I put the kettle on and lean against the work surface.
The thought that buzzes round my brain constantly comes to the surface again. If not Ollie and Mitch, who? I have a meeting with the lawyer next week but he has been clear: the website operator has taken it down and it’s not appeared anywhere else. Strand one. For strand two, getting whoever did it, the best – the only – way to move this on is to get some evidence, so we can hand that over to police.
As I wait for the kettle to boil, Asha comes in holding two coffees.
She is in leggings and a hoodie and out of breath.
‘Went for a walk,’ she says. ‘The only way I could think of to shift the hangover.’
She nods towards her coffee cup.
‘Wish I’d got up in time to get my order in,’ I mutter, opening cupboards to locate a pot of instant.
‘Good news,’ she says. ‘It’s yours. Got an extra one, for whoever was up first.’
I want to kiss her.
‘Was I … embarrassing last night?’ I say, taking the cup from her hand, sipping even though it burns.
Asha heads across to the sofa. ‘We were all drunk,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
But I have more to fear, I think, more to share. That’s what she doesn’t realise.
I drink my coffee with Asha in front of a Friends repeat and then I head back to the bedroom, passing Cora on the way.
‘Just going for a shower,’ she says. Smirks. ‘Bloody hell, I bet you’re feeling rough.’
And I feel disproportionately angry. Just one day, I think. Just one day where I don’t feel shamed would be nice.
I fight the urge to tell her that her cupcake tasted of zero-hours contracts.
Is the key in drinking? Do I need to stop? Or is it too late for me? Am I destined to have an aptly scarlet letter across my chest forever?
I lie on the bed on my front like a teenager in a hungover sulk and scroll through my phone. Pictures, on Facebook and Instagram, from last night, in which I look like a mess. In which my eyes don’t focus.
And then worse.
I open my email and see a message from the website provider. After they agreed to take the video down, Jonathan told me they could potentially give me information about who posted the video. I asked.
And finally, they have something for me.
‘We have been able to pin down the area that the video was sent from,’ it says. ‘Hopefully this will be of some use to you.’
Cora comes into the room.
‘Want some toast?’ she asks.
‘Just give me a second,’ I say, angling my phone away from her, my heart thumping hard.
‘You okay, hon?’ she asks.
I nod, distracted. ‘Uh-huh.’
She stands there, waiting for more.
I look at her. ‘Just got to deal with something at home. I’ll be out in a bit.’
But I have taken it in, even as she stands there. What the next line says. What this means.
Because the area that the video was sent from is not Manchester where Mitch is.
It’s not the Midlands near Ollie.
The video was posted from a place closer to home.
My hands shake now, as Cora walks away.
I shove my things in a bag and tell the girls my hangover is too bad to stay for the rest of the day for a pub Sunday lunch as planned and I head home early. My mind is buzzing about who could have done this, who wants to hurt me so much that they sat in their home in a sleepy, leafy, boring village and posted a video of me having sex with two men.
Because the video was posted in Cheshire.
In the car home, I look around at those fields, those country pubs, that farm shop that sells the good brownies and it feels like they are edging closer to me, surrounding me, so I can’t escape this place now.
Cheshire.
It is too much to be a coincidence.
Someone from the inside of my life is out to get me.
Now I just need to figure out who it is; who I can no longer trust.
Anon
‘Girls, I’m going to have to head off too,’ I say, as soon as Scarlett leaves. ‘I’m feeling rough as well. Bad noodles?’
The other girls laugh.
‘Sure, sure, the old “it was the takeaway.” Not the eighteen wines.’
In truth, my stomach has been edgy since Scarlett went. Nothing to do with noodles though, or even wine. I know she has figured something out.
She was different suddenly. Her eyes were alert, bright, and they didn’t look at us properly.
She was edgy. Not like the night before when she had danced barefoot with her hands in her own hair like she found herself irresistible, lids drooping.
I looked at her then and felt any latent guilt shift – well, it didn’t hurt you too much, did it, this video? And you clearly don’t feel bad about what you did to me. Even if you don’t realise I know about it.
She buried her hands in her hair, sang along quietly.
I stared at Scarlett in those minutes and imagined having that self-belief, imagined having that body.
I remembered seeing that body – all of it – just before I had clicked send. Watching the video again and again. Imagining the hurt it could cause. The adrenalin rush. Send. The panic. The buzz. The sense of righting a wrong. The nausea. The horror. The pride. The euphoria.
I had sat quietly that weekend we were away together in the Peak District as she posted pictures of her daughter on her blog again. Saw her smiling to herself across a room as she was self-effacing in her replies to all the hundreds of comments online that told her how pretty she is, even though she knows that, that’s why she posted it, that’s why she is always posting, posting, posting.
And in those moments, I had realised
