I don’t have much time. Aaron will be wondering what I’m up to. I’ve broken two of my Five Parks rules; 1. Don’t meet up again with one of my dates until I’ve seen all five, and 2. Don’t write about what happens outside the dates, outside the parks.
But I couldn’t keep myself away from Aaron. I didn’t expect him to text me the day after our date but I was delighted when he did. And now I have him here, I can’t help breaking my second rule. I had to tell you, my faithful readers, what is happening. This is what blogs are for.
Aaron is in my bedroom right now, waiting for me. Just typing that out gives me a thrill and a chill. Don’t mess this up, Suzanne, this one could be a keeper. I’d better get back to him. Wish me luck! I’ll give you all the juicy details tomorrow… maybe.
Date: 01/01/16
Battery: 7%
Time remaining: 0hr 14min
I remember my bedroom. Strange to think I may never see my own bedroom again.
With Aaron inside, it took on a new warmth that I hadn’t felt in that flat before. It wasn’t my flat, but luckily the Cambridge girls were gone again for the weekend, so I could sneak Aaron round for a roast dinner, my speciality. Aaron … my Trojan horse.
My prison cell is also warm, too warm, making me long for real air. It turns me drowsy, doesn’t let my senses fully stir.
It’s only been a week since I sneaked into the kitchen and pattered away at my laptop keys. Here I am, seven days later, still doing the same thing.
I was right; I shouldn’t have blogged about Aaron being in my flat. I broke the rules. My rules. If you can’t even live by your own rules, never mind someone else’s, then you are lost.
I must have realised I’d made a mistake, because there was no follow-up on Five Parks the next day. No spilling of the promised juicy details. There were no juicy details to spill.
Aaron was in my bedroom, yes, and he stayed the night. But nothing happened. Nothing like that. It was all very chaste. I got into my pyjamas – a fresh pair, I do have some standards – and got into bed, and he laid on top of the duvet, still in his jeans and shirt. It seems silly to say it now, but it was kind of amazing. We talked until the sun poked its head up to chide us for not sleeping, about stupid stuff; music and television and how you always open the box of paracetamol from the wrong end. We did a bit of kissing and cuddling but nothing more than that. Did I want to do anything more than that? I don’t know. Not then. Not yet. There were going to be many more nights lying in or on bed with Aaron – and I have to believe there still might be, if he is reading this, if he is on his way here to take me away from the darkness. I close my eyes and picture him stroking my arm as he did that night in my bedroom. Aaron will come for me.
There is a photo Penelope gave me that I put at the bottom of the blog post describing our interview. It is a photo of her and Aaron in Barcelona, on some weekend break that has been long forgotten. They look so young and happy. They’re at Park Güell. I recognise it from the giant green and blue and orange and yellow ceramic salamander behind them in the picture. I’ve been there too. They look so happy. I want that too. I want that with Aaron.
I hope he can forgive me. He broke off all contact with me after our sleepover. I’d be kidding myself if I thought he hadn’t seen the blog post I wrote from the kitchen while he was in the bedroom. I was excited, on edge, but I may have compromised him. He wouldn’t return my texts or calls for the next few days, and by the time he started reciprocating, I was too deep into preparing Date #5 that I couldn’t reply. I was hurt that he ignored me. But now I see why he did it. Funny how this dark room and the tiny light I huddle around makes me see things clearly for the first time.
I shouldn’t have published that post. Not because it made me look easy – I didn’t care what my detractors thought at that stage – but because I might have embarrassed Aaron. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he didn’t return my texts and calls. I was warned.
Penelope was a whirlwind, just like I wrote in Five Parks, but she slowed down long enough to look into my eyes and tell me something, just before she blew her way out of the café and back to her amazing post-Aaron life.
