Chapter 8 #2
Molly carried on chattering away as if she hadn’t just brought my world crashing around me. She faded into the background as shock and fear choked every inch of my body.
“Yeah," she said, "I never bought a new phone because the signal out here is so rubbish that there’s no point, really. I’ll pick one up when I get home. I can just grab all my contacts from your phone; they are basically the same, anyway.” She repeated what I had said in our last argument as if it were her own idea.
Mr Snuggles meowed at me, head-butting my hand, appalled at my lack of attention, but I couldn’t focus on anything else. My legs were close to giving way; body trembling, throat tight as short, sharp breaths took me over.
“Is that Mr Snuggles!?” Molly gasped. “Oh my God, I can’t wait to see him!” She almost screeched as she called down the phone. “How are you, my baby!? How are you doing without your mummy?” she cooed. “He must be missing me so much.”
“Yeah. Yeah. He’s fine.” I couldn’t feel my lips. Nose, cheeks, forehead. Shoulders, arms, chest. It was all vanishing under the horror creeping through me.
There was another beat of silence as she softened again.
“I really feel like this is the next stage, you know? Though I’m not looking forward to your mum taking over the wedding plans.
” She laughed, carefree, like nothing was wrong even though everything was falling apart around me.
“But I’ll just let that go. I don’t want to fight her, though there are things I’d really like for the ceremony, like… ”
Her voice faded away as my hand slipped on the counter.
I managed to catch myself, grabbing the edge and pressing my elbow against the top to stop myself from falling to the ground or slamming my head off of the cabinets above me.
Maybe that would be better than the bleak realisation that was gnawing at the edges of my sanity, waiting to tear free.
I was going to throw up. I needed to get off the phone. I prided myself on my masks, but I couldn’t hide what was happening. I needed to stop, had to collapse, needed to do something that meant I had space to scream.
“You’ve got my flight numbers and everything? Don’t forget to be there an hour early just in case! I want you with a sign and everything, you know how much I love that!”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be there,” I said, though the words tasted like dirt in my mouth.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, I’m incredibly tired. Do you mind if I phone you later?”
“Yeah, well, you’re always tired, aren’t you?” She usually said that line snidely, but this time there was a gentleness in her voice. “I’ll let you get some sleep. Just call my dad’s phone, okay?” Her smile showed in her tone. “It’s so good to speak to you, Harry. I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” I forced out through dead lips. I pulled the phone from my ear, staring at the screen with her dad’s name on it, watching it fade and my lock screen returned.
Molly, Dom and I in front of the Eiffel Tower, bathed in peaceful sunshine as we grinned at the stranger who offered to take the photo.
I dropped as soon as the call ended. Pain shuddered through my knees as they hit the hard tile, my heels spread out behind me as my ass pressed against the floor. My phone clattered out of my hand and fell between my thighs.
I couldn’t move. The white and black zig-zag pattern of the tiles filled my eyes, wide with shock.
Trembling, I fell forwards, palms flat against the cold surface as I looked at the phone below me.
I tried to breathe, but nothing was there.
My spiralling thoughts all dominated by a single sick question: Who did this to me?
Molly said she lost her phone…
Nothing. Not a single word about the past month. She hadn't even attempted to contact me. The excuse about her sister wasn't enough. But after the first week, did I even try to get in touch? I had no reason to.
She said that she’d emailed me, and I'd replied to her.
My mind whipped through everything that had happened; key moments from the past month: words, actions, anything that could help answer the questions sending me deeper into darkness.
What kind of person would be so twisted that they pretended to be Molly? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Was it just to… what? Get themselves off on what they were doing to me?
So many times Mum had warned us about people taking advantage of us. To always keep our guard up, to ensure we maintained our dignity.
But what kind of pervert would have sent someone a vibrator pretending it was from their fiancée, and sat silent at the other end of the line while I fucked myself with it?
I choked out a cry as tears rolled down my cheeks, splashing onto the backs of my hands.
One name whispered in the back of my mind. One that had been plaguing me for weeks. One I didn’t even want to consider.
Because Dom wouldn’t do that to me. I trusted Dom; he was there for me through everything. There was no chance.
But the first time, the very first time, two days after Molly left, the day after we sexted, Dom showed up. I left him alone, sitting in front of my laptop.
