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Back Because She Loves Me Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. Contents
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Ninteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Epilogue
  48. Letter From the Author
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the Author

‘I dunno. Three months? Everything kind of snowballed after that. I mean, it just went crazy. Intense. Her temp contract ended and she persuaded me to quit my job so we could be together all the time. She wouldn’t let me go out. We got all our shopping delivered. I mean, we became hermits. We stayed in all the time. I lost contact with everyone: my mates, my family. My mum would ring me every day, worried sick, and Charlie wouldn’t let me answer it, said that I shouldn’t need anyone else, even my mum. And I was so scared of her leaving me that I gave in. She had a violent temper too. She smashed up loads of my stuff, all my old vinyl, because she said I’d listened to the music with other women so it was tainted.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I had one album, an old Pixies album, with a picture of a topless woman on the cover. When Charlie saw it she went mental. Accused me of fancying this picture more than I fancied her. She burned it, right there in the middle of the living room. I thought she was going to burn the fucking flat down. She was screaming at me. I’m amazed the neighbours didn’t call the police. But afterwards, the sex . . . That’s why I stayed.’ He hung his head.

I could understand. Not because he was thinking with his penis – though that was probably part of it. I could understand how you could get trapped in a bubble, the intensity and excitement addictive, this twisted version of love providing rush after rush. It was the opposite of boredom. It was being alive.

I had tasted that with Charlie too. But I wasn’t like Fraser, the poor sap. I was in control now. I had told Charlie she needed to seek help for her jealousy. I wouldn’t let her control me. I understood the draw of the dark side of love, knew how seductive the stormy waves could be, but I was strong enough to resist.

Wasn’t I?

‘I asked her to get help,’ Fraser said. ‘To see a counsellor about her jealousy, and she told me she was going to see one, but she lied.’

I swallowed. There were barbs in my throat.

‘Then,’ he said, ‘it all changed. Suddenly. She went out one day and came back announcing that she had a new job, a contract at Moorfields. She told me I should get one too, get out of my pit, as she said. It was so sudden, like she’d simply got bored and decided she wasn’t interested any more. She stopped wanting to have sex with me. I tried to talk to her and she said that I was being pathetic, that I shouldn’t expect it to last forever. But I couldn’t suddenly change the way I felt about her.’