Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

Rosie

I thoughtI’d be waiting a lot longer, sitting on the stairs, just out of view of the corridor. I didn’t want to be with Mum and Tom, I wanted to be here, ready for whatever was coming.

What ended up coming was Julian’s brother, fighting back sobs with his hand clutching the banister as he stumbled down towards me.

He didn’t see me at first, but when he did, he stopped dead in his tracks. I looked up at the tower of him, rising to my feet.

“You’re leaving already?” I asked, stating the obvious.

“Yes, I am. If you have any sense, you’ll stay the fuck away from him. My brother is a very sick man. I’m sorry for what he did to you.”

He carried on walking, but I put a hand on his shoulder as he tried to pass me by.

“Please, give me a second. Julian didn’t do anything to me, I swear, other than love me.”

Michael’s eyes were like my boyfriend’s. Beautiful in stunning green. He had the same arch of his brows. The same salt and pepper in his hair.

“Is that what he tells you? He’s fucked up. Please don’t listen to him. He’s done this plenty of times before.”

I shook my head, my hand still on his shoulder.

“No, he hasn’t. He hasn’t done this before. Not like he has with me.”

“Poor girl,” he said. “I hope you have a family that will talk some sense into you when they find out.”

“They already know. My mum knows Julian. She likes him, actually. It took her a while to accept us being together, sure, but she realises it now. He wasn’t after me, he didn’t pursue me, he isn’t using me.”

“Hardly hearts and kisses, I imagine. More like truss you up and enact his filth on you. He probably films it, too.”

Still, I didn’t let go of his shoulder. I held firm.

“There are more hearts and kisses than you could possibly know. Filth has nothing to do with it.”

His jaw gritted. “Filth has everything to do with it. It always has done. He most likely hasn’t told you the half of what he did, believe me.”

He pulled away from me at that, and took another step down, but I dashed forward, blocking his path on the stairs.

“He’s told me everything. About every girl, about how it all started, about the things he did, and the things he wanted to do, and how he kept it hidden.”

“Right, yes. And you’re still visiting him? You must need as much therapy as he does. Stay away from him, please.”

I didn’t move out of the way.

“I’m not visiting him. I live with him.”

“You’re living with him? Jesus Christ he really has gone and done it this time. He’s fucked you over big time and you’re…”

“I’m what?”

He looked me in the eye. “Young. Impressionable.”

“Yeah, yeah, the vulnerable innocent. He hasn’t fucked me over. I’m there because I want to be. I was the one who approached him. I was the one who seduced him.”

Michael’s jaw was still gritted, firm.

“No doubt he built you up to it. Compliments, playing suave. I know how charming he can be.”

I shook my head. “No. He didn’t build me up to it. He fought it.”

He looked up at the ceiling, more tears welling up, despite his tough exterior.

“Didn’t fight very hard, then, clearly.”

“Trust me,” I said, “he fought it.”

I saw the slam of hurt there in his heart. His lip trembled.

He took a breath. “My brother is a predator. A deviant. He’s uses girls, and exploits them. Manipulates them into giving him what he wants.”

My stare was fierce. I didn’t budge an inch to let him past.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Why is it obvious?”

I remembered Lola talking to me about Peter, just as I’d talked to her about Julian. I remembered the assumptions people had made based on age and nothing else, and they were wrong. All of them. Michael was wrong about Julian, too.

“Of course it’s bloody obvious,” he said. “The girls are too young to know better. They go along with his games because he primes them. Coerces them. Builds them up over time, until he’s ready to strike. Just like he’s done with you!”

I tried to stay calm.

“I’m asking you again, how do you know that?”

I saw him bluster, he shrugged.

“Of course I know it!”

“How? Have you spoken to them? Any of them?”

“Hell no! That’s the last thing we’d want to do! Make the girls relive it.”

He sounded like one of the people from this place. So quick to condemn things they don’t truly understand.

“Maybe you should speak to them, don’t you think? Get their opinion before you make judgements?”

“And maybe you should get an opinion of a therapist before you head back upstairs even one more time.”

Still, I didn’t move.

“I don’t need one. I love your brother, and he loves me.”

He laughed, shook his head at me. “He’s old enough to be your father.”

“Actually, he’s almost old enough to be my grandad.” I shrugged. “It’s an age gap, nothing more.”

“A thirty year age gap. THIRTY YEARS!”

Still, I didn’t budge.

“Yes, and so what? What does it matter?”

“It matters a LOT, I think you’ll find.”

“To who?”

“Everyone.”

I smiled, wishing he could see for just one second how his brother saved me, and stood by me, and loved me through the hell of it all.

“You mean it matters to you? Yes?”

His cheeks were tear stained, but his eyes were fierce.

