I must have only been about three or four.

There are tears in my eyes as I recall this and I look at Zach and see his disbelief and shock. He is a parent himself so probably can’t imagine the horrors I’m describing, can’t believe that anyone could behave this way to their own child. To any child.

I can tell he has a thousand questions he wants to ask but doesn’t quite know where to start. ‘Where was your—’

‘My dad? Ha, she didn’t even know who my father was! Sixteen years old and sleeping with so many men she couldn’t work out who it was. I tried asking her who she thought it could be when I was old enough to understand, but her reply was always the same. She’d just say “Who cares?” and laugh in my face.’

Zach shakes his head. ‘My God, Josie. I don’t know what to say.’

But at least he’s not looking at me as though I’m a victim – I couldn’t handle that. I’m here, despite my childhood, despite everything, so I don’t need sympathy.

He urges me to carry on but I warn him it only gets worse.

I explain that Liv met Johnny when I was around sixteen and things got much worse for me then. She’d had boyfriends before, some of them even lived with us, but none of them had paid me any attention. I kept out of their way and they kept out of mine, so there weren’t many problems. I’d long ago stopped needing a mother and had taught myself how to pretty much do everything I needed to do to survive. But Liv hated that. She didn’t want me to be self-sufficient, because then she couldn’t mentally torture me.

But Johnny was different. I don’t know why, but he despised me from the second he saw me. It couldn’t have been because he hated her having a child – Kieren was a baby, so if Johnny had just hated kids then he would have resented my brother too. More, probably, because Kieren still needed a lot of attention. At least I kept out of Johnny’s way. Or I tried to, at least. So all I can think of is that Liv must have told him how I’d ruined her life, that she’d had big plans before she got pregnant with me and now she was stuck, jobless and sponging off the government.

Johnny took every opportunity to make my life miserable. I think he saw how she treated me and knew he could do the same, and the worst thing was that she stood by and enjoyed what he was doing. We fought a lot because I couldn’t just sit back and take his verbal abuse. I had to fight back.

One day, in the summer when I’d just turned eighteen, Liv had some friends round and everyone was in the back garden. I don’t know how I was allowed out there, or even why I wanted to be, but somehow I was. I can’t even remember what it was about now, but Johnny and I ended up in a huge row that ended with me spitting in his face. Not just a tiny fleck of saliva, more like a spray that ended up in his eyes, his mouth, all over him. Everyone saw it and the whole garden was suddenly silent. The weird thing was, Johnny didn’t say a thing. He just wiped it off and calmly carried on drinking his beer. I took that as my chance to run.

Blinking back tears, I have to pause for breath. Telling Zach what came next will be like reliving the nightmare. Since giving my statement to the police, I’ve not had to speak these words again. I buried them somewhere they couldn’t find a way out.

As soon as I begin to speak, the memory hits me like a punch in the gut. I’d just finished my last A-level exam and I was on a high. I knew I probably hadn’t done that well, but hoped it was enough to get me to university. I’d managed to convince a friend to let me stay with her for a few weeks while I found a job and looked for my own place, so I couldn’t wait to get back to Liv’s and pack up all my stuff.

The house was empty when I got there and I was relieved. Part of me was scared she’d try to stop me, even though she’d wanted me gone, or dead, since the minute I was born. But to Liv, me leaving home meant that I was going to have that life she never would, and I worried she would do anything to make sure that didn’t happen.

I was so engrossed in shoving all my belongings – not much more than a few clothes, and definitely no childhood mementos – into a bag that I didn’t hear him come in, but suddenly he was standing in my room, his mouth twisted into an evil grimace.

I’ve never been so scared in my life. And I never will be again. Because once you’ve known – and survived – fear like that, you can handle anything.

The certainty that Johnny was going to do his worst came even before he flew at me, his fist slamming into my face, knocking me back with such force I crashed against the wall, cracking my head. I was sure my whole skull had shattered. I saw the pool of blood, but was strangely detached. It didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

I thought that would be it, Johnny had taught me a lesson and that would be the end of it, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was only just getting started.

Zach grabs my hand. It’s smooth and warm. ‘Josie, you don’t have to tell me any more – if it’s too difficult.’

But now I’ve started I can’t seem to stop. Perhaps this is like therapy, baring my soul, and afterwards the poison will be out of my body and I’ll be free of it. I know what Zach’s thinking: that Johnny raped me. And it might make him uncomfortable to hear those details, but that’s not what happened. That was never what he wanted.

