Nick

“All set?” I ask, and then I see the defeat in Laine’s eyes.

She shakes her head, buckling herself into her seat with shaky fingers. Her voice comes out so weak, barely more than a whisper.

“Kelly Anne doesn’t have my things. Not any of them. She left them, in the club.”

“In the club?” I pull out my phone. “What was the name of the place? I’ll call lost property.”

Her dainty fingers reach out and land on my wrist, so gently. “There’s no point…” she says. “She left them on the table… with some guys… when I was in the bathroom…”

My expression must speak volumes because her eyes widen as she continues. “She was drunk. She doesn’t mean it. Kelly Anne is just…”

“Kelly Anne is a selfish fool,” I say. “And you’re so much better than friends like her, Laine.”

She doesn’t look like she believes me. Her eyes are sad and glassy, her cheeks pale. I put the car in gear, reverse out onto the street. “We’ll go to yours,” I say. “See what we can do.”

“There may be a window open… upstairs… I may be able to climb through…”

There isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to be letting her shimmy up some drainpipe, but I don’t say that. Not yet.

Her estate leaves a lot to be desired. It’s tired and cramped, with overgrown gardens and battered old cars in the street. Hers is a little white mid-terrace. The garden is neat but barren. The front door has chipped red paint, and as soon as I pull the car onto her driveway it’s clear she won’t need to be looking for an open window. The front door is already open, just enough to see into the dark hallway beyond.

Laine is out of the car in a flash, but I reach her before she makes it across the garden. I grip her elbow, pull her back to my side.

“Wait,” I say, and my voice comes out harsher than I intend it to. “I’ll go first.”

I take a step forward, and as I nudge the door open I hear Laine’s pained gasp behind me.

The place is a hovel. Nothing but a wasteland of empty beer cans and trash. There are fish and chips scattered all over the floor, a smear of tomato ketchup on the wall.

“Oh my God,” she cries. “What the…”

I step on through to the living room, and it’s in a worse state than the hallway. I find her keys on the cigarette-littered coffee table, and there’s her ID, too. Laine’s sweet face stares out from her college card, and there’s everything they needed right there. Her address in plain lettering.

There’s no sign of her phone or her money, of course.,

Laine busies herself around me, picking up empty bottles and cans through sniffles of pain, but it’s a thankless task. The assholes have clearly had a rare old time, no doubt thrilled at the hedonistic destruction of Laine’s home.

She wipes her sniffles on her cardigan sleeve. “You can leave, Nick. Please leave. This is disgusting. Horrible… You don’t need to be here…”

She clears another chip paper and underneath is a filthy used rubber. It’s stained the fabric sofa underneath with a grotesque white smear.

I pull out my phone and dial the police, tell Laine exactly what I’m doing, but she shakes her head.

“What can the police do? They had a key! This is all my own fault! I should never have left Kelly Anne with my stuff…”

Her self-recrimination shocks me enough to cancel the call. “This is not your fault, Laine. Some dregs of society did this, some losers with no moral fibre, who exist just to wreck everything around them. They did this. Helped by your very considerate friend.”

“But still, I should’ve known better! I should’ve known!”

“Don’t touch that,” I say as she tries to pick up the rubber in some greasy paper. “Don’t touch anything. Not a single thing, Laine.”

“But I have to…” she says. “I have to clean up!”

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t have to do a thing around this shithole.

“I mean it,” I tell her. “Don’t touch anything.”

She stops moving, gives me a little nod.

“Wait right here.”

She doesn’t follow me as I survey the rest of the house, and I’m glad, because the place is completely destroyed.

The kitchen bore the worst of it, or so it appears until I reach the landing and see Laine’s open bedroom door at the far end.

Her room is plain magnolia with some of the paint chipped away, just like the rest of the place. Her bed is an old wooden thing, just a single, and her carpet is threadbare in places. What you can see of it, anyway.