She waited until I’d snapped off the Dictaphone. She was clever. I could see what Aaron saw in her. She was fierce. Not like me at all. Just when I started to relax as I knew the interview was over, she made her point. She touched me. Put a hand on my arm. At first I thought she might lean in and give me a hug, that we had shared something, had become kindred spirits because we were both interested in the same man, albeit at different points in our lives. But she wasn’t interested in me. She only cared about Aaron.
She didn’t blink when she said it.
‘I read in the paper what you did to your previous two dates. Don’t think for one second you can do that to Aaron. It will not stand.’
And with that, she stood up herself, smiled down at me, and breezed back out of the café.
30
‘Time for a different voice’
Posted by HIM
Monday, August 1, 2016
Time for a different voice. I think it’s time we all had a break from Suzanne. It’s time I introduced myself to my readers.
For that is what you are now; mine. What once belonged to Suzanne now belongs to me, which makes a change. It must pain her to read this and know that I am inside her blog, rooting through all her secrets, peeking behind the curtain. Everything flows through me.I can see things through her eyes, feel the power she must have felt as Five Parks grew, twisting and choking everything in its grasp. And it is still growing.
Since she began writing from her black box, her readership has bloated. Amazing what a little exposure can do. But the goodwill has gone. You are a fickle bunch, but you are just as sick of Suzanne’s secrets as I am. She has written plenty of words for you since she woke up in her new home, but has she really said anything? She has not told you who she really is, what she is really like. She is a weaver of lies, a spinner of half-truths, a worshipper of deceit.
But you are starting to doubt her. The comments under her most recent posts suggest that many of you don’t believe that I exist – that Suzanne and I are one and the same. You think she has made this whole thing up. I wonder what on Earth gave you that idea? I assure you I am very real. Suzanne has not lied about me.
I’ve never kidnapped someone before, but it’s remarkably easy. You just need the will, and I’ve always had that. It helps that your target deserves everything that is coming to her. I have known girls like Suzanne all my life. They are breezers. They breeze in and they breeze out again, taking what doesn’t belong to them, not caring about the consequences. Suzanne has left a lot of casualties in her wake. I have been up close to her. Up close to her in the light, not just in here in the dark. It is important she knows that.
Any sympathy some of you may have for her is being wasted, you will realise that soon enough. She may be alone and in the dark, but that is where she left you – and those closest to her. She deserves this. Do not forget that.
And do not keep reading Five Parks in the hope of a happy ending. She thinks she can convince me to set her free, or persuade one of you to come and rescue her, but she is mistaken. I’m sorry, but her writing isn’t that good. My plan for her remains unaltered. She will remain in her black box. It will be her coffin. There is no escape. None of those sirens outside are for her. No one is coming to save her.
I have let her continue her blog in here for one reason; she must atone for what she has done. Yet not one of her words so far has been contrite, not one has been dipped in remorse. So it is time I gave her a little push. No more secrets. We will start off with a small one, then see if she can graduate to the whoppers all by herself. I have left her a present. It’s on her desk.
Keep writing, Suzanne. Don’t make me come back in there to jog your memory. And the rest of you… keep reading.
31
Date: 01/01/16
Battery: 99%
Time re
maining: 4hr 39min
I’d fallen asleep again, gone to the bed when the laptop and the room went black. I’m an infant that can’t stay awake.
When I return to the computer, his blog post is waiting at the top of Five Parks, above all my own recent writing in here – he continues to publish everything.
His post is dated Monday, meaning I have been in here for two days. No wonder I am hungry. No wonder I’ve returned to the bucket to pee five or six times; it’s filling up, and my nostrils fight hard to ignore the stench. He published his post under the name ‘HIM’ to taunt me. He says he has left me a present.
There are only two things on the desk; the laptop, of course, and the Bob the Builder badge, the cartoon character’s face an unwavering beacon of optimism that offends me.
I run my hands around both sides of the laptop but all I find are splinters to pierce the skin on the tips of my fingers.
