Page 134 of Don't Tell Teacher

The violence, the abuse – I’m good at making up stories. The trick is to convince yourself they really happened. I write them down. Get every detail perfect. Once you believe it, everyone else does too.

It worked on Tom, too. I told him over and over again.Remember your wrist? Remember what Daddy did?

That injury was for Tom’s own good. I had to show Olly in a certain light or else I’d never have got sole custody. And without sole custody, what would I have been? There’s a big difference between shared custody after divorce and a vulnerable woman escaping abuse. People sympathise with one, but not the other.

Tom didn’t see who knocked him to the ground. The broken wrist happened when he was unconscious. I used Olly’s ski boots, then put Tom in bed ready for Olly to find him when he came around.

I do such a good job with Tom, planting the stories, just like my own mother used to do.

After I broke his wrist, I ran through the park with him, telling him we were escaping, running away. Making him afraid of his father.

I watched my mother do this sort of thing, manipulate thoughts until people believed her version of reality. It took Dad years to see beneath her mask. To realise that behind the pretty face was something very ugly and dysfunctional.

I learned from my mother how to be a victim. How to make everything someone else’s fault and have people pity you and look after you.

With Tom it was easy to make him feel protective over his poor, vulnerable mummy. He even started having nightmares about what he thought Olly did.

Have I got everything?

Yes. I think so.

Everything except Tom.

I pull the bag onto my back and head out, slamming the front door behind me. It’ll have to be a bus to the hospital. I can’t afford another taxi.

Hurrying along the street, I think I hear the rattle and wheeze of Olly’s old camper van engine. A vehicle, definitely. Coming this way.

It’s just a car,I tell myself.Don’t be paranoid.

But then, as I reach the end of the street, bright lights approach.

Instinct flattens me to a wall and I slide down an alleyway, watching the street.

It’s …oh God. Apolice car.

When the car passes, I head out of the alleyway towards the mini-supermarket where there is a bus stop. The no. 65 is just pulling in.

I need to get back to the hospital.

There isn’t much time.

Olly

I’m held at a red light, white knuckles clutching the steering wheel. There is a blue sign ahead:Hospital.

Come on, come on.

Lizzie’s mother just called me. She told me Tom has had another seizure and is being treated at this hospital. I’m nauseated with worry, foot over-revving the accelerator, eyes fixed on the windscreen.

Finally.

The only thing that’s got me through these last few months is believing thatsomeonewill see through Lizzie and help me find Tom.

I never guessed it would be her own mother. Ruth thinks Lizzie has been medicating Tom and giving him seizures. This is both believable and unbearable.

I rev the engine as the light changes, hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

The hospital staff will be rallying round Lizzie, no doubt. Telling her what a wonderful mother she is. It’s what she’s good at, evoking sympathy. She copies and imitates until the feelings look real. But inside, she’s empty.

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