Page 2 of After the Rain
Almost immediately after Mum’s funeral, when I had just turned twenty-one, which Dan had been too busy to attend, he moved us to Camden to be closer to his brother, Dom. Seriously. What were his parents thinking? Dan and Dom? They sound like they should be hosting a kids’ show on CBBC. Apparently, his pretentious mother wanted all her children’s names to begin with D. Ugh,insert eyeroll emoji here. The business that he had been so stressed about was a dance club – Poles Apart. A club that his brother owned and managed, but that Dan invested in as a silent partner. A club where Dan decided I should dance. A club where, over the last two years, I learned to hate the dance I had once loved, as my boyfriend beat me, gaslighted me, and coerced me into stripping for money. Money that he kept. The only bright spot of working at Poles Apart was Corey – another dancer, and Dom’s boyfriend. To be honest, I’m not sure what he sees in Dom, but we were never really allowed to be alone together long enough to get to know each other better.
Still, you know that feeling when you meet someone, and you justknowthat this person willbe a friend? I had that with Corey. But Dickhead and Douchebag never let us be alone together for more than an hour or two, after shows at the club, while we waited for them to be ready to leave each night. Too afraid of us sharing war stories? Who knows. All I know is that Corey was nowhere to be seen tonight at the club, and when I asked about him, Dan pushed me back on the stage after yelling in my ear about how I shouldn’t be worrying about where “that little bitch” was. Charming.
To put the icing on the already shit cake of the night, a drunk guy in the front row decided that I was fair game and started groping my arse whenever he could. His punishment? Nothing. My punishment for supposedly enjoying being pawed and drooled over by some middle-aged sleazeball with a gut and garlic breath? Being beaten half to death, then raped on my kitchen floor.
No.
Not my kitchen floor. Dan’s kitchen floor.
I can’t explain why I haven’t left before now. I can make excuses. Tell myself that I had nobody else. That I had no money. That I was young and stupid. He promised it would be the last time.
But after last night, something in meswitched. I think whatever part of me died alongside my mum came back to life when he hurt me so badly. He’s never going to change. And if I stay?
If I stay, I am going to die.
One
Rain
Dan’s breaths finally settle into the deep, slow rhythm of sleep. He drank so much tonight – probably snorted a fair amount as well – that I’m sure he won’t wake up. Gently easing myself off my side of the bed into a sitting position, I grit my teeth against the pain in my ribs. Using my pillows to fill the gap in the bed left by my body, I carefully stand, then replace the quilt over the pillows, and tiptoe out of the room as quietly as I can. I stop for nothing except my phone, my Kindle, and the two chargers that, thankfully, I manage to unplug without waking Dan. My wallet is on the kitchen counter, and a few clothes are stuffed into my small overnight bag that I hid under the baseboard in the boot of my car yesterday.
I knew I was going to leave after he hit me in the face on Wednesday, for supposedly flirting with the barman at Poles Apart. I’d been hopingto work last night and tonight, so my tips were lying around in Dan’s wallet before he spent it all. Friday and Saturday nights are always busy, so I knew it would be the time when the most money was there. I hadn’t counted on some drunk idiot triggering him so badly that he’d do this to me tonight.
“You think you can just fuck who you want? He was all over you, you slut, and you just stood there and took it.”
His voice had been pure venom. His hands had landed even harder than his words.
Shaking myself out of the memory, I gingerly make my way to the kitchen in my bare feet, grabbing some joggers and a T-shirt out of the washing basket on my way out of the bedroom. Dressing quickly and quietly in the dark kitchen, I hastily take my tips from Dan’s wallet and tuck them into my own. I grab one of the fabric tote bags for food shopping from the drawer under the counter, stuffing it with my meagre belongings. I creep to the hallway of the flat and pull on my ratty black Converse. Grabbing my hoodie and a jacket that hangs on the hook by the door, I check that my car keys are still in the pocket before shrugging the jacket on – I’ll need it in the cold November weather. I wish the hoodie was a zip-front rather than a pullover so I could actually get it on, as well asthe jacket, but knowing that won’t be possible in this state, I tuck it under my arm instead. As quietly as possible, I turn the integrated lock on the door of the flat and pull it open. It’s the first time I’ve ever been thankful that Dan insisted on living in a swanky apartment in a new high-rise development, because at least the door opens silently. I take one last look over my shoulder at the home that has never truly felt like mine, slip out the door, and close it as silently as it opened.
