About two weeks later, I remember I had been making myself a cup of tea in the kitchen when I heard the front door open. I stepped from the kitchen into the living room, expecting to see Alice had come home early from work, or her new foster daughter, Jennifer, coming in from school. I almost didn’t trust my eyes when I saw who was standing in the room instead.
He closed in on me, crossing the room so quickly I almost didn’t have time to register his presence.
“What are you doing here, Ollie? How did you get in?” I asked him cautiously.
“I have a key. I had it made for emergencies,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“You’re not allowed to be here,” I said, shaking my head. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be here. My throat felt like it was going to close over and my heart pounded in my chest. I was terrified about what would happen next.
He glared at me. “You think you’re so brilliant, don’t you, sunshine?” He sneered.
“Don’t call me that!” I hated him calling me that. It made my skin crawl. I wasn’t his sunshine. I wasn’t his anything. He didn’t deserve light. All that man deserved was darkness.
“What should I call you, then, Josh?” he asked. “I hear slut is a good place to start these days.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“No? You don’t like that name, sunshine?” he scoffed. “Liar? Slut? Murderer?” He paused, looking for my reaction. “That’s what you really want to be, isn’t it?”
I stared at him. I didn’t want to actively challenge him, but I knew I couldn’t just cower away from him anymore. “Oliver, I don’t know what you think you’re talking about.”
“You think I can live without you?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
“Are you insane?”
“I loved you!”
“You raped me!”
“What kind of person does this to the man who loved them with all his heart?”
“Get away from me, Ollie!”
“It’s not your fault you don’t know how to love anyone, Josh, after what that tramp who bore you did.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore. Instinctively, my hand went for the side of his face. I watched as the red mist descended, his eyes becoming enlarged and fixed. He closed in on me, and I moved back, getting away from him.
“No you don’t!” he bellowed.
The shock I felt at the sound of his voice is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. He sounded murderous; threat, rage, and malice resonated through every word he spoke. I realised my mistake; slapping him had pushed him too far. I prayed that my feet wouldn’t fail me. I moved to the kitchen, knowing I might stand a chance of getting out the back door or through the other door and into the hall and make a possible escape via the front door. I backed away from him as he stalked into the room after me.
“We made love, and you want to call it something else, Josh?” he said, almost in disbelief, like the notion of not wanting to stay in a relationship with my rapist was completely alien to him. He couldn’t see the hurt he had caused; he couldn’t understand how it felt to have someone treat him like that.
“I can’t talk to you about this. I don’t need to talk to you about this!”
“I’m your boyfriend!” he bellowed.
“You’re a fucking RAPIST!” I screamed back at him.
“You can’t,” he said, shaking his head. I started to back away again, edging to the door. “You can’t!” he said loudly, moving for me again. “I won’t let you! No one can take the love of my life away from me! Do you understand? No one but me!”
He lunged at me, and at first, I don’t think I really understood what happened. I don’t remember screaming, but when my police liaison burst into the room, I guessed I must have.
My hand was shaking as I lifted it from my stomach, sensing the dull pain I felt. I saw the blood on my hand, and from that point, everything slowed down. Seconds seemed to tick by like minutes. I slumped down the wall behind me to the floor. I saw PC Beckett moving towards me. I could see her mouth moving but wasn’t aware of any sounds. I watched her partner wrestling with Oliver; I saw the blood on his hands too. By then, Beckett was beside me. She was still talking, her hands on my stomach, mixing with the warmth that had spread across me.
“Josh?” she called, her voice finally penetrating my shock. “Josh, can you hear me?”
I nodded numbly.
“I need you to stay very still. There is an ambulance coming. You’ve just got to hold on, okay?” she asked, nodding at me, trying to get me to agree with her. I looked down at her hands on me. I looked at the blood. I looked at her eyes and the world went blank.
I don’t remember much of my first few days in hospital, just small bits and pieces of days and conversations. I remember getting hysterical after being told he had stabbed me. I remember the initial nightmares and the nurses coming in and sedating me.
Alice was allowed to take me home five days later. I didn’t speak. I didn’t eat. I barely existed. Oliver had left me to merely exist in a hollow shell.