All I've Ever Needed (After the Storm) (7 page)

“You’re such a bastard!” she’d yelled at him.

The punch had come so quickly, she was on the floor wondering how she had gotten there a few seconds later.

“Don’t you
ever
call me a bastard again!”

“I’m sorry.”
 
She’d apologized, not calling him the unflattering word, but for reminding him of the truth of his birth, something he’d said his stepfather had taunted him about daily.

Michael had walked out of her flat, leaving her lying on the floor holding the injured side of her face.
 
It had been slightly swollen the next day, but she’d avoided speaking to anyone face to face and thankfully no one at the university had noticed.

He had come around an hour after she got home and apologized for hitting her.
 
He’d said that calling him a bastard was the cruelest thing she could have said to him.
 
And again he’d seemed so vulnerable and remorseful, she had forgiven him.

When he’d tried to make love to her she’d refused, reminding him that he’d admitted he and Melissa were still together.

With the speed of a striking snake, he had grabbed her by her hair and forced her down in front of him and opened his fly.
 
Then he’d left the bathroom door open and let her watch as he’d moistened and lathered a wash rag and cleaned himself.
 
It was then she’d realized that he wasn’t fastidious as she’d always thought him, just diligent in erasing all traces of their sexual activity before going home to his girlfriend.

She’d stumbled to the bathroom and thrown up as soon as the front door closed behind him.

Her face had still ached from his punch the previous night and with her scalp tingling in places where he had gripped her hair so tightly he’d pulled several strands out by the root, she had felt as thought she was living a nightmare.
 
She’d kept willing herself to wake up.

She’d always wanted to marry the first man she made love with, although she hadn’t expected to be a virgin on her wedding night.
 
She had shared something with Michael that she would never share with another man and she wanted them to at least remain friends.
 
He had been struggling to complete coursework even with her help, she knew he would fail on his own, unless he could find someone willing to do most of the work for him as she’d done.

He didn’t attend lectures for the next two days.

Natalie waited apprehensively for his return, hoping that he would be in a better mood so they would be able to sit down and talk rationally.

She badly wanted to tell someone in her family, but she was too embarrassed to explain the full nature of the abuse.
 
Her mother worked with victims of abuse and would have insisted that Natalie pressed charges.
 
And even after all he had done, Natalie couldn’t have borne the thought of Michael locked away in a prison cell.
 
Her father or Nathan, both almost a foot taller, wouldn’t have hesitated beating Michael to a pulp.
 
The thought of either of them ending up in the very cell she wanted Michael to avoid was even more harrowing.
 
And she couldn’t have ruled out the possibility of her fiery mother picking up the nearest available object and bashing Michael’s brains out if she found out about the abuse and he was in proximity.

The swelling on Natalie’s face was less visible but still very painful when Michael rapped on her door that Friday evening.
 
She peeked through the spy hole in the door at him before letting him in.
 
He looked calm as he entered, taking off his Nike trainers at the door as she’d always requested before asking her for a copy of her notes.
 
He’d acted as though nothing had happened, for the first time not apologizing for hitting her.

Not wanting to antagonize him, she hadn’t brought the subject, deciding if he didn’t have the decency to at least offer an apology, she didn’t want his friendship.
 
The next time he could find someone else to borrow the notes from because she would wash her hands of him.

When he’d said that he had to leave but he wanted her to go down on him first, she’d thought she’d misheard him.
 
He repeated the request saying that Melissa didn’t believe in going down on a man and he needed it done badly.

Something inside Natalie had finally snapped and she had slapped him as hard as she could.

He had thrown three punches in quick succession, one to the left of her face, close enough to the previous blow to make her see stars and another to her right jaw before driving a last hard blow into her stomach, forcing the air out of her body.
 
For several moments he’d stood watching as she gaped like a fish out of water, trying to catch her breath.
 
Finally she collapsed onto the floor, instinctively rolling into a ball as he’d then started to kick her and call her every derogatory name he could think of.
 
She had been so grateful when she had examined the painful but superficial bruises later, that he hadn’t been wearing his trainers and had had to be mindful of his toes.
 
Finally his anger had abated and he’d made a dismissive sound and left, carrying his footwear in his hand.

Natalie had lain there curled up in a fetal position for over an hour, too shocked to move and feeling so worthless she’d wanted to die.
 
The kicks had been less painful than the punches, but somehow they made her feel a thousand times worse.
 
She’d felt strangely like she had disappeared, had become so empty she was nothing.
 
Only the pain of her numerous injuries had reminded her that she was alive.

She had regretted hitting Michael, but his words had been verbal slap.
 
The fury she had unleashed had been startling.
 
It had been as if his rage lived just beneath his skin waiting for an opportunity to unfurl.
 
She had known then that Michael was beyond her help.
 
The rapid escalation of violence had been too great—he’d seemed capable of killing her the next time.

