And I just thought: how does she get this? How does she get to laugh and joke when we get none of that? And I thought, no, this shouldn’t be like this. I was going to tell her precious daughter all about her. All about how she should have been in prison, how she got away with killing a man.
I thought twice about it. I honestly did. And then I find out her name. That lying bitch had the temerity to call her daughter Verity. She named her daughter ‘truth’! Fucking truth. That was it. That was when I knew the best way to get to her was through her daughter. And to do that, I had to show Verity what her mother was like.
So I went back when I knew her mother wasn’t around and she was. Pretended that I’d come to see her mother, started the process of showing her who her mother really was. That was the best part, watching her come to the same realisation that I had – that at the very least, she should have gone to prison as well as you.
I didn’t actually mean for the rest of it to happen. But then I saw how she started to behave around me . . . How I started to feel around her . . . And I thought: how would her mother handle the truth of me fucking her precious child? Imagine the look on her face when she realised a Carlisle had screwed her offspring just like she’d screwed over a Carlisle.
It was only meant to be for a few weeks, love her up, get her to introduce me to the folks – get to see that look on Serena’s face – and then dump ‘Verity’ in the most brutal way possible.
But then . . . I don’t know . . . You’ve seen her. As well as being a looker, she’s so likeable. Sweet. Funny. Good to be around. When I was with her I felt better about myself. I kept . . . I kept having doubts about what I was doing. I kept wondering if it could work out between us. After a few weeks with her, I realised that I had to stop myself falling in love with her – I had to protect myself in case I got weak and chickened out.
I started my ‘diary’ as an insurance policy. In case she dumped me before I was ready to do it to her or before she introduced me to her parents. I had something up my sleeve that would really hurt her.
Sometimes I’d get so mad: why did it have to be her? Why did I have to fall for her? But then I’d see you or Bella or Mum and Dad and I’d be reminded of what that bitch did, why it was all her fault, and I’d be refocused. I’d go back to breaking Verity so I could hand the pieces back to her mother.
When she told me that her mother was planning a fiftieth-birthday party for her father, I knew that would be the perfect time. Perfect. I show up, and in front of everyone they know and love and respect I tell them who I am. I tell them who Serena is. I tell her I’ve been fucking her daughter for the best part of a year. Blow her world wide open.
But then Verity decides to dump me instead. Like that was allowed! How dare she. I got her to meet me on the day because I thought last minute I could change her mind. But no, she was adamant that if I did get introduced to them, it had to be another time. Another day.
No. She didn’t get to decide that.
We got into a row. We were both shouting at each other and then she was trying to leave. I pulled her back. Told her she didn’t get to decide when to walk away. I decided these things. And she started fighting harder to get away.
Next thing I had my hand around her . . . around her throat, and I was pulling at her clothes. I just wanted her to remember what we had. Who I was to her. How good it always felt when we fucked each other. I wasn’t hurting her. I was trying to calm her down. I wanted us to go back to what it was like before. I knew once we started making love it’d be all right. She was making this noise and trying to get my hands off her when I would have let her go if she would just calm down, you know?
Then there was this pain in my head. She’d hit me with the stupid award thing she kept on her mantelpiece. I kind of staggered back but didn’t let go of her so she hit me again.
That’s when I went down, I guess.
I don’t remember anything after that.
Not until I woke up and her stupid friend was standing over me, shaking me.
She was nowhere to be seen. I suppose she sent him to make sure I wasn’t dead or something. He was going on and on about how worried Verity was and how he was going to patch me up so I could go home. Home? That was my home. I’d been living there for months, where did he think I was going to go? And who was he to be standing there telling me I had to leave?
She was mine and he was telling me to go? No.
He took me into the kitchen because that’s where Verity keeps her first-aid box. Yes, he knew that. How did he know that? He went straight to her drawer and got it out. Started to patch me up.
Which just pissed me off.
I asked him how come he knew where Verity kept stuff in her house and he wouldn’t answer. He kept talking about letting her go. What the hell did he know about letting her go? Let her go so he could have her? No. NO.
The knife was just there. I didn’t mean to hurt him.
I just wanted him to shut the hell up. I sort of waved it at him and then I wasn’t waving at him any more. And then . . .
And then my head went again. I couldn’t stand, I fell down and I couldn’t move. It must have been a seizure. Except I didn’t know about them, then.
When I woke up her stupid friend was gone. It was dark, I was on my own. And I knew what I had to do: get to the party. Tell Verity’s parents and let them see how she’d left me. Let every single person at that party see how much like her bitch mother she was.
The next thing I remember was waking up here.
poppy
Now
‘The next thing I remember was waking up here.’
Who is this psychopath and why is he wearing my brother’s face? Why has he branded himself with my brother’s name and wrapped himself up in my brother’s body? Who is this psychopath and why aren’t I allowed to run far, far away from him right now?
I curl my fingers inwards so I can dig my ragged nails into the palms of my hands. I want to drink, I want to smoke, I want to ribbon my arms until this pain goes away. What has he done? What. Has. He. Done?
‘So it wasn’t a semi-unprovoked attack? It was self-defence. The stuff with Verity at her flat, she was acting in self-defence?’ I have to get that clear. I have to properly understand. ‘She didn’t attack you, it was self-defence because you had her by the throat and you were trying to r— You were trying to rip her clothes off so you could force yourself on her.’
‘You make it sound bad. If she had just calmed down, I wouldn’t have had to keep such a tight hold on her.’
‘Just tell me, Logan, did she hit you in self-defence?’
‘Yes, she hit me in self-defence.’
‘And your diary? Was any of that true?’
‘In a way,’ he replies.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It happened, but not how I wrote it down.’
My nails are puncturing my skin, they are drawing blood, they are bringing me the pain I need to be able to hear this. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Everything happened that I wrote down, but not always from my perspective or not always in the way that I made out. Like the sex thing. She didn’t want to do that. She said it messed with consent and she didn’t want to do that. But I convinced her. I kept on and on at her until she would grudgingly do it. I enjoyed it, every second of it. But every time she gave in to me and did it, it gave me something to write down.’