Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Rosie

It was so much easierto be holed up in apartment six than face the world outside. I didn’t want to leave Julian, and I didn’t want to leave our fantasy life. Talking, laughing, eating together. Showering, watching TV shows. And learning to be the best slut I could possibly be. I loved it. I loved it all. I was reading all his old manuscripts as he was reading some of the charity shop paperbacks on his shelf, and we were sleeping while holding each other tight, right through the night. And we were fucking, of course. There was lots and lots of fucking.

We barely even bothered to get dressed. My body was almost constantly covered in marker pen, craving his. I loved it. I felt branded by the man of my dreams, his eyes filled with filthy adoration every time he looked at me. Touches said more than anything. Our bodies screamed out for each other every second, day and night.

It was him who brought up the obvious question late on Sunday evening.

“Are you going to go back to college tomorrow?”

I had no choice, really. My exams would be looming soon enough, and I didn’t want to bail on my studies. I didn’t want to be a leech on Julian’s cash for ever, and my calling in sick wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll go back to college tomorrow.”

He looked so concerned for me. “Do you want me to accompany you to the gates?”

I laughed at that, squeezing his hand on the sofa.

“It’s ok, thanks, Daddy. I don’t need a chaperone.”

He laughed at my reply but didn’t seem all that convinced.

“I hate stating the obvious, but it could get nasty. The whole place will be a sea of shitty whispers, I’m sure.”

I shrugged. “I don’t give a shit about the whole place. They can all fuck off.”

He squeezed my hand back, giving me a smile. “It’s lovely as always to see your confidence blooming. I just hope you’re not battered by people’s opinions. I’m certain they’ll ram them in your face at the first opportunity.”

It wasn’t confidence that was blooming in me, though. It was me. I was feeling myself blooming, becoming my true personality for once in my life, rather than shrinking into the background.

Just a shame Mum wasn’t around to see it. Maybe if she could, she’d be thanking Julian, not hating him.

Part of me had hoped she’d come knocking at the door, even just a little bit calmer and wanting to talk, but no. Nothing. Radio silence. It always hurt when I checked my phone and saw she was online. I’d called up the message window plenty of times, but no. I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. I wasn’t going to beg or back down.

On Sunday evening, we’d lain in bed and Julian set up his laptop and we watched the very first video he’d taken of me.

It just felt so right, spooned into my naked hero, his arms around me as I saw myself being stretched wide. But most of all it was Julian I couldn’t take my eyes off. The look in his eyes as he made me his slut. It wasn’t the look of a filthy pervert. It was the look of adoration. I felt it from him, too. It was bliss, feeling so loved, so safe.

Julian fucked me tenderly that night. Fucked me and kissed me with beautiful passion. And then he held me tight all night long, which was just perfect, but I’d be lying if I said my stomach wasn’t churning as reality kicked in. Through the bravado it was still there. I knew I’d be facing the world tomorrow. The morning only made it harder.

I took a shower to make sure every visible scrap of marker pen and filth was gone before I got dressed for college. I used a bit of lip gloss and put my hair up in a high ponytail, trying to look as bouncy and happy as possible. I packed my bag for the day with my books and pens, and it felt like years since I’d been there as I slung it over my shoulder.

“Good luck,” Julian said, as if he was packing me off to war. Maybe he was. So be it.

I could do this. I had to.

I felt sick as I left our apartment block and began my journey to college. I was just grateful I hadn’t seen Mum or Trisha. It would have made my smile so much harder. I almost made it to the college gates before I spotted Jayden. My heart dropped as I saw the rage on his face. He charged over and glared at me like I was trash.

“You’re fucking him, then? The perv upstairs? That’s why he really fucked Dad over, isn’t it? He was playing you. The sick fucker was fucking playing you.”

My own rage flared up in return.

“Fuck off, Jay! He fucked your dad over because your dad is a cunt who’s been abusing my mum for years, and was about to hurt me, too.”

Jayden stuck his face in mine.

“Yeah, well thanks to you, the whole estate thinks they know what Dad’s like now. Bev’s been spouting about it every chance she gets, telling the world he’s an abuser.”

That took me aback.

“What? Mum’s been telling people?”

I saw hurt underneath his rage. Despite trying, he couldn’t hide it. He had been as fucked over by his dad as much as the rest of us, he just didn’t want to see it. Loyalty is such a blessing and a curse.

“Her and Trisha have been saying Scottie assaulted you. They’ve been telling everyone. Trisha’s like a fucking trumpet everywhere she goes.”

