Guilt is guilt, and failure is failure, but love is love too, and life is life along with it, and mine was with Anna.
Mine would always be with Anna.
The sunrise turned to morning with her in my arms, and that morning got brighter and brighter as the sun rose in the sky through the window. I heard her phone ringing and buzzing from downstairs, but she ignored it and so did I. She pressed even closer to my side and let out a sigh.
“I’m not ready to talk to anyone,” she said. “I will be, but not yet.”
“I’ll be ready whenever you are,” I said back. “I’ll be right there with you.”
I felt her smile against my shoulder. “I think this is the first night we’ve ever been together where we haven’t had sex, you know.”
I laughed and kissed her head. “I think you’re probably right.”
She looked up at me. “Don’t you dare turn me into a china doll now Sebastian forced himself on me. I’ve been a china doll for far too long, and I don’t want it from you.”
I squeezed her tighter and managed a grin. “I wasn’t planning on it. I certainly can’t imagine treating you like a china doll. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
She laughed at that.
I used the conversation topic to lead into something that needed saying.
“We need to call the police, Anna. He can’t be allowed to get away with what he did to you.”
I felt her tense up. “It would be my word against his, what could they possibly do?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “He raped you, Anna. It needs to be reported.”
She sighed. “We can try.”
Yes, we could. But I’d be doing a whole load more than trying. She just didn’t need to know that yet.
Her phone sounded out again from downstairs and she let out a long breath.
“I’d better do this. The world needs facing.”
“We’d better do this,” I said. “We’ll be facing the world together from here on in.”
She reached out a hand to stroke my chest, and then she rolled away.
“Let’s get started then.”
I tried to keep as calm and steady as I could for her as she got her things together. She put on my coat and fastened her heels back up and told me she wanted to head back to her place to see her friends before she faced telling her parents. I told her we’d be heading wherever she needed to and, behind the scenes, I messaged both Maya and my mother saying that I needed to rearrange our meetups due to a weekend emergency.
Then I switched my phone off to avoid the abuse. I didn’t warrant any. They’d rearranged things a million times over and given me the middle finger whenever it suited them. They could bitch about me all they liked in my absence.
This weekend was all about Anna.
She said goodbye to Bill and Ted with a smile on her face before we headed on out, but her knees were trembling in the passenger seat all the way back into town.
I reached out to squeeze one and she flinched, but then relaxed with a sigh.
“Sorry, I’m just jumpy.”
“Totally understandable,” I said. “Don’t even think of apologising.”
I pulled up in her street and turned the ignition off.
“My heart is pounding,” she told me. “I’m so nervous.”
“Take your time,” I said.
She waited a few minutes, breathing deep with her hand in mine before she gave it a final squeeze.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s do this.”
I was as close to her as I could be as she fished her key from the bottom of her bag and pushed it into the lock with shaky fingers.
Nicola Henshaw was in the window staring out at us before we’d stepped inside, and her face was nothing short of a typhoon of rage when she stormed into the hallway to greet us.
“Sebastian’s been messaging us this morning,” she snapped. “We’ve been worried fucking sick, Anna, wondering what the hell has been happening. But now we know, don’t we?” She scowled at me hard enough that she could have burnt me alive. “He’s been happening, hasn’t he? That utter fucking cock you can’t stay away from.”
Vicky appeared in the hallway behind her, and she was scowling too, and I was ready to interject with some words of my own, but Anna was there before me, with enough pain in her voice that they stopped dead.
“STOP FUCKING TELLING ME WHAT THE FUCK I SHOULD BE DOING WITH SEBASTIAN FUCKING MAITLAND!” she screamed, and their jaws dropped. “HE’S NOTHING LIKE YOU FUCKING THINK HE IS!”
She pushed past them with her fingers holding mine tight, leading us both into the living room without looking back. She dropped down onto the sofa, and I sat alongside her, and my arm was wrapped tight around her waist as her friends rushed on through.