She’s not in her body after that. She’s outside, floating above them as he calls her evil, a follower, a slave to her friends. Black shoes won’t make her prettier. Black shoes won’t make them like her. Doesn’t she see how nobody cares about her? Stupid, superficial, chubby girl. She doesn’t react as his voice gets louder and he shakes her, trying to scream a reaction out of her. Eight red marks where he has gripped her. No, she floats just above the chaos like a balloon tethered to his eyes. The wildness in them shows Holly just how far he’s lost control, and encourages her to hold on to it herself.
These fights used to follow a well-worn pattern. He would go too far with a punch or a push; she would start to sob and he’d wrap his arms around her. I’m sorry, my baby, I’m so sorry. He’d make it all better and they’d forget. Well, she’s not a little girl anymore. She doesn’t break like she used to. Even as he speeds through the streets of Exeter, spitting insults, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. Even as he swerves and her body slams into the door. Even when her stoic silence pushes him over the edge and he makes her take the new trainers off and throw them into the bushes. You deserve it. You deserve it.
She stumbles into youth group ten minutes late, face stinging from bruises yet to form. While her footsteps echo through the empty church hall, nobody turns to look at her. They’re all huddled in a circle around blonde, perfect, popular Emma, who is crying neat tears into her fluffy pink jumper that falls seamlessly over her prematurely developed breasts. Oliver is right there, rubbing her shoulder, mesmerised. God, she was so stupid to think it would only take a pair of shoes to be one of them, a stupid pair of shoes now getting soaked somewhere in the rain outside. How crazy she was to hope that they would run to her as she came in from the rain, that they would hold her while she sobbed.
‘Hey, Holly, come join us in prayer for Emma. She found out today that she is very sick,’ the youth leader says. There’s no space for Holly’s pain today. Nobody can see the bruises yet, or worse, the cuts across her heart from the things her dad called her. So she wipes the mud from her bare feet, kneels down and lays her hand on the sick girl, the special girl, and prays to God to make her well.
Chapter 9
Tyler
The simple act of walking to St Mary’s hospital is too much for Tyler to bear. Idiocy taunts him around every corner. Right now, he’s stuck behind a middle-aged man idling on his phone.
Tyler is angry about a lot of things: the traffic, the bleak weather, people who wait till the last possible second to take out their Oyster card at the tube station turnstiles, tourists dawdling on Regent Street, the way his hair didn’t cooperate with its styling wax today. Like every day, it has no discernible source. How many times has he wondered what it would be like to kick the person standing in front of him on the escalator? How satisfying would it feel to roll his car ever so slightly forward and onto the pedestrian crossing at the wrong time?
When he cut Holly, he felt a sweet release for a few seconds, as if his own anxiety was seeping out with her blood. It wasn’t like when he performed surgery, where he was surrounded by other people and focused on a specific outcome. The moment was more sacred. A private indulgence. It felt like a solution.
It started to wear off the instant he walked away, but the memory remained. He clung onto it as he fell asleep at night. He acted it out during moments of frustration in his day. He could feel it vividly, viscerally, the sensation of the scalpel pressing against his palm, the ‘will he / won’t he’ rush as the evening came to an end, the tensing up of her frantic body in his grasp. She’d felt as fragile as a caged, fluttering bird.
He had been gearing up to that moment ever since he convinced her landlord to give him a key to her apartment months before. All he had to do was act like her worried boyfriend and make up a critical emergency. Charming as he is, the landlord gave him a key for the morning, long enough for him to make a copy. There was a thrill in being close to her whenever he wanted, and occupying her place of safety without her knowledge.
A part of him had thought that the moment he attacked her would be enough, but he feels the sheen of the memory wearing off every time he revisits it in his mind. The little details and sensations begin to feel distant. It wasn’t a solution after all, but a start.
