Chapter 17: THEN - The Safe Room

He’d bought a new phone with a new number. I pictured him at home with my number on a scrap of paper, tapping it into his new phone. How many cheap phones could he buy? How many times could he do this? Nothing seemed to tire him or distract him from hounding me day and night. I looked into changing my phone number, but things were weird with Becca and Hannah at school. I was scared that they wouldn’t want my new number and then I wouldn’t have any friends who could call me. Plus, the police officer told me to keep track of everything. If he couldn’t contact me, there wouldn’t be any evidence. I had hope then that Peter’s texts would be enough for the police to do something.

I watched my phone screen light up. I glanced down at the notebook tracking every call. Six a.m., left a voicemail. Six fifteen a.m. missed call. Seven thirty a.m. left the second voicemail of the day. Thirty, forty times a day he called. The voicemails ranged from professing his undying love to screaming incoherent insults.

No one will ever want you. Pig. Bitch. Cunt. Even Mum hates you. She thought you were a nice girl. You’re the worst person in the world. Fat bitch. Ugly cow. Go on then. Let them rape you. Go on. Bitch. I lost my fucking job because of you. Answer the fucking phone.

I listened to them all like it was a compulsion. I heard him call me fat and ugly in one breath, then beautiful and angelic the next. I saved each one. Sometimes I wrote them down verbatim in my diary for PC Thomas. The words lost all meaning after a while. Then they’d come back to me late at night when I couldn’t sleep. My sense of self drifted away. I’d stare into the mirror and wonder what stared back. Something that could make a man lose his mind. But there was nothing remarkable about me. I was five-foot-four, brown-haired and grey-eyed. I still had some baby weight in my face and my chest was smaller than most of the other girls in my year.

I resembled an average fifteen-year-old girl.

Honey rode the bus to and from school with me, no longer allowed to go with her friends. I couldn’t go anywhere alone anymore.

One Wednesday, I saw him standing at the usual bus stop waiting for me to alight. He was holding a small bunch of wilting red roses.

As soon as I saw him, the air around me turned cold.

“Don’t get off,” Honey said, keeping her voice low. Her breath tickled my ear as she pulled me closer. “We’ll carry on to the White Horse pub down the road.”

I watched his face fall as the bus continued without stopping. In his head he was the romantic prince waiting to give me his present. I moved to the back of the bus and saw him running along the pavement, chasing the bus, almost tripping over a woman with her shopping. Then I saw him toss the roses on the ground and stomp on the heads until they turned to mulch.

We walked the longer way home from the other side of the estate. My legs were jelly; my throat raw. Every corner made my pulse race. But he never showed up. Perhaps he went home with his mulched bouquet of flowers, or maybe he was simply watching quietly from some street.

That weekend, I saw his blue BMW drive past the house five times from my bedroom window. Those were just the times I happened to check.

Keeping a log for the police at least made me feel like I was doing something. In a notebook, I wrote down every time he called and the number he used. I even managed to take a photo of his car with my digital camera. I made notes of the times and dates he waited at the bus stop.

I was on my way down to the kitchen for a glass of water when I heard raised voices.

“This has to stop, Mary, you need to do something. He’s out of control… No she didn’t lead him on! Come on, this is more than him courting her, the messages he sends are vile. Vile! No, you move. We’re not going anywhere. Why should we? He’s a psychopath. Get out of the estate and take your psycho son with you!”

The phone slammed down and a jolt ran up my spine. I heard Mum crying and backed away, too ashamed to show my face. Their argument was my fault. If I hadn’t led him on that day… If I’d never got in the car…

My grandma used to say, ‘If ifs and buts were pots and pans, there’d be no work for tinkers’ hands’. I’d never understood what she meant.

Time moved slowly at this point in Peter Harlow’s stalking. I didn’t sleep well and dreaded the school day. Honey and I walked to the bus stop in silence each morning, fully expecting him to appear from around a corner. Once I saw him in the park just watching me from afar. I think that angered me the most. He knew that all he had to do was stand and watch.

