Save Her, Abigail Osborne [ebook reader for surface pro txt] 📗

Sophie didn’t answer. She moved shakily over to the bed, words still failing her as her mind played catch-up. This was not how it was supposed to be.

‘Answer me!’ Flora’s voice shook. She stood up suddenly, pushing the laptop away from her. ‘Sophie! What the hell is going on?’

Sophie took a deep breath. It was time.

42

When she was a little girl, when the night was pitch-black, Flora would picture a land of fire and ash. Nothing grew there and the sun never shone. It howled with rain and was either too hot or too cold, torturously so. Furthermore, this land was filled with massive spiders, gigantic snakes, fire-breathing dragons and many other terrifying creatures. It was this land that housed all the evil people in the world. The first person to populate this land would be her aunt. Flora would watch in her mind’s eye as she was chased by a black dragon with bulbous yellow eyes.

She would also put in the shadowy figure of the person who had killed her parents. It was only a figure without a face, but she would watch as they were eaten by gigantic spiders, only to come back to life and be eaten again. Over and over.

Flora had not thought of the imaginary hell she had constructed as a child until today. Now it would have a new member: Greg. But her imagination could not construct a creature awful enough to torment him the way he deserved. Her hatred for Greg was almost as powerful as her hatred of the person who had run her parents off the road and driven away. She feared what she would do should Greg appear in front of her at that moment.

Flora had to allow the anger to consume her because if she didn’t, she would have to face the fact that she had been so distracted that she had not seen what was happening in front of her own eyes. As Sophie got to her feet, shakily unbuttoning her dress, Flora was replaying the signs she had missed in her mind. Greg’s anger at Alister’s birthday party, the fight over dinner, the split lip. Flora’s recollections stopped when Sophie stood in front of her, clothed only in her underwear, unable to meet her eye. But Flora couldn’t have looked at her face if she had wanted to. Sophie’s body was a tapestry of bruises, Greg’s power and anger stamped across her body in a vivid patchwork of red, purple, yellows and grey. The differing shades revealing the length of time between the beatings. There were slashes of red where she had been cut and odd milky patches of scarring mottling her skin.

The telltale taste of acid in Flora’s mouth told her she was about to be sick. Taking deep breaths, she swallowed the bile back down. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The angry bruises were imprinted on her eyes. She swiped at tears trickling down her face. ‘How long?’ she asked.

Sophie wouldn’t look at her. She was concentrating instead on buttoning up her dress. It was a smart black pencil dress that fitted her slender frame like a glove, hiding the evidence that her husband was a violent psychopath.

‘A while.’ Sophie shrugged. Fully dressed, she moved over and sat on the bed. She still wouldn’t meet her friend’s eye. Looking everywhere around the room, her eyes darted from place to place. Eventually, she seemed to settle at looking down at her hands on her lap, picking at the seams on the edge of her dress. ‘I didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late. It happened so infrequently, I didn’t think it would ever become this bad.’

‘But why didn’t you say anything?’

For a long time, Sophie didn’t answer. Still picking at the seams on her dress, she seemed lost in the recesses of her own mind. ‘How could I tell you with everything that has been happening to you? You were already so stressed and terrified. I couldn’t add to that.’

‘That’s not good enough, Soph. This has been going on for ages by the looks of it. Plus, you know that nothing would be more important to me than this!’

‘But you don’t understand. Telling you wouldn’t change anything.’

‘Telling me would change everything, Sophie! I could have helped you. I can help you!’

Sophie stood up abruptly. ‘You just don’t have a clue! You are so bloody naïve!’ With that she stormed from the room into the en suite bathroom and slammed the door, vibrating the walls and furniture.

Flora twisted the handle but the door was locked. She could just make out Sophie’s sobbing. ‘Let me in, Sophie!’ She slammed her palm against the door. ‘This isn’t going away. We have to talk about this.’

There was no reply. She turned her head and placed her ear against the door. Sophie’s cries sounded muffled, like she was crying into a cloth or towel. Flora slid down the door, adjusting herself until she was leaning against the wooden frame, fidgeting, trying to get comfortable. She was not going anywhere.

43

Eventually, Sophie opened the door. Flora put down the computer. A sick need to know more had caused her to pick it up again. But it only served to confuse, sicken and revile her. How had Sophie been going through all of this and she hadn’t suspected a thing? It made a mockery of their friendship. Was she really so self-centred that she hadn’t noticed her friend was being beaten black and blue? She could have let herself off the hook a little bit if they didn’t live so close and only saw each other weekly. But Sophie was in the house next door. They saw each other more than once a day. She felt disgusted with herself. She wanted to kill Greg. Her anger at him made her whole body vibrate.

A different person came out of the bathroom. This wasn’t her Sophie. Her Sophie was bold, poised and strong. This person looked