Butterfly (13 page)

‘Yes. And it has been
helping.’

‘Good. How often do you check
the locks?’

She shrugs. ‘It’s been a bit
better lately, but if I’m feeling really panicky or stressed, I’ve
checked them up to about forty times.’

‘So, rationally, you know that
checking them once is good enough?’

‘Of course I know that!’ she
cries. ‘I’m not an idiot!’

I ignore her outburst and carry
on. ‘No, you’re not, far from it. And you’re aware you do it, which
is the first step. You have an irrational need to check the locks
more often, even though you know they’re already locked, so what
would help you with that? What would make you feel safer?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says,
sounding like a stubborn child.

‘How about if when you check the
locks the first time, you write it down on a pad by the door. That
way, you know you’ve done it properly, and if you feel the need to
do it again, you can check the pad and reassure yourself.’

‘How will that help?’

‘I’m not saying it will, but at
least you can try it. Or instead of writing it in the pad, send me
a text to say they’re locked. And if you feel the need to check
them again, text me, and I can reassure you they’re definitely
locked.’

‘I prefer that option.’

‘OK, so let’s do that. And if
you feel yourself getting anxious about it, try doing the deep
breathing exercises and grounding yourself.’

‘All right, I’ll try it. I don’t
want to be afraid all the time. It’s exhausting.’ She bites her
lip.

I want to pull her towards me. I
want to take hold of her hand again, but I can’t push her.

‘What if I told you that FEAR
was just an acronym for Face Everything and Rise? Would that make
you think about it differently?’

‘Face everything and rise,’ she
repeats to herself, letting the meaning sink in. ‘Yes. I think that
might help.’

‘Rape isn’t just a crime against
a person’s body. It’s a crime against their memory, too. With the
flashbacks, maybe you should try to look at them a different way.
They’re just a memory, so they’re not happening right now. Don’t
see them as something that’s trying to hurt you. Instead, they’re
asking you to heal them.’

She doesn’t look at me, but I
sense she’s digesting that.

‘And you can phone me any time,
as well. You know that, right?’

She nods. ‘Thanks.’

‘You don’t have to thank me,
Grace.’ I pause because I don’t know whether to give her more
things to think about today. But she seems keen to try to deal with
this, so I go ahead anyway. ‘There’s something else I want you to
try, too. Instead of concentrating on negative things in your life,
try to name one thing every day you’re grateful for. Write it in
your journal, if you like.’

25

GRACE

We walk back along the river to
my flat in the fading light of the day. He waits at the bottom of
the steps as I unlock my door. ‘Have a good evening.’

‘You, too.’

‘Text me when they’re locked,
OK?’

‘I will.’

‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’
He turns and walks through the car park, and I immediately know
what I’m grateful for today.

Ben.

I close the door and check the
locks just once. Then I take a few steps down the hallway, but the
pull to check them again is strong.

I turn and look at the locks. I
know they’re locked. I’ve just done them.

They’re locked.
Stop
it! Don’t go back.

I breathe deeply, concentrating
on them so hard my eyes water.

Once more. Maybe just check them
once more.

Before I can move again, my
phone beeps with a text, drawing my attention away from the door. I
grab it out of my handbag and take a look. It’s a message from
Ben.

‘Are they locked?’ it says.

I laugh in spite of myself and
text him back. ‘Yes.’

‘Text me if you want to check
them again.’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Cheeky!’

I don’t reply. A minute later,
he texts again.

‘I had a nice day.’

‘Me, too.’

I find myself grinning and
humming as I go into the kitchen to make an omelette for dinner. I
chop onions and peppers and grate the cheese, my gaze catching the
Post-it notes I’ve put on the cupboard doors: ‘You are a survivor’,
You are strong’, ‘You can do this’, ‘You’re a good person’, ‘It’s
not your fault’.

‘I am strong,’ I say aloud, and
the smile that creeps up my mouth makes me tingle with
happiness.

Yes, I actually feel happy for a
minute. It’s such an unfamiliar feeling that I freeze for a second,
my knife pressed against the chopping board. I try to work out
what’s different, what’s changed.