He’s not talking about the desk, I realise, but the desk within the desk. I minimise Five Parks and Tower Bridge returns, this time with a new yellow friend. The folder on the desktop is called ‘LittleSecrets’. There is a Word document inside, called ‘David’. I know what this is. My head sinks into the gleam of the laptop; so this is where he wants to begin. No more lies. I open up ‘David’, cut and paste its contents into my own Word doc so the world can read what I already know. There’s no point hiding these words any more, as my captor could just publish them himself. No, that wouldn’t be torturous enough for me – he wants me to be the one to do it. I oblige him. Perhaps he is right; the world should know what I did. It’s a few weeks since I looked at these words, but I do now what I did then; I begin to cry.
HELD comment from: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016, 00.05am
Dear Suzanne,
I’ve just read your blog post above on our date in Greenwich Park. Seeing the words on your blog hurts more than it did this morning reading them in the Daily Herald. They’re more personal now, somehow. I’m sorry about the date. And I’m sorry I ever met you.
I made a huge mistake. I shouldn’t have gone to meet you in Greenwich Park. I should have been somewhere else. I should have cancelled and explained everything. And after I’d met you, I should have just told you the truth. But I was embarrassed and I didn’t want you to know.
I was distracted on the date. And I wasn’t checking football scores on my phone. In the few days between you selecting me and the date itself, something happened.
My sister, my little sister Charlene … it’s so difficult to write this … Charlene was stabbed at a party.
I should have been looking out for her. She was chatting to the wrong guy, and some kid with a knife went for him over some turf war bullshit. She was in the middle. She got the worst of it. The knife went into her stomach.
But she fought hard. I spent the next two days by her side in the hospital. When she came round, still weak, I told her anything I could to keep her spirits up, keep her from sliding back into deep sleep. I told her I’d won a date with the Five Parks girl. She was delighted, because she had given me the idea for the video – she loved The Breakfast Club, we used to watch it over and over when we were kids. She still was a kid to me.
I told her I wouldn’t be going on the date with you, that I wouldn’t leave her side until she was well again. She smiled through the pain – I knew she was in pain, but she wouldn’t let me see it – and called me a moron. That was her favourite term of abuse for me. She said you might be The One, the girl of my dreams, and I’d be a fool to pass up the date. Char always looked on the bright side, always saw the good in people. I protested, but she said I tried to protect her too much, always had done, Big Bro looking out for his baby sister. She was right. I was seven when she was born, and I worshipped her from the moment I saw her. I promised myself I wouldn’t let any harm come to her. I would do anything for her. And that’s why I went on the date with you, because Char told me I had to, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
But as soon as I met you at Greenwich I knew I’d made a mistake. Every second I spent with you just made me feel guilty. Our mum kept texting me updates on Char’s condition, which was why I was checking my phone all the time. It probably wasn’t fair to you, but I just couldn’t forget about my sister and enjoy the date. It wasn’t right.
When you were walking up the hill in Greenwich Park, my mum called again to tell me Char was in trouble. She’d slipped out of consciousness. I’m sorry I didn’t explain things, but I had to go.
Char never did regain consciousness. We sat around her from Saturday evening until Monday morning, when she slipped away. Gone. Just like that. I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. I gave that up for a date, a fucking date, with someone I didn’t even know.
I started getting calls in the hospital. From friends wondering if Char was alright, but they were also wondering something else: if I had seen today’s paper. I’d totally forgotten about our date, forgotten that something like that could exist in the same world that no longer had Char in it. I found a copy lying in the hospital canteen and read your article. I wanted to kill myself. It reminded me that I had abandoned Char when she needed me most, and that I will never see her again.
My family started getting calls from journalists that afternoon, not asking how Char was another victim of knife crime, but if I was as big a bastard as you’d said I was in your article. My mother cannot forgive me for going on a date instead of staying with Char, and I cannot forgive myself. She hasn’t spoken to me since Saturday, and I’m not sure she will again. I’ve been told by other family members that she doesn’t want me at the funeral. I don’t blame her. I let Char down. I was the one always looking out for her, until she needed me most.
