Invisible by Barbara Copperthwaite Read Free Book Online

went out with some mates because I wanted to get out of the
flat anyway, get away from him. I bloody knew he’d kick off and I was dreading
it, so took Henry to his aunt’s and tried to put as much distance between me
and Sam as possible.’
    Her head came forward now,
but she still didn’t look at me. Instead she gazed down, apparently fascinated
with some crumbs left by the previous customers at the table. ‘There I am
having a drink and a laugh, when I turn round and…there he is! He’d only gone
and followed me.’
    Somehow I managed to stop
myself speaking or gasping in amazement or anything. I forced myself to just
stay quiet and listen. But I couldn’t eat any more either, just sat there, holding
a fork-full of food that was rapidly going cold and would almost certainly
never make it to my mouth.
    Kim reached out, slim
fingers moving the crumbs around as she continued.
    ‘I went mental. I mean, talk
about a stalker! And you know what he said? “God help any bloke who tries to
talk to you tonight.” The look in his eyes when he said it,
too. He was crazy. But I didn’t feel scared of him, just abso -bloody- lutely furious.
Honest to God, I could have killed him there and then.
    ‘So I stropped off out of
the place and started to walk home, and Sam followed me there too. All the way
home he trailed after me. We were screaming at each other. He just makes me
angrier than any other person in the world. When I’m with him I’m just…ugly.
You know? He makes me an ugly person, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
I’m just helpless around him…
    ‘When we got in he was still
screaming on at me – I’m a bitch, I’m a slut, he loves me, how can I do this to
him, the usual stuff. Then we started pushing each other around. He caught me
right on my eye, gave me this black eye,’ Kim said, waving her hand in front of
her face.
    Her voice dropped even
lower, and she leaned forward, still looking down, ashamed. ‘But the really bad
thing is what I did. I-I-I picked up a plate that was on the drainer and
smashed it over his head! I was so angry I didn’t even stop and think, just…just
did it. I could have killed him right then and wouldn’t have been bothered.
    ‘And then, I felt so guilty
that…,’ she shrugged. Clearly she’d felt so guilty that they’d ended up having
sex and getting back together. Inside I shuddered, scared for her, but I held
every muscle tight so that it wouldn’t show. I mean, hello, he’s a total
psycho! He’s insane and dangerous, and is sending her over the edge too. Why
can’t my lovely mate see that she’s worth so much more than this? Why she can’t
just leave him is beyond me, but then they do say love is blind. Blind, deaf,
and mentally incapacitated in this case, by the sound of it…
    ‘It’s like I’m addicted to
him,’ she explained, talking more to the crumbs than me. ‘I don’t love him. I
don’t even like him much. But I can’t seem to give him up. He’s bad for me, I’m
bad for him, but the pull towards each other just seems overwhelming. We crave
each other, like crack addicts.
    ‘Everyone keeps telling me
what a prize shit he is. And they’re right – I mean, I’m not thick, of course I
know that. But it’s as much my fault as his when we get physical; I give as good as I get, you know. He slaps me, I smash a plate on him,’
she insisted.
    Hardly
the point. But I made myself just nod. Everyone is
telling Kim the same thing about how she should leave Sam and she isn’t
listening. So clearly a different approach is needed. My theory is, if I join
in and tell her exactly what I think, I’ll wind up being consigned to the
friend scrapheap, she’ll stop confiding in me, and then where will she be? At
some point though, she’s going to realise she is in an abusive relationship, no
matter how much she tries to justify it to herself by claiming she is as much
at fault as him – and then she’s going to need someone to turn to, someone