At school, gossip spread that I had an older boyfriend. One day in the form room I saw Hannah sitting with Beth and Becca. They went quiet as soon as I walked in and when I tried to say hello, they seemed uncomfortable.

“Is it true?” Becca asked, pushing a curl from her face. “You’re going out with Peter Harlow? Isn’t he too old for you?”

I felt completely blindsided. My answer spluttered out of me without conviction. “No! No… I… He gave me a lift one day and since then…” I trailed off, my eyes filling with tears.

I heard laughter from behind me and a group of boys saying my name. Singing it like a chant.

“Amber Ellis, Amber Ellis, lost her virginity in an old BMW.”

The whole class laughed. Someone sang it again.

“Amber Ellis, Amber Ellis, lost her virginity in an old BMW.”

When I saw Becca break into a giggle, I ran out of the classroom and hid in the toilets until the bell rang.

Three weeks passed. Each day was about surviving rather than living. Even our family evenings in front of the TV were strained. Honey hadn’t been out to visit her friends much, which she blamed on me. She said she was too afraid to move around the estate on her own. She spent the evenings with us, full of nervous energy, needling me or Mum with pointed comments.

We were watching a crime drama about a murdered wife and Honey glanced across at me. “This is just like your life, Amber. Ruining all our lives with your freaky stalker.”

I’d glared at her. “Like I can help it.”

“Honey, that’s enough,” Mum snapped.

Dad pretended he wasn’t listening.

I got up and stormed out of the room, catching Honey’s shin with my foot on purpose. I heard her shout something as I stomped up the stairs, but I ignored it. I grabbed a pair of headphones and my iPod Shuffle and played My Chemical Romance at full volume. I hated her. She wanted the attention I was getting. She saw how it was tearing me apart and she still wanted it.

I logged onto my laptop to do some homework and noticed I had messages waiting for me in my Facebook inbox. The girl who added me as a friend a few weeks ago had messaged.

Heard ur a total slut.

You let boys fuck u in the ass.

Gross.

What’s wrong with u? Don’t u care about anyone but urself? Girls like u should just die.

I typed back: LEAVE ME ALONE!!

The reply was just a few seconds later.

Don’t tell me wot to do.

I watched in horror as more messages came through. Hatred spewing.

I bet u want me 2 fuck u, but I don’t go with skanks. Ur whole family is inbred and disgusting. Ur dad cheats on ur mum. She’s been with every man on the estate. Like mother like daughter.

I’d set u right, Amber. If u went with me.

I’d fix u.

U no I love u right?

Right?

Reply to me.

Reply.

Stop ignoring me!!!

I won’t be ignored!!

Bitch.

Whore.

Slut.

Skank.

I tried to screenshot the messages, but they were coming in so fast that I couldn’t keep up. I knew it was him, though. The same spelling and grammar. The same insults. The same need to make it all about sex. He gave up on the persona almost right away and couldn’t help but make it all about him as usual.

I recorded the messages, saved them on my computer, and then blocked the account.

Afterwards, I felt exhausted. My phone started to ring. I turned it off and leaned my head against the wall, closing my eyes. I wasn’t in my bedroom anymore. I didn’t have a phone or a computer at all. I was in a field, lying down, with my headphones on. Alone.

Except, I wasn’t alone. Even in my fantasy, I wanted to take the headphones off so that I could hear if there was anyone approaching. He’d infiltrated every part of my life, even my own mind.

At some point I curled up on my bed and fell asleep.

When I woke, the iPod was off and I’d removed the headphones at some point, but I was still in my clothes and decided to get up to get changed. I checked my phone. It was after 1 a.m. and there were more voicemails from Peter. I sighed and logged everything in my stalker diary. Then I walked over to the window and looked out onto the street below.

He was there.