Love You Better (19 page)

‘So the story about them growing apart was a lie?’

Effie looked down at the floor and didn’t look up at him as he walked towards her. She looked at his feet, inches away from hers and shook her head. He was making it sound so black and white, but it wasn’t. She didn’t have anything to hide – she just hadn’t wanted him to judge her best friend, and he’d read the texts out of context. He hadn’t seen the state Lou was in at the time.

‘You lied to me about seeing Lou, and you lied about why they’d split up. Am I right, or am I wrong?’

Effie’s shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing?’ She daren’t look up at him. His voice was calm, but she knew by the sharpness of his tone that he was angry, and she couldn’t blame him. Regardless of her intentions, she’d lied, and she’d made a promise not to keep any more secrets from him. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you the truth.’

‘I’m not surprised, since your best friend’s a whore who goes around fucking guys behind her boyfriend’s back.’

Effie’s hand struck his face so quickly that it wasn’t until she saw the look in his eyes that she really realised what she’d done.

She took a step back as her eyes darted across his face. ‘
I’m sorry.
’

His cheek was bright red, and she looked down at her tingling hand. She’d never hit anyone in her life. She’d never even hit Smith when she’d found out about his cheating, and she’d burned with fury then.

Oliver’s face scrunched up, and she knew then that this was bad. Instinctively, she went to take another step back, but before her heel even touched the floor, the knuckles of his fist connected with her right eye socket. The surprise and force of the blow sent her flying backwards until she fell on the floor by the bedroom door. Her hand flew to her eye as she blinked furiously, trying to clear the blurriness away as intense pain racked through her skull.
Seeing
Oliver walking towards her, she scrambled backwards,
shuffling
along the hallway floor, feeling the carpet rubbing against her bare legs until her back was pressed against the wall by the stairs.

‘Olly, don’t.’

In slow motion, she saw herself put out a hand to stop him, but as his leg swung back, she tried to curl herself into a ball instead, bracing herself as she closed her eyes. The air rushed out of her in one breath as his foot connected with her stomach, sending shots of pain right across her belly.

‘Please,’ she spluttered before stopping herself. He’d winded her. She couldn’t speak, much less breathe.

Again, his foot drove into her stomach almost in the same place as before, and this time, she couldn’t cry out. Forcing her eyes open, she glanced up to see him, one hand holding the banister of the stairs and the other on the wall, with his face red and a vein she’d never seen before bulging in the middle of his forehead.

‘You fucking, filthy, lying bitch . . .’

Kick.

‘. . . covering for that cheating whore.’

Kick.

She gagged as tears fell over the bridge of her nose, burning her skin, and she clenched her stomach muscles, trying to minimise the impact on her insides. It felt like they were being smashed to pieces as he kicked her again. He grabbed a bunch of her hair and twisted her head, forcing her to look up at him
before he
spat right in her face. Effie’s eyes closed as the warm fluid hit her cheekbone.

‘You stay away from her. Do you hear me? From now on, you’ll have nothing more to do with her.’

He shoved her head back to the floor and kicked her one l
ast tim
e.

‘Clean yourself up. You’re fucking disgusting.’ Oliver prodded her with his foot before stomping down the stairs and leaving her in a crumpled heap.

Effie stayed perfectly still as the warm trickle of his spit ran down the side of her face. She daren’t even breathe. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to cope with the pain, but when her lungs started to ache, she had no choice.

Breathe.

She tried to get the air she desperately needed as her body trembled with shock. Her heart rammed in her chest, and her lungs tightened.

Breathe!

With the pressure in her lungs increasing, reflex kicked in and she gulped down a mouthful of air, expelling it almost straight away. Her stomach heaved and contracted as she pushed her face into the soft carpet of the floor, gagging. Each breath created spasms of pain in her belly and chest, intensifying the throbbing in the side of her head, but as she filled her lungs, the light from the ceiling beamed down on her, and slowly noises began to filter through to her ears. A car driving past. A pair of heels clacking on the pavement outside. Oliver, swearing and knocking things around downstairs in a fit
of rage
.