It pains me to see how they’ve rampaged through her wardrobe, pains me further to find another used rubber in her bedsheets. They’ve taken her makeup and used it to scrawl obscenities over her dressing table mirror. The rest is trampled into the carpet. I pull a sweet white dress from her wastepaper basket, and it’s been shredded, ripped almost clean in two. The rest of her clothes haven’t fared much better, and my breath catches in my throat to see her torn knickers, cast from her chest of drawers and soiled in ways I don’t even want to consider.

I hear her footsteps on the stairs, but I’m too late to stop her. She wails as she sees the carnage.

I grab for her as she launches herself towards the bed, but I’m not quick enough. She doesn’t even see the grimy rubber, she’s too focused on what’s beyond.

And then I see it, too. A tattered bear, stuffing hanging from its dismembered limbs. She wrestles with her bedcovers until she finds its head, and she really does cry then, holding its broken pieces to her chest as she rocks back and forth.

I could kill the fuckers who did this to her.

She flinches when I lay a hand on her shoulder, and her words are broken. Choked.

“It’s Ted,” she sobs. “I’ve had him since I was a baby… I love him…”

“Shh,” I say, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to pull her into my arms. “I’ll fix him, Laine.”

Her delicate arms wrap around my waist, and she buries her face against my shirt. “Why did they do this? Why did they do this to Ted?”

“Because they’re assholes who don’t have anything better to do with their poxy lives.”

Her sniffles are so sad. “I’m… I’m so glad you’re here… thank you…”

And I know this is it. I’m done for.

Her words are muffled against my chest. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Mum… she’s going to be so mad…”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” I say. I take her cheeks and tilt her head up to mine, and her watery eyes are so beautiful. “Let’s go now.”

“Go where?”

“Home,” I say simply. “Home to mine.”

“But I can’t… I have to stay… I have to fix this…”

I brush her tears away with my thumbs.

“You don’t have to fix anything, Laine,” I tell her. “Not anymore.”

* * *

Laine

My heart hurts and I feel sick.

“You’re so kind…”

He takes Ted from my arms and finds his missing leg. My poor, poor Ted. His battered body breaks my heart. My voice is all choked up as I ask Nick the question.

“Do you think you can save him?”

“I’ll give it my very best shot,” he tells me, and I believe him. He looks around my bedroom. “There’s nothing else worth saving,” he says. “I’m sorry, Laine, we’ll have to get new.”

“But I don’t…” I cough to hide the embarrassment. “I don’t have any money… not enough… not even if I did have my purse…”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

But I am. I am worried about that. He’s done far too much already, and I tell him so. I tell him I can’t take any more from him, that he hardly even knows me, but he waves his hand, won’t hear any of it.

“I’ll call a locksmith when we’re back at home,” he says. “Some cleaners, too. They’ll salvage anything that can be saved.” He runs a hand down my chipped paintwork. “I think we’ll need a decorator, too. They’ve done a real number on the place, vile little cunts.”

I gasp. It shocks me so much to hear him swear like that.

“Sorry,” he says when he sees my open mouth.

But I like it. I like the way he sounds when he’s angry. He sounds so strong… so fierce…

“I just can’t believe there are people like this out there,” he snaps. “Low-life scum.”

“They didn’t do all of this…” I admit. I point at the chipped paint. “That was already there.”

“We’ll get the place spruced up,” he says. “I promise.”

I smile, say yet another thank you, and I even try to sound convincing.

It’s not that I’m not grateful, because I am. It’s not that I’m not aware how lucky I am that I ran into the road and into Nick’s path, because I’m very, very aware of that.

It’s because I know that when we leave this house, and all the tattered broken things in here, I’m never ever going to want to come back.

He digs out a box from the garage. It’s sad that one single box is going to be more than enough to contain the remnants of my life.

I’m relieved to find my college work intact above my wardrobe. I pack up my folders and text books, and place Ted on top, being careful with all his frayed pieces.

That’s just about everything I can save. Everything I want to.

Everything that matters.