The wait for the lift to arrive at the twelfth floor feels like approximately eleventy-million years. I keep glancing between the digital display, watching as the number increases painfully slowly, and the door to the flat, the inside of which I hope to never see again. Finally, the lift arrives with a mutedding,and I wince as my gut reaction is to frantically check over my shoulder that Dan didn’t hear the noise and get to the apartment door in the last half-second.
Relieved to see nothing but an empty hallway and a closed door, I squeeze inside the lift before the door has even finished opening and frantically press the ‘door close’ button until finally they shut out the view of Dan’s front door. I press for the ground floor and slump in pain against the mirrored wall. When the doors open again in the lobby, empty at this time of night, I shuffle across the cold space, my cotton tote bagpractically dragging behind me, and exit through the door at the side of the building that leads to the car park. I make my way to my crappy old car and unlock the doors before climbing inside with a grunt of pain as I sit on my arse for the first time since Dan left me on the kitchen floor earlier tonight.
I swallow the bile that rises in my throat at the memories of Dan rutting into me like an animal, his sweat dripping onto my face, mixing with my silent tears. Silent as it became clear that my much smaller body was no match for his hulking frame, and I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing my pain.
My head is throbbing, and my bruised ribs make it hard to breathe, but I know if I don’t get out of here now, the risk of him catching up to me gets higher. I carefully reach behind me and pull out the road atlas from the pocket on the back of my seat. It’s about ten years out of date, having been there when I bought the car, but I reckon the place names will be the same even if the roads are different. I flip through the pages with my eyes closed, and stop when it feels right, opening on a random page. I raise my right index finger, drawing imaginary circles in the air above the map. When I feel a tug in my chest, I drop my finger to the page. I feel a moment’s hesitation at deciding on where to go by, essentially, droppinga random pin on a map, a voice in my head telling me that I’m ridiculous, and that real life is not a romance novel. It’s only when I realise that that voice sounds a lot like Dan that I open my eyes and look at the name of my new home.
Fenside Common. Norfolk. OK. I can be a country boy.
A smile creeps over my lips, and I toss the map to the passenger seat. I turn the key in the ignition, praying for my car to start, which, mercifully, it does with little to no protest. I plug my phone into the charger in the cigarette lighter socket, open Google Maps, and set the destination. Within minutes, I’m on the move. I drive slowly out of the car park and try to stay calm as I navigate the roads of North London, fairly busy even now at four o’clock in the morning. I head North as instructed, until I cross the M25. Only then, as London starts to diminish in my rearview mirror, do I feel like I can take a breath. I’m exhausted, can barely see out of my swollen left eye, and my body is one huge ache, but I know if I don’t get away from London right now, before Dan wakes up, I will never be able to relax enough to try later on. And so, I drive. And drive. And drive. When I enter Essex, I sigh with relief, but I don’t stop. I keep driving, each mile taking me farther and farther away from the mess that has been my life for the last few years.
After driving for a little over an hour and a half, sheer exhaustion forces me to pull over at a huge Services near Cambridge. There are a lot of empty spaces on the farthest row from the main concourse, so I swing the car into one, making sure to park nose-first, for a semblance of privacy. I check my reflection in the mirror on my sun visor. Messy brown curls still rest on top of my head, but the marks and scrapes on my face disguise my usually fine features and slight baby face. Accepting that it is what it is, I climb out and stretch my legs before opening the boot, lifting the baseboard, and pulling out my hastily packed duffel bag and the sleeping bag I stashed in there on Thursday morning. I check the time on my phone – a little before six o’clock in the morning. It’s still early, but there are quite a few people about. I grab a beanie off the back seat, that I’d chucked over my shoulder a few days ago, and pull it on in a basic attempt to hide some of my bruises, and, luckily, since it’s freezing, I have an excuse to pull up the hood of my hoodie as well – after the few minutes it takes to painfully finagle myself into the bloody thing, that is.
