In strange silence I watch her run away. Strange. I don’t stop her. I let her go. It doesn’t even feel real. She’s left a book sitting face down to mark its page. She’ll never finish it now. Then I look at Brit’s face and my heart breaks for her. I start to seethe. I stride over to Octavia. How dare she? I’d like to snap her scrawny neck. It’s tempting, so tempting. She is six feet away, four, two, one. Zero.
I hold my hand out.
‘She was no good. I did you a favor.’ Her voice is cold and hard.
I look into her eyes. Funny how I’ve never looked deep into her eyes before. Malicious. ‘You’re a bitch, Octavia. You didn’t do me a favor. You just got yourself fired.’
I reach my hand out and pluck the book from hers.
‘Cash,’ Octavia calls.
I ignore her and walk up to Britney. ‘Do you want to come with me, Brit?’
Her face is white and her chin is wobbly. She shakes her head. ‘No, you go on. I’ll be all right. This is my party.’
I stare at her, even in my moment of loss it occurs to me how much she has changed. She used to be so fragile and unstable.
Then she does something strange. She goes up on her tiptoes and whispers in my ears. Her words are like a lightning bolt. The whole world goes red.
Tori
The paparazzi completely ignore me, and I run down the street in my little flirty fun dress and no panties. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go back. I have no money even to make a phone call. I go down the steps into the tube station. Tears are pouring down my face. I go to the ticket inspector and I tell him I have no money, but if he lets me through the barriers I will come back tomorrow and pay him. He is a kindly, middle-aged black man. He tuts and takes me to the ticket counter where he buys me a ticket.
‘Where to?’ he asks.
‘Virginia Water.’ I try to fight back the sob inside me. It’s picking up force the way a storm does.
He hands me the ticket. ‘Listen love. It’s never as bad as it seems.’
‘Thank you.’ A sob escapes, the sound erupting from deep within my chest. I feel as if I’m breaking apart.
He pats me on the arm and I go down the escalator in a daze. At Waterloo station I get off and find my way up to the train station. I wait for my train and then I go in and sit on an empty seat and stare blankly out of the window. Once someone comes to sit opposite me. I look up confused. A woman in a long grey and white dress smiles kindly at me
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper.
All I see in my head is Octavia reading my diary in that strange voice and Cash’s face. He looked as if he had been stabbed. I have never seen him look like that. He was white under his tan.
Oh God! Britney.
Her face. Her birthday party was ruined.
God, why did I keep that diary. I frown. How did she get it? The hateful bitch must have taken it out of my room. When I saw her coming down the stairs she must have already taken it. But she wasn’t holding it. She must have put it somewhere else temporarily to wait for the best moment. I remember her telling me to smile.
And the award for Idiot of The Year goes to …
Tears run down my face. I fucked up, and so spectacularly too.
When the woman opposite me leaves at the next station, a man comes to sit beside me. ‘Do you need help?’ he asks.
I shake my head. I can’t talk. The motion of the train has made me feel physically sick. When I get to Virginia Water, I stumble off the train and sit for a moment on the bench before I make a collect call to my aunt. She tells me she will be there in ten minutes. I sit on the steps outside and wait for her. As soon as her car arrives she jumps out and comes to me. I can barely stand. I know my face must be red and my eyes swollen.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ she soothes as she takes the last few steps towards me.
‘Oh, Aunt Claire. What am I going to do? I’ve made such a mess of everything.’ The words spill from my mouth as I fall into her arms.
‘Shhh, it’s OK. It’s OK,’ she croons softly.
She holds me tight while I cry racking sobs. I think people pass by and probably stare at us, but I’m dead to everything.
Eventually my aunt sighs. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
I feel bruised, battered and irreparably damaged, but my feet somehow move forward and I get into the car. My aunt closes the car door and gets into the driver’s seat. The tears fall and fall. They refuse to stop. Some part of me won’t give up, but I know in my aching heart that he is gone. No more illusions. No more fairy tale endings. This is real life. He’s gone.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Britney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SI2EDM6Lo
I lift onto my toes, grasp my brother’s shoulder and, putting my ear close to it, whisper, ‘You can’t trust Gavin either. He tried to rape me at your party.’