8. DIANA
DIANA
Still shaking, I pick up my handbag and walk to the bedroom, waiting on the threshold as two men edge out with my bed frame, heaved up on its side.
Another two follow with the mattress, and when they’re gone, I step into my bedroom.
My collection of sex toys scatter the floor, as if every brightly-coloured one of them leapt from the bedside table as it fell to where it now lies, upended on the carpet.
Condoms still sealed in their packets litter the floor.
A breeze blows in from a broken window, and I peer out to see my trusty dildo, flesh coloured with veins down the shaft and a swollen head, lying amidst broken glass in the back alley between the buildings.
It’s like a great big suicidal plastic dick, and the idea of Dad coming in here and throwing it through the window makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
“Miss Marchetti,” comes the concierge’s voice, and I spin to find him behind me.
He’s gazing around my bedroom, taking in the dust bunnies that were hiding behind the now absent bed, and the condom packets and sex toys splattered about the carpet.
His eyebrows lift the tiniest bit before he clears his expression.
“You can’t be here. The cleaners are waiting downstairs, and once it’s cleared, the photographer is coming in.
The flat is going on the market. If you want to pack anything up… ”
His attention drifts to my wardrobe, the door ajar. Has Dad been in there too? If he has, he’ll either have taken all my clothes to sell, or shredded them. More likely, the latter. I can’t bring myself to look at what’s left.
“Will you…” I gesture at the wardrobe, and the concierge seemingly takes pity on me because he steps up, opens the door a little further and peeks in.
“Carnage,” he whispers, closing the door again, his eyes filling with compassion.
The inside of my nose stings, and I wrinkle it. I will not cry. “I need a shower. Can you give me that much time?”
He checks his watch. “Make it quick.”
Once he’s gone, and I’ve mentally prepared myself to face the mess, I grab a holdall from the top of the wardrobe and shove any clothes that aren’t destroyed into it. There’s not much. Some joggers, jeans, a few t-shirts, some pyjamas. Enough to get by.
But then a thought occurs to me that makes my blood run cold, and I drop the half-packed bag.
If Dad destroyed my home, my books, and my clothes, what has he done to my social media accounts?
That’s my lifeline. Over the last three years, while I’ve been at university, I’ve built up my profiles as a fashion and book influencer.
I was going to focus on monetising them and turn the whole thing into a business after I graduated.
I had a whole plan for how to start making a real, solid income from it.
But then I got distracted with the whole ‘you have to get married’ debacle, so I didn’t action it.
I meant to change all the passwords, to lock Dad out—he’d always insisted on access, and I didn’t have any choice, not when he was the one financially supporting me—but I didn’t want to draw attention to my intentions too early.
I thought I had more time.
I grab my handbag and fumble for my phone, pulling it out and unlocking it, clicking on the icons one-by-one to find I’m locked out of all of them.
I search for my username.
It doesn’t exist.
My hands shake as I search for my mailing list provider, where the details of everyone who’d ever signed up to my sporadic and over-enthusiastic bookish newsletter are kept. I jab the password onto the screen only to be told there is no account associated with my email address.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
Dad’s always been a paranoid bastard, having a specialised tech team to monitor everything that occurs in his businesses. It would have been easy to get them to wipe everything I built. Thousands of email addresses, hundreds of thousands of followers. All gone.
My breaths come short and sharp, my head starting to swim as I search for my website.
It’s been taken down.
My online presence has ceased to exist overnight.
I’m nothing.
I have no plan B. I have no graduate job lined up. Nowhere to live.
I’m fucked.
Clutching my stomach, I bend double, gripping my useless phone in one hand, trying my hardest not to break down and sob in case the removal men come back and find me.
Gulping back the swelling in my throat that threatens to burst out in an almighty wail, I swipe at my eyes, my fingertips coming away damp and black with mascara streaks. Tissues. I need a fucking tissue.
I snatch my bag from where it lies discarded on the floor and turn it upside down. Last night’s dress tumbles out, along with a lipstick, a mascara, the odd copper coin and a biro with a chewed end, along with a handful of crumpled receipts.
No tissues.
But amidst the debris, a small white business card draws my eye. I recognise the logo and the curling gold font that reads Delirium.
Where did that come from?
I pick it up and flip it over, and on the back, in an elegant script, is yesterday’s date and a mobile phone number. Both are written with ink, as if the writer used an actual fountain pen. No chewed up biros here.
My heart leaps into my throat as I read the six words beneath the number.
In case you change your mind.