Even though I didn’t get educated past my GCSEs, I am not stupid. I might look stupid, and I know people constantly underestimate me and think of me as some gold-digging airhead who is just in it for the money. But they have no idea how wrong they are. I couldn’t give a shit about R’s money.

When I talk with the detective, I realise she has absolutely no concept of what it is she is asking me to do. But then I think about Simon and how much he wanted to help me, too. He would tell me to be brave and speak to DS Grey. R told me brave was just another word for stupid.

I genuinely don’t recall anything useful about the night Simon died, but I remember another man who tried to help me once. Clive Osborne worked for R and he saw me with some bruises that were difficult to explain away. He promised I wouldn’t have to spend another day in that house. He left to get the things we needed to get away, but he never came back. Maybe the truth was too much for him. I always figured he got scared, but now I think I was being naive.

Back then, I didn’t know the depths of R’s evil. I still had a rose-tinted view of him, as if somehow if I loved him enough that would change him, but it never did. All it did was change me into a person I can barely stand to look at.

I am all but erased – changing a little each day to accommodate his demands but never being quite good enough. I wonder if anything will ever be good enough for R. He tells me often enough that there is no one else for him but me. Those words are like a noose around my neck. He likes to make sure I know he can take my life from me whenever he wants to. I wonder how he will react when he finds out that I have told the police about Clive. Maybe he will be so angry that he finally finishes me and I can finally get out of this hell.

Chapter Fifty-Four