“Trisha’s always like a trumpet everywhere she goes.”

“She’s got plenty to trumpet about now. Everyone might as well get popcorn to listen. Dad assaulting you, the sicko upstairs assaulting you, too. She’s screaming it to the whole fucking world.”

“Hey!” I said at that. “That’s crap, Jay. Julian isn’t assaulting me. He isn’t a sicko, and I’m with him because I want to be. He’s great to me, always has been, right from the very first second I knocked at his door.”

Jay’s eyes went wide. “YOU, knocked on HIS door? Fucking hell, I guessed you must be desperate for it but that makes you fucked in the head as well.”

“Hardly. I knocked on his door, because I needed help getting YOUR dad off MY mum before he choked her to death.”

“Sure, yeah. Whatever you say. He’s a fucking pervert. He’s using you.”

I hated the thought of all the people gossiping about how I was just a stupid girl being taken advantage of. People preaching on about how I was a kid who didn’t know better.

“I’m saying what’s true,” I said. “Julian isn’t using me. He loves me, and I love him.”

Jay laughed at that. He actually laughed.

“Think what you want, Rosie. Your glasses have gone rose-coloured. The creep’s full of shit and you’re buying into it. Shame he had to fuck his own family over, let alone you on top. He’s told everyone he’s a dirty old cunt who likes fucking teenagers himself, you know. At least he was fucking honest about it. Sick twat.”

He barged past me and stormed off into college. He was right about that, of course. Julian had been honest about it. Noble, but such a shame that he’d condemned himself to a load of idiots.

I was reeling a bit, standing outside the gates as my lessons were about to start. It was time to get myself together. I needed to face my classes.

Everyone was staring. Everyone. News must have spread like wildfire, as the whole community seemed to be whispering and casting snidey glances, and I felt every single one of them. My friends did nothing but dig, but it was angled, as though I was even more of an outsider than usual, and they were only out for their own amusement. I knew they’d be bitching the moment I walked away. So, I did walk away. I walked to the library and sat there on my own. At one point I wished I had Trisha’s trumpet voice myself. I wished I could stand up in front of the whole college and tell them they were all talking shit about me and Julian, but what would be the point? They’d never believe me.

I was reading a thriller paperback in the kind of genre Julian wrote when someone put down a satchel on the table beside me. It was a battered dark brown leather, and had glitter and stickers all over it, strange. I was still looking at it when its owner took a seat beside me. I’d seen her around vaguely. She had glasses like me, but thicker framed, and she had long, red hair in a braid. She was from the art college block, I was sure.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” I said back, suspicious, since I knew there was something more to it. There were plenty of empty tables.

“I heard about you and the guy,” she told me, and I wanted to roll my eyes and say you and the rest of the universe, who gives a shit, but her tone wasn’t like any of the others. Hers was nice.

“I get shit all the time, too,” she told me. “My boyfriend is nearly forty, and that’s bad enough. Your gossip must be like a tornado.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Just thought I’d say, that if you need anyone to talk to, or hang out with or whatever, you can talk to me. I get it. Well, kind of.”

She smiled and got up to leave, but I held out my hand for her to stay.

“Wait, just…” I smiled back at her. “That’s really cool. Thanks. I’d love that.”

“Sure,” she said, and plopped her bag down as she took her seat. “I’m Lola, great to meet you.”

“You, too.”

“What are you reading?” she asked, and I showed her the cover.

“Midnight on the Run.”

“Nice.”

“Are you a reader?”

She shook her head, and got a laptop out of her satchel. “Not really. I’m more of an artist.”

That figured.

“What kind of artist?”

“Digital,” she said. “I love it. I’ve been drawing since I was a kid, just got it onscreen now rather than using colouring pencils.”

I turned the conversation back to the obvious.

“You live with your partner now? And he’s forty, right?”

She nodded with a grin. “Yeah. My mum thinks I’m a twat. Won’t speak to him. It’ll be a year next month.”

I laughed. “Yeah, mine thinks I’m a twat, too.”

I prayed it wouldn’t be a year until Mum spoke to me and Julian, but I wasn’t feeling all that optimistic.

Lola didn’t push or pry or anything, just sat next to me, unassuming as she switched on her laptop. The backdrop on her screen was incredible. Vivid colours and flowers intertwined with her name in the middle in italics. I looked at her afresh, and she was quite a character. She had three different piercings in her ears, and her braid had a yellow ribbon at the bottom. She was cool, in a purple sweater, and her glasses suited her, with their thick black frames.

