I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 14: little by little

            'I keep, like, compulsively looking him up on Facebook,' I say as soon as I drop into Dr Qureshi's retro leather armchair.

In the two sessions after I finally stopped denying what really happened with Dominic, I've managed to become more comfortable here. Dr Qureshi were so pleased when I told him I'd finally shared a little with Ziri that it made me want to try harder — aye, I realise seeking validation from my therapist isn't exactly healthy either but this is still an improvement, ain't it? Also, I realised that I'm paying for this so I might as well get my money's worth.

'I spent four hours scrolling his fucking MySpace the other day when Ziri were at work. Like, I've already seen all his posts, there's nowt new for me to see. And I dunno why but I can't stop doing it even though it makes me feel awful.

'He looks so happy — and I know people lie on social media, but still. His life kept going like nowt happened. He has a dog — how can a person like that have a fucking dog? And he spends Christmas with his whole extended family every year and he must've come out because his gran gave him a RuPaul's Drag Race t-shirt two years ago. His family's clearly fine with it. Breaking up with me were nowt to him. I were gutted and it didn't affect him at all.

'I can't stop thinking about it; why he split with me. Since he clearly weren't going to Germany.' My voice splinters, my ramble tapering into a hollow mumble. 'Did I get boring? Did I get too old?'

Dr Qureshi offers me a sad smile. 'That's something we can only speculate on. Most likely, it was a combination of things. You said he moved in with his other boyfriend. Maybe he just thought it would be too difficult to keep his relationship with you a secret. Maybe he did get bored — that's not to say you're boring, only that, if you'll excuse the cliché, most predators love the hunt. You stopped resisting, physically and mentally.'

I nod and turn to the window. The basement swells, ravaging more and more of me until there's little else left. I teeter on the threshold, the stairs a damp tongue that tries to slip me into its maw.

'What if he's doing it to other people?' I whisper as I wrap my arms around myself in a vein attempt to stop the basement from hollowing out my entire ribcage. 'Because I didn't report him, or warn them somehow. If I'd realised it earlier, I could've told someone. It's my fault, ain't it?'

'No. The only person whose fault it is is Dominic. We often guilt survivors into speaking out with "what if they do it to someone else", but it is never a survivor's responsibility to stop a predator. Who should be held responsible are the people in his life who enable him — whom I assure you exist — along with our culture that normalises relationships like this.' Dr Qureshi smiles again. 'If you want to report it, absolutely you should, but it is not your fault if he has or will do it to someone else.'

'D'you think I should report it?'

He adjusts his glasses as if to see me better, inspect me closer. He thinks for so long that my leg starts to bounce and I'm a split second from breaking the silence myself.

'Honestly?' he says. 'No. The chances that it will be taken far enough that he will even hear about it are minimal, but it will be emotionally gruelling for you. There's a high risk that putting yourself through that process would send you back to square one, if not into a worse state than we started with.

'Right now, you should focus on healing. And when you're further along, you can think about reporting — or alternatives. If you do end up reporting it, doing it after seven years or nine years won't make much difference, so in this case, time really is not of the essence. There is no need for you to rush into anything.'