The tightness in his chest opens slightly as he walks through the grand red-bricked entrance to St Mary’s. In the short time he’s been here, he’s become known among the other doctors, maybe even loved. It’s not the hardest thing to achieve. Anyone will love you if you ask them questions about themselves. They will love you more if you pay attention and stay interested. Rachel, the night nurse on duty in the psychiatric ward, competes in Irish-dancing tournaments at the weekends. Rob, the gynaecologist, came out as gay last year and is proposing to his boyfriend when they go on summer holiday to the Maldives. James, one of the new trauma surgeons, dreams about going to South Africa to experience working in their trauma wards, but until then he binge-watches Grey’s Anatomy on his nights off. This information means nothing to him, but appearing curious makes his world a smoother one to live in.
‘Doc! You’re in the paper today!’
A sudden surge of panic. Has he been too confident? Was he too careless? But of course not. It’s something else. Namely, the reconstructive facial surgery he had performed on ten women in Bangladesh. Some journalists from the Guardian travelled to the home where they were recovering and wrote a glowing report on his selfless work. He felt a thrilling jolt at the sight of their smooth faces. The skin grafts had taken beautifully. The slack muscles had become infused with new life. Most importantly, the women bubbled with a confidence born of the relief that they will fit into society once more. Shame, isolation, loneliness. These things are more poisonous than a scar could ever be.
The headline reads PLASTIC SURGERY WITH HEART. They don’t understand. He doesn’t perform plastic surgery with his heart. He performs it with his mind only. He purposefully doesn’t get too involved in the backstory, in the person behind the broken mask. What does interest him is the intellectual riddle of moulding and shaping their singed skin. He is interested in the magic of bringing their frozen faces back to life. There are no challenges of this nature in London. Everything here is too sterile, too average. There is a limit to how many breast implants he can shove into women each day. Cutting for no real reason feels like a crime, a gross misuse of his skills. He can only really see his full potential in an unequipped clinic, with a lost cause lying broken and malleable in his hands. He took pictures of every woman to document their progress, pictures that he put to use two nights ago. He takes one look at the article before folding it and putting it into his pocket. Breathes a deep sigh. The media’s obsession with creating heroes without any evidence is exhausting. Still, he’d rather be recognised as a saviour than as an attacker.
*
‘Hey, Tyler, have you seen this story?’ The nurse hands him the front page of the Telegraph. Holly stares back at him with a face of jagged cuts swimming in blood. This must have been taken just after it happened. The blood had hardly got a chance to clot. Oh, how it had turned his stomach to make such careless, messy incisions! His worst work by far. The article stumbles over itself in its praise of Holly. He can only read the first paragraph.
Self-made online entrepreneur Holly Evans has become the face of the nation’s outrage towards online harassment. The young blogger, blessed not only with good looks but also business savvy, has a wellness empire valued at over £1 million. This includes one published recipe book, media appearances, sponsorships and an upcoming range of organic skincare. While there is no clear motive for the attack, Holly claims the attacker knew who she was. This is the most drastic instance of harassment of a female online figure to date in the UK. Evans’s attack has seen an outpouring of support from her fans and sponsors . . .
*
The tone of it makes him sick. Do online entrepreneurs like Holly really need to have an ounce of ‘business savvy�
��? Or do they simply happen to be in the right place at the right moment in history, with a face that is fresh enough to match their idea? He graduated from university a few years before Facebook hit. He was at his best-looking and at his most dynamic in a time before Instagram. What could he have achieved if he’d lived out his life in front of the camera? Instead, he’s had to work for his success the hard way.
The nurse fidgets in front of him, eager for his opinion. He remembers now that she’s one of those types that gets fixated on a news story and devours it from every angle. The prettier the injured party, the better. She wants something exclusive, something she hasn’t found yet in the articles she’s read. ‘What do you think of the damage, Dr Wells? Do you think she’ll ever look herself again?’
He smiles at her and flattens the paper on the desk in front of him.
