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CHAPTER TEN
6 months later . . .
TESSA
Life feels better. I can’t say it’s great just yet, but I’m heading in the right direction. I have therapy once a week, group therapy twice a week, and the support of some wonderful warriors I’ve met in group, some of whom live here in the building I’ve been housed in. This will be my permanent home now, and although I was glad to have the small flat before, this is much better.
Jess passes me a cuppa, and I smile gratefully, placing my paintbrush in the pot and standing back to admire our handiwork. If someone asked me ten months ago how I thought my future would pan out, I’d have laughed and told them I didn’t have one. Because back then, I could only see one day at a time. It was the only way to survive. But now, as I look around my flat at my new friends, Jess, Jo, and Amanda, I realise I’m not holding that ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach anymore. I’m healing.
The doorbell rings, and I rush to answer it, excited at my first unexpected visitor. A man stands there holding a bunch of flowers bigger than half his body. “Tessa?” he asks, holding them out to me. I take them and thank him.
“Lucky lady,” says Jo, downing tools to watch me open the card.
What we had was real. Congratulations on your new place. Love always, Nero.
Jess looks over my shoulder and reads the card aloud. “Wow, the copper?” I nod. “After all this time, he’s still thinking about you.”
I stuff the card in the flowers and place them on the table. “You’re not going to say anything?” asks Amanda, smirking.
“There’s nothing to say,” I reply, shrugging. “He’s in the past.”
“I think we should raise this in group therapy tomorrow,” Jo teases, and I throw a cushion at her. “Cath will want to talk about this,” she continues.
“Maybe it’s something to raise in your session,” says Jess seriously.
“Come on, ladies. We talk all the time about moving forward, not looking back. Nero was during a bad time for me, and I don’t need the trigger. He’s in my past and he has to stay there. I’ve got the court case coming up, I don’t need distracting.”
But distracted is what I am when, for the next five days, I receive flowers every day. Each card reads the same thing: It was real.
NERO
I give my evidence in court. I stick to facts and brush over half-truths, like Tessa stabbing herself. I didn’t see her stick the knife in, and all I have is her confession that she’d planned to kill herself. But I know for a fact she wouldn’t have done that if Dante hadn’t abused her for all those years, so I don’t feel bad for telling the court he stabbed her when he realised she wasn’t pregnant. Tessa gave her evidence this morning, and as I step out into the corridor, I see her with her army of support, wiping her eyes with a tissue. I head over, and the women step aside, eyeing me suspiciously.
“I hear you did well in there,” I say, and she looks up through glassy eyes.
“Who are you?” asks one of her friends.
“Commander Neroli of London’s Metropolitan Police.”
“Give us a minute,” Tessa mutters, and the army of women disperse.
I sit down beside her. “I’ve dealt with some criminals in my time, but that lot, they scare the shit out of me,” I say, and she smiles a watery smile. “Why the tears, Tessa?”
“It’s the end,” she whispers, “and it feels good but scary.”
“Understandable. But he’s going down for this. You get that, right?”
She nods, wiping her eyes again. “You climbed the ranks?”
“They needed my experience to organise other officers,” I say, smirking. And then I add with more seriousness, “It was time for a change.”
“Congratulations.”
“I understand if you want to say no, but would you go for a coffee with me?” I stare straight ahead, bracing myself for another brush-off.
“Will you stop sending flowers if I agree?” she asks, and I glance back at her. She smiles. “My flat looks like a damn florist.”
TESSA