“And his children. Grace and Ryan. Katreya. I doubt he’s told you about any of us.”

“He’s told me about you all. I know a lot, I promise you. I even know the colour of Emily’s last birthday dress. He told me how she bounced on Katreya’s knee when Grace brought the dragon cake in. I also know how much he misses you. All of you. So much he can hardly stand it.”

Michael didn’t say anything, so I carried on.

“He told me how you used to play rugby together. How once you were on rival teams, and wouldn’t speak for a week on the run up. He said your mum shouted at you over the dining table because you were giving each other scowls while she was trying to talk to you.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that, just for a second.

“I know how Katreya had an affair with Grace’s gym instructor. I know how he overheard her talking about him with her friends. I know how he felt when Grace’s friends got older, and he realised he wanted them.”

“Stop this,” Michael said at that. “He’s been filling your head with nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense though, is it? Tell me which part of it is nonsense.”

“He’s using it!”

“How?”

“To seduce you!”

My eyes stayed calm. My smile was real.

“I seduced him. I can tell you how, if you like? I can tell you what some of the other girls did, too. How they hung around in the kitchen, pretending they needed a drink while Grace was in bed. How they made suggestions. How the university students brushed past him after lectures, begging for extra help with their studies, just so they could get his attention. Just because girls are young doesn’t mean they are innocent. Some are. Some aren’t. I wasn’t.” I paused. “So, maybe you should speak to some of the girls who Julian preyed on and find out how they really feel about the whole thing? I think you might be surprised by their answers.”

He didn’t speak.

I didn’t move.

“Has Grace spoken to any of them?” I asked.

“No, she hasn’t. She doesn’t want to dig the disgusting pit any deeper than has already been dug.”

“So, you don’t know, do you? Not for sure.”

“We don’t NEED to!”

“Please, just talk to them,” I continued. “Some of them. Maisie was the first girl he was with. She was messaging him for three months solid behind Grace’s back, begging him to see her when Grace wasn’t around. Then it was Serena from gym class. She used to make sure he could see exactly the right parts of her in her leotard.”

“Stop,” Michael said, but I couldn’t.

“I know it was Madeline that called him out in the end. She did that because he told her he wasn’t going to see her anymore. She wanted more than he was prepared to give, and he didn’t want to hold her back from university. He’s got plenty of messages to back that up.”

“He’s not on fucking trial!” Michael said.

“He is though, isn’t he? He’s on trial by you, and you’ve already reached your verdict without hearing the evidence.”

I saw how he wavered, just a touch, his hand gripping the handrail tightly.

“Speak to them. Please,” I said. “And then make your verdict. And please don’t think he’s done badly to me. He hasn’t. You can ask my mum, if you like. She’s just down there, in apartment four. She had the same opinion you did, before she realised the truth.”

“The truth? She must be as delusional as you are.”

“Ask her. She’s right there.” I gestured to the floor below.

“I don’t need to ask her, and I don’t need you to sing my brother’s praises. He needs therapy, and he needs us. If you really believe your truth, and you love him, then tell him to come back to us, and leave him alone. Live your life. You’ll be glad you did when you’re older.”

He eased past me, walking away, and this time I didn’t dash forward to stop him. His words had struck a chord. Hypocritical.

“Since you’re judging him for being so manipulative, why are you being so manipulative yourself?”

He turned back to me.

“Me being manipulative? Please. I’m looking out for you, and for him.”

“You’re being manipulative, making him choose, and trying to make me choose for him.”

“Believe that if you want.” He shook his head again. “Poor girl. I feel sorry for you, I really do.”

I had to choke back my own tears, trying to stay calm.

“If you feel so sorry for me, then please listen to what I have to say. Knock on my mum’s door and speak to her, and call some of the girlsJulian preyed on. Please, give him that. Give him a fair trial before you sentence him.”

Michael carried on walking.

“Please!” I called after him. “Please, just speak to them! Any of them! Even Madeline!”

I followed him far enough down to watch him march past Mum’s door, and that broke me. I collapsed down onto the stairs, putting my hands over my face as the tears fell. I’d tried. I’d truly tried.

It was through streaming sobs that I saw him pause at the end of the corridor, long enough to stare back at me, and he was weighing me up. I could feel it. Sense it. Even through the tears.

“Please!” I managed to whimper. “Please give him a fair trial. Please!”

Julian’s brother didn’t answer my final request, he just walked away. I knew he’d be crying all the way downstairs.

I heard the bottom door slam closed behind him, and got myself together enough to hold back the tears as I raced upstairs. I opened the door to our apartment, and found Julian on the chesterfield with his head in his hands. I flew to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as tightly as I could. My mouth was by his ear, my words so choked up I could hardly speak.