As the wheezing calmed, she lay there until her skin rippled with goosebumps and her teeth began to chatter. She curled up even further into a little ball, and her cold legs moved over a damp patch. Slowly, she sat up, using one hand to anchor herself, and looked down at the carpet. She pressed a hand into the floor
and sha
kily brought it back up to her face, staring at it. She’d wet herself. She’d been so terrified of her husband, she’d literally lost control of her most basic functions.

‘You’re fucking disgusting.’

She wiped the spit from her face and hobbled to the bedroom, holding onto the wall for support and clutching at her belly, almost doubled over with pain. She looked at her phone in the middle of the floor with its cracked screen and cried.

17.

E
ffie blinked. How long had she been standing there by the window? When had it rained? Outside, the road was slick, its tarmac shining, and puddles speckled the
pavement
. She looked down at her arms, covered in goosebumps, and tentatively slipped a hand inside her towel. Her stomach flinched when she touched the tender skin on the area where Oliver had kicked her, and she sucked in a breath. Clenching her eyes shut, she swallowed, trying to block out what had happened. She didn’t want to relive the impact of Oliver’s foot driving into her stomach or his spit hitting her face. Her head throbbed, and the skin under her eye stung. She didn’t dare touch it, but she knew it was swelling. She’d have a black eye in the morning. How was she supposed to go to work with a massive bruise on her face?

She slowly opened her eyes and looked outside again as a curtain in the upstairs window of the house opposite twitched. Was someone looking at her? Could they tell that she was standing there like a broken china doll? Had they seen what had happened?

He’d gone through her phone. He’d told her to stay away from Lou – her best friend. How was she supposed to do that? And why should she? She needed her now more than ever. She couldn’t just forget Lou existed. She didn’t want to. She wouldn’t.

‘You’re fucking disgusting.’

Effie grimaced as his words echoed around in her head,
galvanising
her. She knew she needed to shower, but there was no time. She dressed as quickly as she could, taking shallow breaths to control the pain, all the while acutely aware that Oliver was still in the house. The sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor echoed through the silent house, and she could picture him pacing the
living
room. It would only be a matter of time before he came back upstairs to finish what he’d started.

Dressed in jeans and a jumper, she grabbed a small bag from the bottom of her wardrobe and filled it up, not even looking at what she was packing. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she leave, but with her bag packed, she sat on the bed and quietly cried, holding on to her side. What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to go? Anyone who looked at her face would know what had happened, without a doubt. She wouldn’t be able to hide away from the pity in their eyes. It was embarrassing.

She looked down at her cracked phone. Even with her best friends, she’d have to live with the shame of being the girl whose husband beat her, the one who’d messed up after thinking she had everything she’d ever wanted.

A sob exploded from deep inside, sending a shock wave of pain across her chest as she realised that there was only one person she wanted to see, and she was miles away in Ibiza. At this time of night she’d probably be curled up with a cup of camomile tea, reading a book. Despite their offbeat relationship, Penny would know what to do. She’d been in the same position once before.

Darryl, one of her many boyfriends, had a distinctly mean streak. Effie clearly remembered hearing the shouts, the furniture being toppled over in the next room, the way he’d pinch her mum’s arms whenever she’d snap back at him in public. That had been Penny’s one and only attempt at normality, living a standard life at Effie’s request. At eleven years old, all she’d wanted was to be like everyone else – to have a mum who had a normal job, who wore normal clothes and had a normal boyfriend, like Darryl. After eight months of abuse, of trying and failing to shield Effie from what was going on, Penny had vowed never to do it again. She’d said that if living with Darryl was normal, she’d rather live her life as abnormally as she could. Effie sniffed. She couldn’t go to her mum. Penny would be too disappointed that Effie hadn’t learned from her own mistakes.

Scanning the bedroom, her gaze swept over the pictures on the walls until she stopped to look at the small frame holding the receipt from the bar where she’d met Oliver. His battery had died, and she’d written her number on the back of it. He’d said the old-school gesture was romantic and she’d agreed, especially when she found out that he’d kept it, even after he’d stored her number in his phone. It was things like that that made a home, or so she’d thought. She’d always wanted a house full of keepsakes, a kitchen table that was always laden with books and papers, a hallway
littered
with
wellies an
d shoes. She’d wanted a house that felt lived in
and war
m but the beautiful, smart, respectable home she now found herself in felt positively arctic.

