Second Chances

Chapter 43

I can't believe he'd come back again. His restraining order must have only just expired, because for a year, he had gone completely off the radar. Despite the terror he caused Fi, and it being his first offence, they let him off lightly, giving him a lenient punishment. The justice system really was fucked. Justice had not been served as they let him get away with just a slap on the wrist, and it enraged me still to this day – more so now that he'd emerged from the woodwork like the disgusting cockroach he is.

After Fi and Tyrone had split, she had been in a rough state. She'd discovered me from an advert I had hung on the noticeboard in 'The Hub' and had given me a call. With my help, we began picking up the pieces and had rebuilt some of her confidence to a point where she started going on dates. One of these dates was with Blake.

After the date, he had invited her back to his, and she had told him that she just wasn't into him; there was no attraction to him. She was polite about it and was really apologetic, and he seemed to have understood. She hadn't realised that he had followed her home that night and from then on, it was only downhill from there.

I'd had no idea what was going on at the time. We weren't best friends then. Though we were friends, we was mostly client and personal trainer, and so her personal life was very much kept to herself. She had been her normal, peppy self around me. However, there was an instance where I had made a noise from behind her and she jumped ten foot into the air. That was the day she disclosed that she kept having the feeling that she was being watched. She would sometimes hear the odd floorboard creak in her flat in the middle of the night, as if there was someone walking around inside. She even said that she thought there were things being moved in her flat, but because it was something as trivial as the TV remote being moved from the arm of the sofa to the coffee table, she had put it down to her imagination.

The entire time she'd been telling me what was going on, she'd been physically shaking from fear with tears rolling down her cheeks. The poor girl was scared for her life. Her eyes glossed over, the film turning her beautiful orbs a dirty murky green, and her olive skin paled remarkably. I don't think I can recall a time ever seeing anyone as frightened as Fi was that day.

That night, I offered to stay at hers, just in case there really was something going on, but she was adamant that she would be fine. She seemed to have snapped out of her frightened demeanor and replaced it with a big fake smile. Her eyes gave her away though, as did her still trembling hands. So as a compromise, I made her promise to call me at any point of the day or night if she felt uneasy or scared. She seemed a little relieved that she'd finally told someone what was going on, and that I hadn't thought she was crazy. Her shoulders had dropped slightly, and the gloss had started to fade, the green of her eyes slowly resurfacing.

For a week, we texted back and forth with me checking in on her and making sure she felt safe. There were a handful of times when she had asked me to just come over to her place and sit with her for a bit, or to go for a walk to calm her down. However, come the second week of my knowing, I had a call at a stupid time in the morning. Fi could barely speak through petrification. All she had managed to get out was a shakily whispered "someone... here..." I reassured her that I was on my way and advised her to hide wherever possible.

I hadn't even bothered to get dressed. I remember jumping out of bed and chucking on some shoes before pelting it to Fi's flat in my pj's as fast as my little legs would go. Thankfully she didn't live too far from me then and I got there in ten minutes. Upon reaching her door, I noticed it was cracked open, meaning that there was in fact an intruder inside.

I'd called the police as I sprinted to Fi's. A bad feeling circulated in the pit of my stomach as anxiety swished and swirled like a washing machine as I thought about what I was going to find when I got to hers. I didn't know what I would walk in on, and the sooner proper help arrived, the better it would be for Fi.