The heated looks at brunch, his words on the yacht, how it felt like he already knew about the hospital.
Ride it like it was me.
I hadn't questioned any of those things because I had been so wrapped up in making things work with her.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t believe it was Dom. Not after everything, all those years being there for each other, staying together… not after we had kissed. And now…
My eyes slid to the door of the living room, catching sight of my laptop on the coffee table where I put it every evening.
I groaned as I pushed myself up from the kitchen floor, using the same energy I did each morning when every part of me was yelling at me to stop. To not do it. To stay where I was and let myself rest because I couldn’t take any more.
But it was too late.
I stumbled five feet to the sitting-room door, holding onto the frame for the briefest moment, eyes fixed on the silver laptop, waiting to reveal the truth.
Another three steps and I grabbed onto the back of the sofa, tripping, throwing myself down onto the cushions.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to look or know anything, but I couldn’t manage myself if I didn’t know.
My hand trembled as I opened the screen, finding my email, searching for Molly’s address. I scanned them all, back until Christmas, searched her name, searched the trash, making sure there was nothing there. But no one would leave evidence when it was so easy to hide.
I could pretend that no email meant that it wasn’t Dom, but it was too obvious. There were too many signs, things I never saw because I didn’t want to.
My fingers still stuck on the keyboard, I let out another strained cry as realisation after realisation hit me.
Everything I’d done…
The battles inside myself, the way I submitted and sighed into everything that was asked of me.
Why didn’t I see it? Why did I stop questioning her, or it, or really spend time wondering why she was suddenly behaving that way when she hadn't been interested in exploring anything for more than a year?
Because I was just a desperate slut who did everything the person at the other end of the line wanted, who had dreamed of Dom fucking him. I'd wanted so badly for it to be Dom that I tore myself up over it, so wasn't it perfect?.
I couldn’t decide what was worse: Dom guiding me through all of it while knowing exactly what he was doing. Or some stranger using me for their own pleasure.
I had no solid proof it was him, just a sick knowing at the base of my gut.
Wheezing out a breath, I choked a cough through my tears, just focusing on the rise and fall of my chest, letting the feelings clear so I could approach this with some kind of logic.
It wouldn’t be Dom. It couldn’t.
But then a text came through, my phone pinging from the kitchen.
I closed my eyes, failing to concentrate on the laptop and my spinning thoughts, praying it wasn’t who I thought it was.
At that moment, just as I was reaching a peak, ready to tip over the edge and surrender to the darkness creeping over me, my phone pinged again.
My mind still screaming, my body aching, and my throat rough. Disgusted, I dragged myself back to the kitchen. Ignoring Mr Snuggles, I stared straight down at my phone, sitting there on the floor.
Innocuous really, nothing out of the ordinary. Except there was a chance it held messages from ‘Molly’, who had always texted me around this time of night.
My hand shook as I bent over, heaving myself up, clicking the side button to open the screen, and there it was.
Molly: 2 messages.
I groaned, my head tipping forward, that sick feeling growing stronger.
I didn’t want to read them. I didn’t want to see a single letter from whoever was at the end of the phone.
But I had been torturing myself for weeks over Dom – what was a little more pain added to the cocktail of shit that already burned inside me?
Molly: Hi. Sorry I haven’t been in touch. There was a huge storm and everything was out for days.
Molly: How are you? I’ve missed you.
I still trembled, my body shaking with disbelief as pure rage joined the deep sense of horror that enveloped me.
They knew. Whoever it was knew what they were doing.
But all the conversations with Molly streamed through my mind, joining the dots to moments with Dom. The ebb and flow between them both, how Dom changed around me in the past month.
Just like my feelings for him were out of control, I couldn’t deny the truth.
What did he think? That he was just going to string me along until Molly came back, and then, what? Pretend nothing had ever happened and live like neither of us knew? That everything would go back to normal, even though he had forced me into it?
No, I wasn’t doing it.
I wasn’t letting yet another person take my choice away from me, especially not him.
I said a quick goodbye to Mr Snuggles as I grabbed my jacket. The only sound around me was a furious buzz in my ears as I gripped my phone and rushed toward the front door, preparing myself for the hardest conversation of my life.