“Go with him,” I said. “Go with him, Julian, and go now. They’re waiting for you. He’s still out there… you can go home!”

But my boyfriend took my face in his hands, despite his tears. He shook his head before pressing his forehead to mine.

“You are my home now, Rosie,” he said. “And I’m not leaving you.”

“You can go!” I cried. “Julian! You can go!”

“Tell me this,” he said, his eyes right on mine. “Would you have ever left me to go back downstairs? Back to your mother? Would you have left me behind and walked away?”

“No,” I said. “Never.”

“And the same is true in reverse. I won’t leave you behind and walk away. Not for anything. I just pray that one day they’ll get the chance to see how much I love you for themselves, just as your mother did.”

I held him and cried with him, and loved the way he loved me, just as I loved him.

And I prayed with everything I had – with my heart and soul – that they would get the chance to see it.

Julian, my saviour, the man upstairs who’d saved my life from nothing, deserved his family.

Just as they deserved him.

Nobody turnedup in the weeks after that. No Grace or Ryan, or Katreya. Michael didn’t come back, and there were no calls. Nothing but silence from Oxford as I finished up my exams.

We ate out in Worcester with Lola and Peter in celebration with whoops and cheers, and Mum and Tom came, too. And then, when the summer holidays were upon us, we went to Tenby and built sandcastles, with Julian tossing sand at me as he dug the moat.

We ate ice creams, and paddled in the sea with Lola and Peter, and after dinner, when they were off to bed for a kinky night in their hotel room, Julian and I set back off together, back to the beach.

We sat on the sand, and talked under the stars, and we began to make our plans.

Plans for our new life away from Crenham Drive…

“Where shall we go, then?” Julian asked me. “London? Tenby? Brighton? Manchester? Some tiny little village in the middle of nowhere in Wales?”

Julian had many suggestions, but I had only one answer.

“I want us to move to Oxford.”

“Oxford?!”

“Yes,” I said. “Oxford.”

“No,” Julian said. “Absolutely not. You’ll regret it when we’re there. That’s the last thing I’d want to put you through. Not in a million years.”

I wouldn’t regret it, though. Because just as he’d used the parallel of me not leaving him for the sake of my mother, there were some other parallels I could happily draw upon – and had done plenty of times in my mind.

I wouldn’t have left Julian for Mum, no, but I wouldn’t have left Crenham Drive, either. I wouldn’t have left her behind until she got the chance to see the truth for herself. About us. About him. About how great a person he was, and how much he adored me.

In Oxford, maybe, his family would see for themselves. A chance like that was worth taking. It had to be.

“We can’t move to Oxford,” he said, but I shook my head.

“Michael asked me to leave you and send you back home, but I won’t leave you, not for anything. But I will send you home, like your family wanted. I’ll just be coming with you.”

“You’ve no idea what you’d be letting yourself in for.”

“I think I do, don’t you?” I managed to laugh, with the crash of the waves as a beautiful backdrop. “We’ve been through plenty of it in Crenham, haven’t we? And we made it through. We’ll make it through there as well. And if Michael does what I asked him to, what I begged him to… if he asks any of those girls for real, he’ll begin to see the truth. They all will…”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then we keep waiting, until one day they see it for themselves. In us.” I nestled into his side as he stared at the waves. “Can we do it, then? Can we move to Oxford? You said you’d take me anywhere in the world I wanted to go.”

He chuckled, just a bit.

“I wasn’t imagining you’d say Oxford.”

“Will you take me there? Please? Can we get you home?”

He sighed and put his arm around me, kissing my head.

“You are my home.”

“Yeah, I know.” I was grinning in the darkness. “I guess we’ll just be living at home in Oxford though, won’t we?”

I soaked in another crash of the waves. I could practically hear his brain churning.

He sighed, and I grinned brighter. I knew him well enough to know the signs.

“Alright, then,” my boyfriend said. “Let’s do it. Let’s move to Oxford.”

I let out a squeal at that, and practically jumped on him, both of us a tumble of limbs on the sand.

I kissed him with sandy lips, and he grabbed me with sandy fingers, wrestling me to the ground underneath him, with my hands pinned over my head.

I bucked up at him as he tugged my dress down in the moonlight, and he paused as he saw my bare tits in the pale glow.

I’d already written it for him, while he was getting his suit on in the hotel room, jagged marker pen over my skin in the bathroom.

Yours.

He could write slut, or whore, or dirty bitch, or whatever he wanted to, right over me, but tonight, that one word said it all.

I was Julian’s just as he was mine, and that wouldn’t ever change, not for anything.

I just hoped that one day his family would see the truth of it… just like mine had.