Page 10 of The Lucky Escape

‘I do too,’ Adzo agreed.

I hated him as well. I hated him, yet still loved him more than I’d ever loved anybody. Where was he? What the hell had happened to him?

‘I talked to Chen this morning about you coming back to work,’ Adzo said. ‘Just so you know …’

I didn’t say anything. I’d have to walk back into that building with every single person knowing what happened to me. It was going to be horrific.

‘There’s a letter in my bag for you. I think Chen might be worried that you’re going to go nuts and burn your life to the ground and leave the company to live in a tent in the fields of Myanmar. She said that’s what she’d do if she was you, but she can’t afford to lose you.’

I still didn’t say anything. Burning my life to the ground sounded seductive, actually – especially if it meant never having to be the subject of gossip and speculation in the staff kitchen, people wondering out loud why I couldn’t keep a man. Where exactly was Myanmar?

‘I told her to add up all the overtime you’ve done – all the early starts, the weekends, the vacation days you’ve never taken and lost – and she’s basically agreed to compassionate leave, letting you stay off until you’d planned to take holiday days anyway. For the honeymoon. The letter is quite formal, but she told me to tell you: screw him, and do what it takes to feel stronger. You’ve earned it, Annie. Chen really wants you to look after yourself. We all do.’

I did the quick maths – I’d had three weeks booked offfor a honeymoon and, with the extra time Chen was offering, that would be six weeks off in total. What the hell would I do if I wasn’t working for six weeks? I was already going increasingly mad. Once Mum and Dad left, work – and the dog, for her morning poo – would be the only reasons to force myself out of the house at all. And God, the honeymoon. What a waste. Alexander’s parents had spent so much time planning it. What a shame it would go unused. What would I do instead? House-hunt, I supposed. I could use the time to figure out my next steps. But I didn’t need six weeks for that.

‘I’ll look at the letter,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ll need it though. I’ll pull myself together. I’ve got no choice. I’ll be okay. I have to be. I’ll probably be back to work as soon as I can, to be honest. It will be a good distraction. Thank you, though. I appreciate the thought.’

‘Consider it properly, won’t you?’ Freddie agreed, adding: ‘What’s so good about work anyway?’

She had a point.

6

During the day I wanted to hide out in bed, where somehow it was easier to doze into bouts of fitful sleep that lasted an hour or two before I got woken up by Mum shouting something about taking in Freddie’s new school skirt or popping out for some mince, since that charming butcher across the street was so lovely, or else the dog barking because Dad had shown her the lead before he’d put on his tennis shoes and she knew she was about to go for a walk. Nights were harder. It was too quiet. Too still. It unnerved me. I lay awake most nights from midnight until the sun came up, tossing and turning and catastrophizing, and after almost a week I couldn’t bear it anymore. I was going crazy in my own skin – if I could have torn it off and worn somebody else’s I would have, just for a break from being me.

I’d been exercising six times a week in the lead-up to the wedding, but the first time I slipped out from under Mum and Dad’s continued loving scrutiny I hadn’t meant for it to be for a run. I just couldn’t be in the house anymore, and at 5 a.m. I knew it would be at least another two hours beforeanyone else got up, so I could steal out undetected – not least because Carol had been sleeping on Freddie’s camp bed in Alexander’s office, so I didn’t even need to navigate her yapping to get out of the door. At 5 a.m. there was no chance of bumping into anyone I knew out there on the streets, or having to explain myself; 5 a.m. was freedom.

I was sick of trying to put words to it all. I’d only intended to walk, but walking wasn’t enough. I’d got faster and faster until I was easily doing less than a nine-minute mile. The faster I went, the better I felt, and over the course of the next couple of days I started to leave a house key under the plant pot by the door, going from Newington Green to Highbury Fields, looping down to Old Street sometimes too, every single morning, no music, nothing weighing me down, just the sound of my feet hitting the tarmac.

One morning I passed by a Barry’s Bootcamp. I must have passed it several times, actually, but that morning was the first time I’d noticed it.Barry’s was high impact and almost killed you – or so Kezza had once told me. She used to go to one near her office. In a big, red-lit studio, she’d said, you basically take turns running full pelt on one of the lined-up treadmills and then doing burpees and lunges and squats and arm lifts with a series of weights. I thought about it for the rest of the day, deliberating slowing down in front of it to peek my head in the door the next morning. I think it was expectation of loud music and darkness that drew me in. I didn’t want to lose any more weight, not like I had done for the wedding – if anything, I could probably have done with putting some on. Even my running gear was a bit loose, and I’d sized down for that when I got it. But bootcamp could be about something else. Strength, maybe. Endurance. Resilience. Power. The idea of it spoke to me.