‘Unfortunately, no. While this looks like the work of an hysterical opportunistic attacker, they have actually done an excellent job, cutting in such a way that will promote the most scarring possible. It may be a fluke, but they have gone for the softest tissue, and made small, jagged incisions that will not only be a nightmare to fix, but are open to infection. Give her a week or two under the wrong doctor and there will be some serious problems.’
‘Would you treat her? You’ve dealt with much worse!’ Her eyes are hungry. The excitement at some drama in her dreary day is too much to contain.
He stiffens at the thought. The risk is too great. But imagine, oh imagine the sweetness of her soft, helpless body lying in front of him again. A rambling script begins to form in his head of everything he would say to her, maybe even do to her. She needs to understand what she did wrong. You can’t just do what she did without some form of repercussion. You don’t just take someone else’s life and then slink away to enjoy your good fortune. It’s just not right.
Throughout the day, his heart keeps lurching back to infinite afternoons in Hyde Park. Frankie’s red hair tangled in the grass, a book resting on her chest. The inevitable moment when she grew bored, burrowed under his newspaper and slept on his chest. ‘What are you reading now, Tyler? Huh? Huh? Tell me the news I should care about.’ Nothing was as important as her softness against his skin, so he would give up his futile attempts at processing current affairs to roll with her in the sun-soaked grass. She’d always make him go and buy ice cream, even when it was overcast and they could feel the prickle of rain against their bare arms. Not just any kind, she liked flavours swirled with rich caramel and chocolate, with bites of brownie or biscuit. She would drag him down to South Kensington to get her favourite red velvet cupcakes for later. She ate sugar then, with child-like abandon. She inhaled eggs, cream, butter and steak. The good things, the juicy things. It was clear in the fullness of her breasts and the arch of her hips, when she was swaying down the street, running to the tube, gesturing to him to follow her, to catch up, that there were endless things left to explore.
His rage quieted in her presence. She teased him about it of course. She found his superficial annoyances and the discomfort with which he lived everyday life absolutely hilarious. ‘Darling, they’re just people trying to go about their day. What do you want them to do? Not everyone can be as perfect a specimen as you!’ Wild kisses then, all over his face. Eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth. Love sinking into his skin and calming the places that hurt. Turning his screams into sighs. He should have never accepted them. He should have pushed her away before he got hooked. He should have known that she would leave him eventually.
Chapter 10
Holly
Holly jumps at a frantic banging on her door. Panic has ground up any sense of perspective. Her nerves disintegrate at the slightest disturbance. Her imagination loops, taking her down the darkest paths, over and over again. There are many ways to break a woman. She is cornered and cowering, with nowhere to run. He is going to cut her again and make her beg for mercy.
He knew her well enough to pounce on her in the Starbucks she always visited after yoga, so what else does he know? How long had he been prowling in the shadows, taking note of her innocent routine? The stain of his watchful gaze makes her whole life feel dirty.
Tofu, her beloved cat, stirs in the warmth of Holly’s arms. Sweet thing – she hasn’t left her side since she returned. Holly strokes her silver fur and watches her blue eyes open and close in bliss. It’s hard to believe that the purring creature snuggled next to her was too petrified to even eat in front of her six months ago. She pats the side of Holly’s face gently, regarding her fraying bandages with interest. If anything happened to Tofu, Holly would never forgive herself.
The banging continues. Holly pulls herself up, careful not to strain the aching muscles in her neck and face. As she goes to open the door, she can feel the physical force of her mother huffing in the next room and finally heaving herself up to respond to the racket outside. Ever since her drawn face appeared next to Holly’s bed, she has made it clear that every moment of her care comes with immense personal sacrifice. Holly would push her out of the door if she could, and push away the agonising reminder of home, but nobody likes an ungrateful patient.
Don’t answer. She wants to scream but her voice doesn’t come. Don’t let him in. His eyes pierce through her fitful dreams, hungry for so much more. Eyes like his could calmly take a life.