My school called me today too, said they’d been fielding a lot of calls, had no idea I would be appearing in a newspaper. The head teacher said I’d embarrassed the school. When she talked to me on the phone, I didn’t have the energy to tell her about Char. The school year is almost over, but they’ve suspended me pending a disciplinary hearing to take place some time over the summer.
That is what’s happened today. I’m sorry I ever met you, Suzanne. I don’t expect you to publish this comment on your blog because I know you’ll want to save face, but I don’t care. I didn’t write it for your readers, I wrote it so you would know everything. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the dream date you were hoping for on Saturday.
Don’t try to contact me and don’t dare try to write about me again. Good luck with the rest of your dates, I hope you get what you deserve.
David.
I wipe a tear off my cheek with a ragged finger. The burst skin scrapes my face. I wanted to publish David’s comment. It was the least he deserved after what I did to him, but I couldn’t do it. The comment was ‘held’ and his story went unseen. I was a coward. I didn’t want my readers to know I was a monster. Self-preservation. I was a bitch, but I was too frightened to show my true face to the world.
His story was true. I checked it out in the days that followed; there were a few articles online. Charlene was only twenty-three. She was beautiful. The news websites that ran the story used the same photo of her – a girl with a glint in her eye and a smile that must have melted a lot of boys’ hearts. And, like David said, she was gone.
The reports on the stabbing were sketchy, but one revealed that the main suspect in her killing had been badly beaten before he was arrested, and a relative of the victim had spent a short time in police custody before being released without charge. The relative had also been wounded in the incident, stabbed in the leg. I read between the lines. David hadn’t twisted his knee at football, he had been knifed in the thigh while beating up his sister’s attacker. David was capable of violence, then, even if, in this instance, it was understandable.
I run my hand along the side of my chair and over the matching table, furniture that looks like it came from a primary school. Furniture from a primary school where David no longer works?
Our date had cost him his job, his family, and the chance to say goodbye to his little sister. Did David take me? I had given him a good reason for revenge.
Maybe I am sitting at a table and chair from his own classroom, a set that featured in his winning video? The thought stings me and I turn my mind elsewhere; David only wanted to protect his sister. It reminds me of my own brother – Stephen tried to protect me by confronting Michael after the two of us split up, and he ended up with a black eye. As much as I once loved him, I have to accept that Michael is capable of violence too.
Even though he told me not to, I tried to call David in the days that followed, but he didn’t answer. What would I have said, anyway? That I didn’t publish his comment on my blog to protect myself? That I was sorry for his loss? I’m lucky he didn’t pick up the phone – I would have made things worse. David was never named in the media reports about his sister’s stabbing, and I was lucky no journalist made the connection between her death and our date.
But it didn’t matter, as I’d already come to a decision; Five Parks was finished.
I called Nick Hatcher at the Daily Herald and told him my column deal was over. In turn, he called me a ‘deceitful, spiteful, backstabbing little cunt’, at which point I ended the conversation by hanging up the phone.
I didn’t tell Sylvie about that phone call, a decision I regret. She had set up the column at the paper, gone out of her way to help me with Five Parks, and I’d thrown it all away. I should have told her, then maybe she would have been there on Date #5, watching over me, and I wouldn’t have ended up in here.
The only person I told about the end of Five Parks was the person who helped me start it; Rob.
He said I was crazy, that it was foolish to jack in everything I’d worked so hard for when what happened with David wasn’t my fault. Rob said there was no way I could have known about the situation with David’s sister – and he was right. He said I was right to ditch the column at the Herald, but that I should continue Five Parks the way I started it, on my own terms, without being vindictive about my dates. I felt guilty about what happened with David but, in the end, I followed Rob’s advice. And I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have found Aaron.
Five Parks Page 17