1
@LuvvaGirl99
I lay upside down on my bed so peacefully that, if it weren’t for the blood, you wouldn’t know I’m dead.
Some of the pills I swallowed are in a lump of sick on my red satin sheets.
Soon it will crust.
Or maybe it won’t.
I don’t know quite how long it will be until Mum finds me. My body might be stiff by then, it might not. It doesn’t really matter. At least not to me. There is no heaven welcoming me home, such a thing is made up to comfort the weak — I didn’t exist fourteen years ago, and now I don’t exist again.
The webcam light on my laptop still shines, but he doesn’t watch anymore.
He’s done what he needed to.
The worst part? I wasn’t even the main event. Their only purpose to my death was practice — a dress rehearsal for the girl he really wanted, and it didn’t take him as long as you’d have thought.
You will read my story in the newspaper tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that — but not next week; I will be old news by then.
You will read it and they will think — how could a girl be so easily manipulated? That would never happen to me.
In which case, you are an idiot. Of course this could happen to you.
Psychologists say victims are exploited because of vulnerabilities, as that’s what makes them the best targets — but aren’t we all vulnerable? Don’t we all have weaknesses that can be exploited?
I bet you’ll also say I was stupid to send pictures, and that you’d never do that; like you’re oh so perfect. But it doesn’t just happen, does it?
It starts slowly. Begins with flattery. Begins by filling the hole in your life you didn’t know was there.
He made me feel good about myself. He knew what my insecurities were and he knew how to quell them, knew how to have me walking around with a smile where there never was one before. Confides in me about things he has never confided in anyone else; or so he says. Like that that time he cried or that time he felt sad or that time he threw his chair across the room in anger.
He never cried or felt sad or threw a chair. Don’t be so stupidly naïve. He’s just filling a need.
You aren’t even aware you needed him, but soon you can’t imagine going a day without messaging. You feel loved. Appreciated. Like you’re worth something.
Then he isolates you.
He uses all that trust and all that emotional reliance to force his truth into your thoughts — until it is your truth too, and you are doing what he wants without even knowing it.
You’ll never know his real name, but you don’t need to. Give him anyone’s.
My body starts to smell as his last message disappears from the screen. On his side of the webcam, he is already wiping away the evidence. He is already creating a clean slate that will have everyone believe I succumbed to weakness. That this life was too much for me and I couldn’t survive.
It was an overdose, but that only tells a small part of the story.
My empty body is evidence of a troubled girl, but evidence skews perceptions, it does not support it.
It’s time for somebody else’s story now. My part is done. I set the scene. I let you know what happened to me so you know what will happen to the next girl.
I gave you an insight to my life long after I took it away.
But don’t be fooled.
Don’t think this is what it looks like.
See, you may think this is suicide, but you’re wrong — make no mistake my friends, this was murder.
Nothing more.
And nothing less.
2
Will
It’s 8:30p.m. and I’m already in bed, listening to Harper’s footsteps in the kitchen. You know you’re pathetic when you go to bed before your teenage daughter.
The bed is king size, and it feels empty without Natalie, but I’m listening out for her. Waiting until she stumbles through the door, swearing as she searches for a light switch, so I can rush down and hold her hair back as she throws up in the toilet.
It’s safe to say that I failed at marriage fairly epically. We were twenty when we met. Second year of university. Teacher training. Only I went on to qualify, and she…
Even back then, the problems started, yet I couldn’t see them.
I close my eyes and the house descends into silence. Harper’s bedroom door closes and her steps no longer patter around. The house remains peaceful until I’m woken up shortly after 1.00a.m. by a clatter against the front door. I leap from the bed, rush out the room, and take the steps two at a time, hoping I can avoid Harper being woken up by the commotion.
When I open the door, Natalie has already thrown up on the porch. She has half a kebab in one hand and clutches onto a ripped clutch bag in the other. Her mascara is smeared across her eyes and the strap of her dress falls low enough down her arm that her bright pink bra is exposed.
“Are you okay?” I ask. She pushes me out the way and stumbles in, falling to the floor, and what do I sort out first, the vomit or my wife?
Sometimes I wonder if she regrets this in the morning, but I’m never around to find out as I’m at work, ready to teach, ready to convince myself I’m inspiring the next generation while a group of disinterested adolescents determine that I am the exact kind of person they do not wish to grow up to be.
With my arm around her, gripping onto her sweaty shoulder, I help her up the stairs, one at a time, keeping her steady as she wobbles. I cover her mouth when we pass Harper’s room and she just smacks it away.
“Who were you with?” I ask, once I’ve closed the bedroom door behind us. “Was it Brian?”
She says nothing.
“It was, wasn’t it? It was Brian.”
She mumbles something and, despite its incoherence, I take it as confirmation.
“I’m sick of that guy,” I say, under my breath.
She falls over. I steady her and help her on the bed. Take off her dress. Notice something on her neck. It looks like a hickey. Hell, it could just be a rash.
I place the duvet over her like I used to do with Harper when she was younger. Back when my daughter respected me. Back when she would be happy to call me Dad. Now, she hardly calls me anything. She doesn’t even get angry with me. I hate it. Nothing’s more painful than indifference.
I stroke Natalie’s hair as she falls asleep and try to see the woman I met when we were young. She was always wild, but wild is okay in your youth. Your twenties are about self-exploration. But it gets to a point in your life when wild is no longer fun. Being a party animal becomes being an alcoholic. I always thought that, once I outgrew the night life, so would she.
Being a mother changed her initially. But not for long.
Then again, did it change her? Or was I just seeing what I wanted to see?
I would see her reading the parenting books when she was pregnant and smile, then convince myself I was mistaken when she snuck herself sips of vodka from the fridge. She would make my friends laugh during games night, then refill another glass of wine and make inappropriate, vulgar comments. She would look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me, and I would use those three words to cover up any evidence that showed otherwise.