‘Who’s there?’ her voice echoes across the apartment. She imagines his sick smile, the one she can’t wipe from her memory. It’s so clear, that he could be standing right in front of her with his scalpel pressing into her throat. Nothing’s stopping him. The police don’t have any leads. Her only comfort is the number they scrawled on an oil-stained scrap of paper to be used in the event of an emergency.
She’s also meant to call it if she remembers any more information. What could she possibly say? That she is convinced he will quietly return to finish what he started? That she wouldn’t blame him? Her future unspools ahead of her: a shadow of a man lurching towards her in the night, months spent in hospital until the world forgets about her, a pitiful return home to heal her scars and pay off her debt.
Her scabs are rough against her fingertips. The stitches prickle and itch. This skin that she once knew so well is alien to her touch. She can’t look in the mirror, not yet. Her reflection will confirm the worst – this really happened, and now she is the tentative inhabitant of this strange new life. While her cancer memories have soft, undefined edges, this feels hard and brutal.
She shrugs on her dressing gown, hands shaking. It’s not him. Not today. It’s simply another drop-off of juices, smoothies and soups from a raw food restaurant in Portobello. Since she got home, she gets a fresh ‘love pack’ from them every day. This is only a small slice of the abundance crowding her flat. Her small kitchen is heaving with healthy brownies and cakes. Her bed is strewn with the wrappings of hundreds of earth-friendly creams and oils that were gifted to help her with the scarring. She’s never felt such an overwhelming outpouring of love.
While she regards the product drops with healthy suspicion (one Instagram on her account equates to thousands of pounds in advertising), the letters from her followers have stuck. One girl got harassed on Twitter for calling out a guy for promoting rape culture in a disgusting picture. In response, he sent her a direct message of her photograph with his semen all over it. A beautiful woman in Barcelona sent Holly an email saying she was forced to remove her yoga account from Instagram after the constant comments about her DD breasts almost drove her to have a breast reduction. Then there was the sixteen-year-old black beauty blogger who had to go on antidepressants after a slew of racist comments over her natural hair. This is the curious, contradictory heart of social media. Women are encouraged to be visible, to mark their presence with their beauty and their talents, yet if their expression doesn’t fit in with another person’s definition of normal, it is seen as an invitation to be harassed.
In a way, she is better off than these women. At least the damage of her harassment is mapped across her f
ace. He abused her in a language that is recognisable as wrong.
Uncomfortable visions keep pushing to the surface. Maybe it’s the feeling of brokenness that sets off old memories, or the compulsion to tell only part of the truth, the part people are ready to hear. Or maybe it’s the relentless flashing of her attacker’s face in her mind, quivering with the type of anger she last saw in her father’s face.
He gave her a black eye once. England had lost at the cricket and he switched the TV off, finding a distraction in taunting her about eating a plate of chips. She was getting too big for her age and no lad would fancy her. She said something rude – yes, Dad, I’m a fucking pig. When he hit her, his signet ring caught on her brow bone. The story she stuck to was about sleepwalking and falling. The real shame, quivering and raw, remained hidden. She already understood then that some hurts received sympathy, and other hurts received judgement. If she shared the truth with her classmates about her swollen eye, would they understand or would they wonder what she did to deserve it? As she holds her breath in anticipation of what Jack will do next, she can’t help but wonder the same thing now.
Chapter 11
Tyler
The fact that Tyler met Frankie at all was a mystical act of fate. Like in any big city, two people could happily share the same space without ever crossing paths. The place they met was one neither usually went to and, after meeting, neither visited again.
That day, Tyler was rushing to meet a friend visiting from out of town. Despite his protestations, his friend was insistent on meeting in a dank, charmless pub near Warwick Avenue tube station. He had his reasons, something to do with a treasured memory, tradition and a barman who poured heavy-handed gin and tonics. Tyler was never much of a drinker – the lack of control unnerved him. Frankie always told this part of the story differently, ruffling his hair and saying he was imagining things, but no memory in his mind is clearer.
Shame on You: The addictive psychological thriller that will make you question everything you read online Page 5