She looked at the bag again and scowled, her sadness slowly being overtaken by fury. Why was
she
packing? Why should
she
be the one to leave? She tipped the bag upside down and replaced her things with Oliver’s, randomly pulling things from drawers
and th
e wardrobe. She hesitated when she touched the sweater she’d bought him at Christmas, remembering how perfect that morning had been. It felt like a million years ago as she sat on the bed again, shivering. He’d scared her so much she’d wet herself. Shame crept
its wa
y down her back. It wasn’t a good place to be in, no matter which way she looked at it.

Her head jerked up as Oliver’s footsteps bounded up the stairs, and she stood up, holding the bag as the door swung open. Terror held her in its grip so strongly that she couldn’t even breathe, but Oliver said nothing until he looked down and saw the bag in her hand. His eyes flicked from the bag to the heap of clothes on the bed. When he looked back at Effie and the grim set of her mouth, he inhaled sharply and his face crumpled.

‘You’re leaving?’

Effie didn’t say anything. There was nothing she
could
say.

‘You can’t.’ His voice was thick with suppressed tears as he shook his head. ‘You can’t leave, not like this. You know I didn’t mean it.’ He stepped towards her, but she backed into the wall.

‘You said the same thing the morning after Valentine’s Day.’

She thought back to how he’d slapped her and how he’d apologised, saying it was reflex. Not meaning to do something implied what happened was an accident, and while he’d managed to convince her that it was after Valentine’s Day, there was no way that what he’d just done could have been anything other than intentional.

‘That was different,’ he replied. His voice was soft and coaxing, but it made Effie’s skin crawl. ‘I just—’

‘Don’t come anywhere near me.’ She backed into the wall as he stepped towards her. ‘Take one more step and I swear to god, I’ll scream.’

He stopped in the middle of the room. The beam of a car’s headlights sped past, creating a wave of shadows on the wall as he rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

‘I’m not going to hurt you – you know that. You’re my world. I can’t lose you.’

She tightened her grip on the bag. ‘You already have.’

‘Effie.’ His voice cracked. ‘You can’t.’

His eyes, so dark and menacing just a while ago, looked back at her with pathetic sadness.

‘Give me one good reason why I should stay.’ She winced at the pain in her stomach.

‘Because I love you. I know I’ve got problems, but I’ll fix them, I promise. I was angry that you’d lied, and work’s been getting on top of me. You know I’m not a violent man, Effie.’

She pointed towards her eye. ‘So did I do this to myself?’

‘You
made
me do that.
You
hit
me
. You slapped me, remember?’

Yes, she remembered, but
that
had been reflex. Punching her in the face and kicking her senseless wasn’t, and she shook her head at him, disgusted that he was trying to turn it around.

‘Don’t you dare blame me. I hit you, but you didn’t have to hit me back. You didn’t have to kick me like a ragdoll and spit in my face.’ Oliver flinched as she hurled her words at him.

‘I know I went too far. I don’t even know what happened.’ His shoulders drooped.

‘You went through my phone. You had no right.’

‘She texted while you were in the shower. I did call you, but you must not have heard me. It’s not like I intentionally went through your messages. I’ve never done that – I trust you. I love you, you know I do.’

She looked him in the eye. ‘So you keep saying. But the thing is, I don’t want love like this.’

Oliver sniffed as tears rolled down his cheeks. She’d never seen him like this before, so contrite. He looked like he’d shrunk to a tenth of his size as he stood in the middle of the room.

‘Please don’t say that. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll take anger management classes, whatever it takes. Just please, don’t leave me.’

Her head flooded with the memory of him holding her hair and spitting in her face, the way he’d prodded her with his foot.

‘You’re fucking disgusting.’

Her stomach turned as she tried to stop her chin from
wobbling
, trying not to cry or show him any signs of weakness.

‘Baby,’ – he dropped to his knees and looked at her – ‘please.
I do
n’t know what I’d do without you. Please, don’t go.’

‘I’m not.’

For a second, Oliver’s eyes brightened, and he reached out a hand towards her, but the look in his eyes gave way to confusion as she rolled her shoulders back, ignoring the pain and threw the bag at him.

‘You are.’