I woke up in hospital a few days later. When the swelling around my eyes had finally subsided enough for me to open them, I was greeted by Alice’s worried, tear-streaked face, and then Amy’s. My best friend had indeed been my saviour. She had gone straight to the hotel, marched up to reception, and informed them what was going on. What she was saying had coincided with someone in one of the neighbouring rooms calling the front desk to complain about the noise. He said he had heard a lot of shouting and someone screaming like they were being murdered.
Hotel security and Amy had barrelled up to the room and began pounding on the door. The guards got the door open and piled in to find me unconscious on the bed, with Ollie still raping me, his hands still around my throat. Amy had launched herself at him, screaming that he was killing me, which apparently distracted him from his task long enough for security to tackle and restrain him. An ambulance and the police arrived. I was rushed to hospital and Oliver was carted off to a cell in the nearest police station.
He was charged with sexual assault, rape, and grievous bodily harm. Unfortunately, someone saw fit to let him out on bail, on the condition that he was not allowed to come anywhere near me. I, on the other hand, stayed in hospital for ten days. I had a skull fracture, a broken cheekbone, broken ribs, a fractured right arm, a bruised trachea, and a bruised face and body to match. Part of me was relieved that it was over, and part of me feared this was merely the beginning of some bigger, sicker game Oliver was capable of.
I was offered counselling, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have the words and thoughts gathered that I would need for the counselling to be truly effective. I couldn’t think past getting out of hospital. I didn’t want to think about the court case and the drama that would follow. I just wanted to go home to Alice’s house and rest. I wanted to hide, lick my wounds, and for my face to look a lot less purple before I thought anything about being able to discuss what had happened in a courtroom or counsellor’s office.
When I finally did get home, the police came to the door several times in the first two weeks after my release from hospital. They went over the events of the evening, over and over again in fine detail. They asked about my eighteenth birthday party and Oliver breaking Steve’s nose. They asked about the events of my birthday. I had to explain why I hadn’t reported him. The more I talked about it, the more I realised just how blind I had been about it all. I listened to myself talk about what he had done and the things that he had said. I wondered how I had been blinkered for so long to what he was doing.
Reciting what happened over and over started to make me feel sick. The thought of having to see him in the courtroom, of repeating it again and again, of allowing people to realise just how stupid I had been, was terrifying. That was by far the hardest part. It was one thing to realise how foolish I had been myself, but to know that it would be paraded around in court, then twisted against me to make it seem like I deserved everything that happened… I couldn’t face the thought of it. As I sat talking to my police liaison officer, a PC called Catherine Beckett, I could feel the fear and shame rising, and I had my first panic attack.
My heart sped up, my chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. I was terrified beyond belief, and the room started to spin. My palms were clammy, and I started to sob. Deep, body-shaking sobs. Beckett was brilliant; she knew just how to deal with me. She showed me deep breathing; slow steady breaths. She kept talking to me, telling me it was just a panic attack, and that although it was very frightening, I was going to be okay. I just needed to try to calm down and focus on the deep breathing. She calmed me down and convinced me it was time to see a counsellor.
“The sooner the better, Josh. Don’t let this fester. He’s not worth it,” she told me as she squeezed my hand and kept talking until I had recovered enough to be able to carry on.
The weeks went by, and preparations started for the trial. I started seeing my counsellor, a nice guy named Tim. He specialised in rape counselling, and he was amazing. I didn’t think I would be able to talk to a man about what had happened. However, he made me feel relaxed, respected my limits, and had a remarkable way of spinning things so I could look at them from a different angle. I made progress, slow and steady. That was until about seven weeks after Oliver’s birthday, when the date of his trial was finally announced.