Nick carries it out to the car. He loads my measly possessions into the back and smiles as I slip into the passenger seat and buckle myself in. He closes the front door and locks it, and I wait in the car as he calls at the neighbours on either side.

He says nothing about what they tell him, and I’ve never much liked the neighbours anyway, so I don’t ask.

I don’t want to know what happened here. I already know enough.

“I still think we should call the police,” he says as he reverses away from the house.

“No point,” I reply. “They won’t care anyway.”

“Of course they’ll care, Laine. They’re the police. It’s their job to care.”

“And this is a dead end street. There’s always crap going on around here. They’ll probably think it was a party I had myself while my mum was away. A party that got out of hand, and now I’m trying to cover my tracks before Mum gets back.”

“They won’t think that.”

“They will,” I insist, and he doesn’t argue. I guess he knows it too.

We head back towards Brighton, and the further away from Newhaven we get, the more relieved I feel. He parks up at a multi-storey in the middle of town, and I look at him curiously as he gestures I should follow him.

“You need things,” he explains as we head for the exit. “New clothes. Toiletries. A phone.”

“But I…” I grasp his wrist and he stops. “I can’t take all this from you. I just can’t.”

He sighs. “Laine, I’ve more than enough money. It’s nice to have someone to spend it on.”

I think of Jane. I think about all the people a man like Nick should have in his life. A wife maybe. Friends. Just… people.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say so, but his hands are on my shoulders before the words are out.

“Please, Laine. It’s my pleasure. Allow me to enjoy it.”

“Just a few bits…” I say. “Just to tide me over… and I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“No,” he says. “You won’t.”

He takes my hand, and his fingers are solid. He walks quickly, and I have to take two steps for every one of his. It makes me feel so alive, to be rushing along at Nick’s side. I let the sensation wash over me.

He leads me into the first clothes shop we see, one of the lovely little boutiques on the front. Everything looks expensive, really expensive, but he doesn’t seem to care. He heads for a section at the back, with loads of pretty pastel colours, and I’m pleased. It’s where I’d have headed myself.

I baulk at the price tags, tell him it’s all too much, but he won’t hear any of it. He’s gathering up clothes more quickly than I can look at them, pretty shades of pink, and bright whites, lovely purples and teals and pale blues. He’s chosen the smallest size on the rack, and he’s right.

“Choose whatever you want, Laine,” he says. “Anything you like.”

But he’s already chosen everything I like. I tell him so and he smiles.

“Great minds,” he says, and heads for the changing rooms. I follow him, a little lamb dancing along behind such a powerful man. Everyone is looking at us. At him.

The sales assistants are whispering. They beam as he shows them the collection, and then they chivvy me along to an empty cubicle at the back.

He waits for me, and I feel so self-conscious, trying on such beautiful clothes under harsh lighting. My skin looks pasty and pale, my eyes look tired and my hair looks wispy and fine. But the clothes. They look gorgeous.

I show him a tight pink cami over a pair of white jeans, and he likes them. He tells me so.

I try floaty dresses over tights, and he likes those more. I do a little twirl for him and he claps his hands, smiles at me.

He fetches me a fluffy white cardigan and it feels so soft against my skin.

He fetches me a winter duffle coat that makes me gasp when I see the price.

He fetches me a scarf, and a cute winter hat with a pom-pom. Boots, too, and a sparkly pink pair of flats that make me feel like a little princess.

And then he makes me take everything, and I can’t, I really can’t. It brings tears to my eyes.

“My pleasure, Laine. Mine,” he says, and I have no words for that. Nothing other than another thank you, and it always sounds so lame.

I’m still staring at the items in the basket when he piles more in. Nightdresses, and socks and packs of knickers. He hovers by the bras, and I realise he’s waiting for me to tell him my size. I feel my cheeks burn as I pick out the very smallest one they do.

“I don’t have… much… up top,” I say, and try to make light of it.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

I laugh a little. “Isn’t it?”