Whatever it is, I want more of
this.

After I’ve eaten, I curl up on
the sofa and write in my journal for a while, scribbling away
furiously as the anger and crushing pain, the hurt and sadness at
what happened to me, pours onto the pages. Everything that’s been
consuming me, suffocating me. Everything I’ve tried to banish to a
place I’ll never find it.

As I put everything down on
paper, I look towards the doorway. The urge to check the locks
again is strong, but I think,
no
. I’m not sitting in front
of that door for one more night with a knife in my hand. I’m
through with that. It’s not healthy, and it’s not going to change
anything.

Instead, I reach for my phone
and text Ben. ‘I want to check the locks!’

I bite my lip as I wait for a
reply.

‘They’re already locked. Trust
me. You’re safe.’

I nod, even though he can’t see
me. I rest the phone under my chin, wondering what it is about him
that takes the powerlessness away and actually makes me feel likes
he’s my safety zone.

My lifeline.

26

BEN

The weeks in the coffee shop
pass quickly, but I appreciate every second I spend with her. I
commit every detail to memory because I know fragile life is. How
one minute everything is perfectly normal, and the next, it’s
ripped apart, wrecked. I don’t want to forget this. Don’t want to
lose it. My interview is next week, and I can’t even think about
what happens when I stop working here. Will she still want to see
me?

For the first time in years, I
feel alive, and it’s because of Grace. She makes me forget the bad
things in my life. The bad in me. She’s the last thing I see at
night before I close my eyes and the first thing I see in my head
when I wake up. I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful she is.
On the inside and out. The kind of beauty that makes my stomach
twist into knots. Makes my heart skip a beat when I see her. Her
voice makes my skin tingle. Even her smile does strange things to
me. Everything about her permeates my heart, and I haven’t been
able to stop thinking about her since the first time I saw her.

I can already see she’s happier
in the way she walks. The way her shoulders are more relaxed. Her
skin isn’t as pale, and her curves have filled out a little. I
don’t press her to talk or work through things. She has to go
through her journey in her own time. I’m here if she wants to talk
about it, and I think she knows that. Her texts about the locks are
getting less and less frequent now, which is fantastic. I’m really
happy that it seems to be helping, and I wonder if they’ll stop
altogether soon. But the selfish part of me loves hearing from her
whenever I’m not with her, even if most of the time we’re texting
about locks.

It’s Friday night on the fourth
week I’ve worked there, and I’m making hot chocolate for us after
the last customer leaves. She changes the open sign to closed and
locks the door. The latch clicks, but I don’t look up and
acknowledge it. This is a big thing for her. It means she feels
safe being alone with me. With my head down, I smile to myself.

She sits in her usual seat,
watching me work. ‘Actually, do you want something stronger than
hot chocolate? I feel like a glass of wine.’

I’m pouring the milk into mugs
and my hand hovers mid-air. I haven’t drunk alcohol since that
night, but if it means staying with her longer, I’m not going to
say no.

I swing around to face her.
‘That sounds good. In fact, I was going to suggest that you start
to celebrate the advances you’re making.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I can tell you’re
starting to feel more positive and more able to cope with things.
The texts about the locks are almost non-existent now. You should
feel proud of yourself for how far you’ve come already. And you
should celebrate advances when they happen. Of course, you don’t
have to celebrate with a bottle of wine. I’m not encouraging you to
be a raging alcoholic. It can be anything you like: eat a bar of
chocolate, get a manicure, just something that makes you feel good.
And you should make a point of doing something caring for yourself
every day to feel special and honour yourself, like have a nice
relaxing bubble bath. If you give yourself permission to
self-indulge, it will boost your confidence and self-esteem.’

‘It’s been ages since I’ve done
anything caring for myself,’ she says wistfully, thinking about it.
‘Yes, you’re right. But I don’t have anything chocolatey left.’ She
nods towards the empty food counter. ‘And I don’t have a manicurist
hiding away in the office, but I
do
have some wine in the
flat.’ She jumps up and walks to the door. Unlocks it.