She had known that he’d needed to be made accountable for his actions, but each time she thought of the unhappy boy he must have been, her resolve had wavered.

Finally she had made her way to the bathroom, holding on to the walls to keep herself upright.
 
She had cleaned her teeth and washed her face gingerly, avoiding her own reflection—knowing then that she wouldn’t report Michael and had been too disgusted and ashamed to meet her own gaze.

She had stayed in bed the next day, just lying on her back staring up at the ceiling, too distraught to eat.

She might have stayed in the same position indefinitely if Nathan hadn’t called her at four the next morning to say that he was on his way over to crash on her sofa.
 
He had gone to a nightclub to celebrate one of his friend’s nineteenth birthday and had drunk too many beers.
 
Natalie’s place was nearer to the nightclub, but she had tried to persuade him to go home instead.
 
He had pleaded with her, saying that he didn’t want their parents to see him in his inebriated state and she had given in.

He had enveloped her in a half-drunken bear hug on his arrival and she’d barely stopped herself from crying out in agony.
 
Thankfully, he had kicked off his shoes and immediately gone to sleep, his feet dangling over the arm of the chair.

He hadn’t awoken until after midday.

Natalie had avoided his gaze as she had made him brunch and finally he had demanded playfully, “What’s the matter with you?
 
Did I fart in my sleep or something?”

Natalie had been forced to look him in the eye and when he saw her face, he’d sworn violently.

“Who did this to you?”
 
He’d cupped her jaw gently as he turned her face up to the light and it had brought tears to her eyes.
 
Not knowing about Michael, Nathan assumed the worst.
 
“My God, Natalie, did someone rape you?”

“No.
 
It was Michael…my boyfriend.”

“Where is he?”
 
Nathan had looked around the flat, as if hoping that Michael was hiding somewhere, so he could drag him out and beat him senseless.

“He went home afterwards.”

“Where does he live?”

“I don’t know.”
 
The reality of it had hit her then—Michael had never disclosed his address although they had been sleeping together for months.

“Do you have his number?”

“Yes,” she’d admitted.
 
He hadn’t given it to her, but once when he was struggling to finish an assignment he had called her and she had saved the number.

“Call him for me.”

“Nat, please leave it alone.”

“Natalie, call him now!”

Up until that was the moment she’d thought of Nathan fondly as her little brother.
 
As Natalie pressed Michael’s number on her mobile and handed it to Nathan, she’d realized that he had become a man while she wasn’t looking.

“Hey, this is Nathan, Natalie’s brother.”
 
Natalie had never heard her brother speak so coldly to anyone.
 
“I’m at her flat right now.
 
Do you want to meet me, bro?”

Natalie was surprised that Michael didn’t simply end the call when he’d heard her brother’s voice, but the seriousness of his tone must have frightened Michael.

“If you come near my sister again, I will kill you.
 
Do you understand me, bro?”
 
Michael must have responded because Nathan continued before he’d disconnected the call, “Good, because this is your first and final warning.”

Nathan’s face as he’d said the words had been unrecognizable—he’d looked capable of carrying out his threat without a minute’s hesitation.
 
It had confirmed Natalie’s fears that, like her father, if Nathan had a chance to put his hands on Michael it would end badly.
 
She would have never forgiven herself for getting him embroiled in a situation that had been of her own making.

Nathan had demanded an explanation.
 
She hadn’t told him everything—some things you don’t tell a brother, but she’d told him about Michael telling her that she was too tall,
 
too dark and her hair too short to be seen on his arm.

Her brother had the same smooth dark skin she had inherited from their mother and people often complimented him for having beautiful skin.
 
No one ever believed all he used was plain soap and water.
 
He had modeled for just over a year when he was sixteen, but had filled out his large spare frame before his eighteenth birthday.
 
Work had dried up when he refused to diet to achieve the androgynous look popular with designers at the time.
 

He’d been annoyed with her for letting Michael’s words wound her, reminding her that the scout from the model agency, who had approached them both as they’d been in Debenhams shopping, had told her that she could be Britain’s answer to Alek Wek if she lost six inches off her hips.
 
Nathan had taken the man’s card and promised to get in touch, but she had laughed and said, “No thank you!”

 
Natalie had never thought of herself as beautiful, though she’d never considered herself unattractive.
 
She’d always wished her hair was about six inches longer so she could pull it into an elegant chignon which she thought was the height of sophistication.
 
She also wished that she was average, rather than model height—shorter women seemed cuter somehow.
 
And at the time, with her confidence totally destroyed by Michael’s cruel words, she’d wished that her complexion was just a little lighter, more like her father’s.

Her mother always told her that beauty was about confidence and Natalie acknowledged that there was some merit in her claim.
 
Rather than try to fade into the background her mother wore vibrant colors and walked around like she was royalty.
 
She turned heads wherever she went and was something of a style guru to her friends.