Anon

And then, he dumps me.

I sit on the floor and grip onto his shin as he walks out of the door. It’s a basic fact that I beg, rather than anything I am ashamed of. I would beg again, a thousand times.

I love him.

He shakes me off, though, like a minor cold.

Tells me I am a despicable person.

I sit there on the floor after he’s gone, alone, and take out my other phone.

I know something else about Scarlett now and I have nothing to lose. Despicable people don’t.

I suppose Scarlett thought it was all well hidden, buried deep in Manchester from long ago in a different life. But she must know from the video that it’s not that hard to shift a bit of soil and expose what’s in the ground.

An escort. Add your own inverted commas. I do.

What a gift it is, this information. Because so far nothing has utterly broken Scarlett but this has to. Can you imagine? When she is so superior?

I message Scarlett with what I know and try to picture her when she reads it. Visualise it like the last brick on top of her, the one that will make her collapse under the weight.

This will make her leave him alone.

This will break her.

And then I will be able to live my life out of the shadow of Scarlett Salloway. Out of the shadow of who I could be, who I should be.

After he ends it with me, I weep, lost, for days and during that time, something shifts.

When I started this in spring I had wanted to stay anonymous, to watch from a distance as Scarlett fell apart. To get my revenge that way without anything as high-octane as confrontation, showdowns, exposing myself as the perpetrator.

Once he ends it though, things alter.

Anger does that. Charges through everything, rewrites intention.

Now I want to stand in front of Scarlett and tell her who has done this, and why.

I want to tell her that I know what she has done to me as well. That I am not an idiot. That I have known for a long time.

You were wrong to trust me, I want to tell her. You were so very, very wrong to trust me.

I want to see Scarlett’s face as she registers what that means. How much she has told me. How much she has leant on me. How few friends she really has. How strong I am. How weak she now feels. How maybe I am the fucking alpha, Scarlett, and how do you like that?

I want to tell her: you brought this on yourself, Scarlett. What did you expect?

And I want her to promise me that it will stop, and mean it.