As she steps out into the
street, she suddenly freezes, eyes wide. Her whole body trembles,
and she gasps for breath.

In a few strides, I’m out the
door, catching her just as her knees buckle. I pick up her quaking
body in my arms and carry her back through the door, closing it
shut with my foot. I sit her on a chair with her back to the door
and kneel in front of her, taking her hands in mine.

‘Breathe, Grace. Look at
me.’

It’s the worst attack I’ve seen
so far. Tears stream down her face. She’s panting so hard I think
she’s going to pass out. Her face is bordering on a shade of white.
She shakes uncontrollably.

‘Look at me, Grace.’ I hold her
hands firmly as she stares in the distance with a glazed look in
her eyes.

‘Grace!’ I cup her chin and turn
her face to me. ‘Look at me. Breathe.’ I inhale an exaggerated
breath for her benefit. Exhale it again.

Finally, it seems to register
with her, and she sucks in a breath.

‘That’s it, keep going.’ I keep
my gaze locked onto hers as my heart aches for her. ‘You’re doing
great.’

We breathe with each other for
what seems like an eternity but is probably ten minutes. Her
shaking subsides into small spasms, and the tears stop. My knees
hurt where they’re bent on the hard floor, but I’m not moving. Not
until I know she’s OK.

‘Did you have a flashback?’ I
ask.

She shakes her head. ‘I…I saw
him. Walking down the street. He was holding hands with a girl.’
Her breath catches in her throat. ‘He was walking along, smiling.
Fucking smiling!’ Her voice gets louder. ‘Can you believe it? Like
he hasn’t got a bloody care in the world, but I’m left like this.
He’s free, and I have a life sentence!’

‘That’s good,’ I say, and she
looks at me as if I’ve just sprouted two heads.

‘Good?’ she shouts. ‘How is that
fucking good?’

‘Because you’re getting angry
about it. Instead of keeping it all tucked inside, you’re letting
it out. Don’t blame yourself. Put the blame where it belongs, and
direct that anger to him.’

‘I want to punch him.’ Her eyes
narrow. ‘I want to do to him what I do with the punch bag. I want
him to know what it feels like to be hurt.’

I know how she feels. I want to
do that, too. Except I know from experience it doesn’t help. It
makes things worse than you can ever imagine.

‘You don’t need to punch him to
get even,’ I say. ‘There’s another way you can change the power, so
you have control over him instead of him having control over your
thoughts and feelings.’

‘And how do I do that?’ she
sneers, not believing me.

I stand up, my knees making a
cracking sound. I’m still holding her hands, and she lets me. ‘It’s
harder to be scared of things if we can laugh about them.’

‘Laugh?’ Her eyes widen with a
flash of anger. ‘How can I possibly laugh about what happened?’

‘You can use your imagination to
try a visualization exercise.’ I don’t know if I’m saying this
right, and I don’t want to make things worse for her. ‘Do you trust
me?’

She hesitates, looking unsure,
before finally nodding.

‘It’s called laughter therapy.
Laughter releases feel-good endorphins, much like exercise, and the
human body doesn’t know the difference between fake laughter and
real laughter. It’s nature’s anti-depressant, but without the side
effects.’

‘OK,’ she says slowly,
unconvinced.

‘Do you want to try it?’

‘Here?’

‘That’s up to you.’

She takes a while to answer.
‘OK.’

‘It might help if you close your
eyes.’

She glances around again.

‘We don’t have to do this. We
don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,’ I try to
reassure her.

‘No, I want to. I’m not letting
him do this to me anymore.’ She sits back in the chair, closing her
eyes.

‘Imagine him dressed in women’s
clothes, or make up a joke about him in your head. Call him names.
Poke fun at the traits he had. Anything that ridicules him and
gives you the power.’

Her eyelids clench together
tight, and her forehead creases in a vicious frown. It takes a few
minutes before her mouth curves into a smile, and I hope I’m doing
the right thing.

27

GRACE

It sounds a crazy thing to do,
but is it any crazier than sitting in front of my door every night
with a knife in my hand? Is it crazier than freaking out when I see
him or someone who looks like him?