If I was mentally at my worst, there was something that wouldn’t leave me alone about physically being stronger. The thought of lifting weights and doing squats was exciting. Being all knees and elbows (thanks, Dad), losing weight came easily, but I knew my core strength was non-existent, and that I could barely use my spindly arms to push up off the sofa, let alone do a push-up properly.

This is a thing I can control,I thought, and so I spent another twenty-four hours trying to build up my courage to go in and sign up for a taster class.I can’t control anything else, but I can control getting stronger,I reasoned.I can control that.

Kezza was right – it did almost kill me. After my taster session I signed up for ten more, heady off the dopamine and serotonin a good sweat session can foster. It was like being high. I’d not been very good, but it had been so dark and loud, and everyone else had been so focused on themselves, that I’d returned the next morning. I’d ached, but felt oddly determined. Maybe it was being somewhere new, doing something that Alexander would have no idea about. The Annie he knew didn’t go to bootcamp, but he’d given up any right he’d once had to know anything about me. I’d progressed from shock to outright anger. I told myself I didn’t even care where he was.Screw him,was my mantra. I wasn’t sad now. I was furious.

Barry’s teemed with incredibly fit people, literally and figuratively. I’d never seen so many toned and tanned bodies in one place – I suppose everyone must have been away in the summer and had the bronzed skin to show for it. I mostly kept my head down and ducked in and out as quickly as I could, but on the way into my third class I sensed the eyesof a man on me, and when I looked up his face was inquisitive. I scowled at him, just in case. I didn’t want to speak or be spoken to. In fact, I hadn’t talked to anyone except my family and Adzo. I couldn’t face it. My phone was still off, and I was working up to seeing the Core Four, even. It was the anonymity at Barry’s that I enjoyed; screaming and sprinting and lifting with fifty other people doing the same, and then swiftly getting back home again. It helped.

The man in the lobby looked away quickly, his face screwed up like he was trying to work out what two plus two was. I paused before going in to the studio, scanning the space to make sure I wasn’t anywhere near his treadmill as I mounted my own. I needed men to give me a wide berth. I needed men to not exist – which was the next best thing if I, myself, couldn’t cease to exist. I was quite happy with my shrunken world and didn’t need anybody else elbowing their way into it before I was ready.

I was totally soaked afterwards. I didn’t know it was possible to sweat as much as I had done in class. I looked around the changing room, assessing how long it would be before everyone was gone and I could have some space to catch my breath, but reasoned that by that point the next class would be starting and a whole new bunch of boot-campers would be traipsing through.Sod it,I thought.I’ll head back home sweaty.I grabbed my backpack from the locker and wove through half-naked bodies to get to the entrance.

I’d worn a Lycra pull-over jumper on my way in, but it was proving impossible to pull back on now my body was slick with sweat. Standing off to the side so I wasn’t in anyone’s way I tried to inch my arm in, using my other hand to yank the fabric up and then switching to do the same on the otherside. It stuck on me, like a needy child clinging to their mummy.

‘Annie?’

I yanked my jumper over my head just as I heard my name, turning in the direction the voice came from but seeing nothing because I was … stuck. I couldn’t see anything but my Lycra-polyester blend.

‘Oh, sorry,’ the voice said – a male voice. A deep, brooding male voice. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought I knew you.’ There was a pause. ‘DoI know you?’

I wriggled around, my hands searching for the neck of my pullover so I could part it and find my way out. Trust me to be stuck in a bloody jumper, and with an audience, too.

‘I can’t see you to confirm or deny,’ I said, muffled by the fabric. The more I moved the more jammed I seemed to get. I hadn’t realized how hard I’d pushed my arms in class until I tried lifting them to get dressed. Everything was sore already. It was a good sore, but also a limiting one. I knew my muscles would get tighter and tighter as the day wore on. Would I even be able to reach up a hand to signal for the bus?

‘I’m Annie, yes,’ I continued, because I could still feel somebody stood near me, but I said it as less of a statement and more of a question, still muted by a mouthful of Lululemon. ‘If that helps.’ The warmth of human touch approached my stomach, and with a firm yank at my waist by wide, manly hands, suddenly my head popped out through the jumper neck and I could see again.

‘Sorry to manhandle you,’ the guy in front of me apologized. ‘I just didn’t want to start my day by watching you perish through jumper asphyxiation.’ He tilted his head to the side, like Carol does when I talk to her and she’s trying to understand. ‘Especially if I wasn’t sure if I knew you or not.’

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