Look What You Made Me Do by Helen Walmsley-Johnson

Author:Helen Walmsley-Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

But he knew where I was. And he was there, outside, on the pavement. Whatever I did now would be wrong. It was too soon to leave and it was too complicated to explain, not that I wanted to. If I didn’t leave, Franc would be furious. At the back of my mind was a memory of crashing into a white painted wall. How could this man I loved and who said he loved me make me feel so on edge? This man who told me he needed me over and over again?

When I returned to the room the main course had arrived so I decided I would stay for that, then leave. It would be a waste of money not to eat it, as well as rude. Franc hated wasting money. That was something he would understand. It was ridiculous to be afraid of him and yet as I sat down I could feel him watching me. When I looked up he waggled his phone. I hesitated, then shook my head. Suddenly I didn’t have anything to say, or, for that matter, much of an appetite.

Half an hour later I was being walked through the town centre with Franc’s hand gripping the back of my neck. Some of my hair was caught between his fingers. When I tried to turn and speak to him he wrenched me back to face the front. We were walking so fast that I was practically running. Running in heels. Thinking back, someone must have seen us. There is no way it could have looked right. Come to that, someone must have seen him reach out and grab my throat when I left the restaurant, walking towards him with a smile. I was early leaving, it was summer and it was still light. Someone must have seen.

It took twenty minutes to walk home and I don’t think I thought about anything during that time but keeping my feet moving fast enough to stop me from falling. I was shoved through the front door of the flat and lost my balance. Franc snatched a handful of my hair and I put a hand on each wrist, to stop him pulling. It hurt. He dragged me backwards the length of the hallway to the bedroom. My shoes were off and my skirt rucked up, my tights laddered. I kicked frantically, trying to find some purchase on the new carpet, but my feet kept slipping. He hoisted me onto the bed, straddling my hips, using his weight to hold me down while his hands circled my throat, squeezing, thumbs hard under my jaw. I can remember choking, burning pain and – once more – disbelief.

Strangling seems to take an age when you’re the one being strangled. I stopped fighting – it was getting me nowhere. If he was going to kill me, he was going to kill me. Then, abruptly, he relaxed his hands, got up and left the room. I don’t suppose it lasted for more than a minute.

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