“I’m really pleased to meet you,” I said to her again. “Honestly, thanks for coming over.”

It felt great to talk to someone outside of me and Julian who actually got it. She told me all about her situation. Her guy, Peter, sounded pretty cool. He was a neighbour who she’d known since she was a teenager and had been crushing on for years before she managed to get in through his front door. He’d fought it, like Julian. He loved her now, like Julian loved me. And they’d embraced it – despite all the bitching, and the gossiping, and the judgements, they were holding hands together wherever they went.

Peter was still struggling, though, even through the hand holding. He still felt the wrath of people when they ventured out, hating how they were judging her as well as him.

“He still feels it?” I asked.

“Yeah, badly. It’s ok, but I’m hoping it eases up.” She grinned. “I’d love to be hitting the town for meals out, I’d be happy and wouldn’t give a shit. But he’s weird about it. I think he still believes he’s in the wrong.”

That sounded familiar. Being in the wrong.

I wanted me and Julian out of that kind of situation. I wanted to be holding hands in public with him, and out in the city, out with him everywhere.

One day, I hoped that we would be. One day soon.

We were still chatting when lunch came to an end, realising with a jolt that we had to shoot off for our next lessons. Lola had further to go than I did, over to the art block. She virtually dashed out of there with a byeee, her satchel bouncing against her ass as she ran.

Meeting her was amazing, but it made the contrast with the other assholes out to jeer at me much more pronounced.

I managed to stumble my way through my next lessons in some kind of order, leaving college as quickly as I could, but the guys from block seven were outside the 24-hour garage, smoking and drinking on the bench. I crossed the street, but it didn’t make any difference. They let out a wolf whistle and yelled over as passers-by looked on.

“Didn’t think you were such a cheap little hooker,” Marlow yelled. “Come over here. We’ll give you a better fuck than that old man.”

“Come on!” Dane shouted as I carried on walking. “We’ll make you way more of a slut than he will.”

“Wouldn’t want to be seen out with Grandpa, would you?” Marlow laughed. “Best keep him hidden in the seedy den, eh?”

I’d never stood up to the idiots before, not once, but my levels of rage had taken enough. My legs were trembling but they carried me, fuelled. I crossed the street and walked up to them.

“I’m not embarrassed about being with Julian. You’re the fucking embarrassments. Like anyone will ever give a shit about you. You’re nothing but losers.”

They weren’t expecting it from me. Hardly anyone ever stood up to them, and I felt a weird sense of strength as I saw their discomfort, which said it all. The fear and rumours around them were likely just as bullshit as everything else around here. Maybe they were just little pricks with an inferiority complex and nowhere else to go. Sad.

They scoffed some more, shouting obscenities as I left them behind, but I didn’t care. None of it mattered. All that mattered was my newfound backbone and the man I loved waiting upstairs for me.

He was straight over to the door as soon as I stepped inside, green eyes searching mine for my reaction.

“Are you ok, sweetheart? Did it go ok?”

I nodded, with a surprising smile. “Yeah, it did.”

“I’m putting dinner on,” he told me. “We have fillet steak.”

I took hold of his arm before he turned away, fuelled even more by the urge to rebel against the world outside.

“That’s great, thank you,” I said. “I’m spoiled. But how about we go out first? Even just for a walk?”

His eyebrows pitted. “You want to go out?”

“I want to go out with you. I want to show the world they can fuck off, because I don’t care what they think. They can jeer and spit and ring bells calling us sinners for all I care, and you know what? I’ll be smiling.”

“I’m not so sure about that–” he began, but I was. I was deadly sure. I was remembering the strength in Lola. She was proud, determined to stand with Peter through his shame.

“Will you come out with me, hand in hand?” I asked him. “Yes or no?”

He didn’t even pause.

“Well yes, of course I will, if that’s what you want.”

“Do you want to? Do you want to come out with me?”

His smile was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. He tipped my face up to his and pressed his lips to mine with pure adoration. I could feel it.

“I’d love nothing more than to be at your side. Just so long as you’re ready.”

“You won’t be ashamed to be seen with me?”

He laughed. “There is nothing shameful about you, sweetheart. The wrongdoing is all on me.”

“And I don’t give a single fuck about that. All I care about is being with you, everyone else can get stuffed.”

“And what about your mum? How will you feel about her seeing us together? That could be painful for her, you know?”

I could only imagine how shit Julian had found it to have his whole family cast him aside. The idea of seeing the hurt and disappointment in Mum was enough to make my heart ache, but not enough to back down. The world would have to accept me being with Julian, including Mum and big-mouth Trish, since I wasn’t ever going to let him go.