Inside the Services, I use the loo, get some bottles of water and something to eat, then use the cash machine to take out whatever cash is available in the joint account I share with Dan. He convinced me it would be a great idea – yet moreabusive bullshit. Before I enter the PIN, I pause before hastily pressing the red ‘cancel’ button.Shit, shit, shit. Will he be able to see my location on the online banking just from putting my card in the machine, or will it only register if I actually put the PIN in? Fuck. Too late to worry too much now, I suppose, but that thought can’t quell the seasick feeling in my gut. I hurry back to the car, hastily eat the BLT sandwich I grabbed from WHSmith, and swallow some paracetamol from the stash in my glove box.
Feeling a bit more awake now that I’ve eaten, even after a night with no sleep, I get back on the road, following my phone’s instructions to join the A14, then the A11 that will take me all the way to Norfolk. I see a huge stone column on the side of the road in the distance and spot the telltale blue sign indicating parking. I’m pretty sure that Fenside Common will be a small village, and so I decide I don’t want to turn up in the middle of the morning on a Sunday, sticking out like a sore thumb, so I pull into the parking layby, intending to kill some time.
Exiting the car, I wrap my jacket around my shoulders and walk towards the huge monolith. The fields behind it are creepy as fuck. At seven o’clock in the morning, in the first week of November, it’s still pitch black, and the darkness creates a somewhat empty void thatfeels as though it might pull me in. The uneasy feeling makes me pull my jacket closer to ward off not only the cold but the full-body shudder that rolls through me. I approach the column, which is lit up from below, carefully testing each step to make sure I’m not going to go arse over tit on some rough ground and damage my body any further. I approach the engraved panel on the side of the base and see that it is a war memorial, and despite the creepy surroundings, the memorial itself is beautiful. It feels weirdly alien and out of place on the side of a busy ‘A’ road. I feel my nose starting to run from the cold air, so I slowly make my way back to my car and climb into the back seat. Unable to get inside my sleeping bag in the small space, I unzip it and pull it around me, tucking it under my legs as tightly as I can. I press the button to lock my car doors, and before I can focus on how uncomfortable I am, I feel my eyelids get heavy and the world fades in sleep.
The alarm on my phone buzzes at half past three in the afternoon, the time I usually have set to remind myself to start getting ready to head to Poles Apart for my shift. The daylight is already starting to fade, and I realise I slept most of the day away, parked here. I groggily reach into my hoodie pocket and swipe the screen to turn it off, groaning in pain, as all my muscles complainabout being cooped up in the back seat of my rusty old 1994 Fiat Punto.
The reality of my situation hits me, and I feel a slight deranged chuckle work its way out of me. The one person I know would have solid advice for me is not around anymore to call, so I do the next best thing. I talk to her ghost.
“Mum. What the fuck am I doing?” I pause, as though her response is going to come, and the last few years will prove to have just been a bad dream. Sadly, the car remains silent, save for the thundering sounds of the freight lorries and cars whizzing past the layby I’m parked in. “I mean, I know I had to get away from him, I do. I swear! But really? A pin on a map? I think I watched too many Hallmark movies with you when I was younger.”
Mum was obsessed with happily ever afters, and she indoctrinated me into the romance lifestyle when I was too young to really understand what was happening. Like, the first time I watchedDirty Dancing, I thought the Penny in the kitchen in tears who needed Baby’s dad to help her, and Penny the dancer, were two different characters.
Sighing to myself, mainly for the dull hope that, even though Iknowshe’s gone, she might turn up and give me advice anyway, I ball up my sleeping bag and leave it on the back seat,grabbing my toothbrush and toothpaste from my bag and climbing out of the car.