There were fleeting moments when I thought this might be what Johnny wanted to do, but it never happened. Instead, he battered me with his fists, until there was barely a patch of unblemished skin on my body, and then he used any piece of furniture he could smash into me. But that still wasn’t it. He saved the knife for last, carving slits into my body until I was lying in a bath of blood, which this time I was in no doubt was my own because I could almost feel it draining from my body.

‘I enjoyed that,’ he said, as he left me there.

I turn to Zach, able to look him in the eye again now that I’ve described what Johnny did. ‘But that’s not quite the worst of it,’ I say, and watch as his jaw drops. ‘As he walked out of my room, I saw a shadow in the hall. Liv was there, Zach. The woman who was supposed to be my mother, who was supposed to always protect me. I might have even forgiven her for everything she’d done if at that moment she had tried to stop Johnny, or at least comforted me afterwards, but she just stood there, with a nasty smirk on her face. She must have seen the whole thing.’

Zach pulls me towards him and hugs me. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to but his whole body presses into mine. ‘I know this might be inappropriate but right now I don’t give a shit,’ he says. ‘You need a bloody hug and that’s what you’re going to get.’

I don’t argue but go with it, breathing in his calming scent. A natural smell, not aftershave or anything stifling. Just Zach.

We stay like that for too long, yet not long enough, until finally Zach pulls back. ‘What happened to you after that? Did you go to the police?’

I nod. ‘I woke up in hospital and didn’t know how I’d got there until the police told me. Apparently my friend Alexa had come round to find me. She’s the one I was supposed to be moving in with, and she got worried when I didn’t turn up. Somehow, thankfully, even though Liv and Johnny had gone out to get pissed down the pub, they’d left the back door open and Alexa had found me. Otherwise…’

‘Fuck! Sorry, I don’t usually swear, but this calls for it, I reckon.’

I want to hug him again now – just for being able to make me smile at this painful moment.

‘I told the police everything. He’s in prison.’

‘Good. That’s good, Josie.’ He shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe you’ve gone through all this and you’re still, well, you. Strong.’

‘I can’t let them win, Zach. That’s what stops me being a victim. They wanted to destroy my life but I won’t let them. I can’t pretend it’s always easy, but I’ve got my little brother to think of.’ I tell him about my visit to Brighton, and how although it doesn’t seem that Kieren’s being neglected, I can’t take any chances. ‘I want him to come and live with me, Zach. Once I’ve got my degree and hopefully a good job. I can’t let him be around that woman.’

‘Did social services not get involved? I don’t know much about how the system works, but surely after your mum’s boyfriend did that they would be worried about your brother?’

‘Oh, Liv knows how to lie. She’s fooled everyone. She told them she’d have nothing more to do with Johnny and made up some lies about me having a relationship with him. And because I was eighteen, and not a child, they didn’t take Kieren from her. But everyone who knows her, and that’s a lot of people in Brighton, knows that she can’t be without that man.’

Now I’ve filled Zach in on my past, I bring him up to date by telling him about Johnny’s cousin visiting me a few weeks ago.

He shakes his head and sighs heavily. ‘You need to tell the police he’s threatened you, Josie. Why haven’t you done that?’

‘Because I don’t really know who he is. I’m just assuming he’s Johnny’s cousin, but I’ve never seen him before and I was too shocked to think about getting his registration number or anything like that. He told me he has an alibi sorted for that night anyway so there’s no point. And most of all, I just want the past behind me.’

‘But it’s not behind you, Josie, if this man carries out his threat.’

‘I know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you – to get another opinion. I know it sounds stupid but I really don’t have anyone I can talk to. After the attack, nobody on my estate bothered with me. I guess they thought I was tainted and didn’t want anything to do with me. People are scared of Johnny – they knew what he was like and what he was capable of, even before he attacked me. And Liv. Nobody ever gets on her wrong side. So I really had no one. I couldn’t wait to leave, to start a fresh life in London.’

‘What about your friend, Alexa? What happened to her?’

‘She was the one person who would have stood by me, but she went to study in Edinburgh not long after and we lost touch. I wouldn’t even know how to find her now. I’ve checked and, like me, she’s not on Facebook or Twitter or anything so that’s that.’

Zach squeezes my hand but doesn’t let go. ‘Well, I’m glad our paths crossed.’

I grip his hand back, more tightly than I should, but in this moment I no longer care. Just for this brief flash of time, it feels as though it’s just me and him. Nobody else exists.