“No,” he says. “It isn’t. You’re perfect the way you are, don’t you dare ever think otherwise.”

My tummy flutters.

He thinks I’m perfect.

And I know it’s probably just a figure of speech, know he’s probably just being nice, saying things to make me feel better, but I wish he wasn’t.

I wish he meant it.

I pick out some bras, just plain white with a bit of lace. It’s what I usually wear, and I regret my decision for a moment, worried I’ve made a bad impression, that I should’ve chosen something more sexy, more… grown up.

“Anything else you want, Laine? Anything at all?”

I shake my head, manage a smile. “I think you’ve just about covered it. So many things… so many beautiful things…”

He seems so pleased.

I can’t bear to watch as he pays. I stare at my pumps instead, anywhere but at the total balance as he hands over his card.

He carries the bags, and asks me if we should carry on shopping. He’s worried, he says, worried that I won’t have enough clothes for the time being.

He has no idea that he’s already bought me more than I ever had in my wardrobe at home.

I tell him no, I tell him thank you, I tell him that he’s already done more for me than I can ever repay, and he settles on toiletries, leads me around the beauty shop until I’ve placed everything I need in a trolley.

I hope he’s forgotten about a phone, but he hasn’t. Of course he hasn’t.

It’s the first time I really dig my heels in.

“Please,” I say. “It’s too much!”

“You have to have a phone, Laine,” he insists. “How will I be able to contact you otherwise? How will I know you’re safe?”

If I’m safe.

I shrug. “I’ll borrow Kelly Anne’s, if I need to.”

“Wrong answer,” he says, and marches me straight inside the shop.

The phone he chooses is ridiculously superior to the one stolen from me. It makes me cry stupid tears again, and I feel so overwhelmed, my belly full of this churning something. I can’t straighten it out.

“You can’t…” I say, and he takes my hand, squeezes it tight until I look at him.

“Do you like the phone, Laine?”

“The phone is amazing…”

“Then it’s yours, my treat.”

“But I…”

He doesn’t let go of my hand. “Laine, I want you to listen to me, can you do that?”

I nod. I could listen to him forever.

“Sometimes in life you have to let people take care of you. Sometimes you have to accept that people want to help, want to be there for you. Not people like Kelly Anne, who care only for themselves and their own selfish pursuits, people who want to treat you nicely. You deserve to be treated nicely, Laine. I don’t think you really know what it’s like to be cared for, not properly.”

“My mum, she…” I’m ready with the excuses again, but he silences me with a sigh.

“I want to take care of you, Laine. Will you let me?”

Those flutters in my tummy again. I don’t know what to say. I stare at him open-mouthed.

“If this is all too much, if you really don’t want me to be there for you, you only have to say. I’ll book you into a hotel while the work is being done on your house. You can take the clothes, and the toiletries, and the phone, and I’ll drop you there and make sure I keep my distance. You won’t ever have to see me again, not if you don’t want to. I can just be the kind stranger who helped you when you needed a friend. If that’s what you want.” He squeezes my hand again. “You only have to say the word.”

I stare. Mute. This terrible panic in my heart, a feeling of dread at the thought of him dropping me at a hotel and walking away.

“Laine?” he prompts, and I find the words.

“No!” I say, and my cheeks are burning. “Please. That’s not what I want. I want to stay with you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I slam my mouth closed, searing with embarrassment, but he doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t seem to care at all.

“Phew,” he says, and pretends to wipe the sweat from his brow. “You had me worried for a second there.”

His eyes are kind and bright, and I see him afresh, all over again. He really is perfect. The most perfect man I’ve ever met.

“I had to check,” he says. “I had to make sure I wasn’t railroading you into something you didn’t want.”

“You’re not,” I tell him, and I just come right out and say it. “I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe you’re real. Things like this… they don’t really happen… not for me…”

“Oh, it’s real,” he says, and his eyes twinkle. “Now, let’s go and pay for that phone.”

I don’t argue with him this time.