“I’ll cope,” I told him with a smile.

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure.”

I was so relieved when he took his coat down from the hook.

“Let’s do it, then. Let’s face the wall of hate head on.”

His hand was so strong in mine as we set off. Despite the nerves, and the fears, and the shadow of knowing that at some point Mum would see us, I was smiling.

I didn’t feel sick, I felt strong and proud. I wanted the world to know I was on Julian’s arm for real, as a partner, not just a casual fuck. There was something else in me, too. A slight hope of something else under the surface. The hope that he too would find some pride in being beside me. Of showing the world that he wasn’t just a guy who used girls in private for filthy games, because that wasn’t who he was, no matter what he might think of himself. He may have been thrown out by his family because they couldn’t live with his sex life, but this was different to that. I was different. Or I hoped so.

Clichéd but true.

If only the rest of Worcester would see it that way…

I got a lurch of oh fuck as the garage came into view, with the idiots still sitting outside. I was ready to give them another round of retaliation and tell them to fuck off again, but I didn’t need to. Julian was already prepared. He gripped my hand tighter as he saw them looking in our direction, and his shoulders were tall and proud. He was giving them one hell of a stare through every step, and I saw the cold, hard strength in his eyes. It gave me a crazy whirl of flutters in my stomach as I stared up at him and not at them, and I got a taste of how he must have looked at Scottie when he ordered him to leave.

I wanted to turn around on the spot and head straight back to the apartment again, desperate for another round of his strength in the bedroom. He was absolutely fucking gorgeous, with the hint of steel that I’d seen in the old photos of him online. Next to his wife.

But now he was next to me…

I felt so free as we passed the guys on the bench with no stupid bullshit from them that I got a rush of confidence of my own. I turned my head back to them when we had walked on by and gave them a smirk of fuck you.

Julian must have read me, though. We were around the corner when he leant down close and whispered in my ear.

“Don’t judge it too early. I don’t want to piss on our lovely parade, but they are just a bunch of loud-mouthed idiots who have no backbone when it comes to it. There will be plenty of more dramatic challenges ahead, I’m sure.”

He wasn’t joking on that score, because typically, as they usually do, a synchronicity rose up to give me the middle finger for being so blasé. Trisha was walking towards us on the same side of the street with Ramsay in his pushchair, and there was Martha beside her. I saw them before they saw us, and every scrap of my confidence seemed to fizzle up in a flash.

They practically stopped in their tracks as their eyes locked on ours, and Trisha’s mouth dropped open. I stopped too, but Julian kept on walking, coaxing me along with a gentle tug. He wasn’t afraid.

It felt like a game of chicken, both pairs of us getting closer. Trisha’s face was like thunder and Martha looked like she hated the sight of us, and it gave me trembles at the thought that one day this would be my mum facing up to us, not them.

Julian squeezed my hand again for support, holding tight, and I made sure my feet kept moving alongside him. Who was going to make way for each other? Us or them?

Closer… closer…

Trisha’s face was beetroot red, her eyes were full of hate, all for him. Martha looked at him like he was some kind of criminal to be wary of, and that was kind of worse, seeing her afraid of him for no reason at all.

Still, we moved closer.

Still, we all stayed on the same side.

And there was nothing for it, we’d reach each other, face on, up close, and I wasn’t sure I could face it. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I wasn’t sure I could be so brave and face them off this quickly… maybe I’d been stupid. Maybe I’d been totally naïve. Maybe taking inspiration from Lola was way too much, way too soon.

As it turns out, I didn’t have to. We won the game of chicken.

Trisha angled the pushchair across the road, getting ready to cross the street with Martha at her side. Wow. They’d be the ones to clear out of our way, not the other way around. But Julian’s strides were too fast and too strong. There was too much traffic for Trisha to cross the road in time.

It was him who spoke, not them. My saviour was the one to close the gap in communication, tipping his head at them with a gentlemanly smile.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, and I gave a hi like a stupid little kid at the side of him.

That was too much for Trisha. We’d passed her by when I heard her trumpet voice shout out, but it was loud enough for the whole damn estate to hear.

“Fuck off! Rosie’s just a sweet little kid, you filthy cunt! You should be locked up and shot dead for this!”

Julian didn’t stop walking, and he didn’t look back. He kept my hand gripped tight, and his head held high, as though her words meant nothing.

Just a shame I knew it was an illusion. I saw just the slightest hint of pain in his eyes, and I knew the truth.

Under the surface, he believed every single word they said.