Brave: How I rebuilt my life after love turned to hate

He nodded, and with one big pull I pulled his hair off his chest with the cloth.

‘Ouch!’ he cried. And I laughed and laughed, and finally after rubbing his chest he did too.

The Anthony who let me paint face masks on his cheeks and dab cream under his eyes was a world away from the man everyone else knew, and that made our relationship feel all the more special. He didn’t care when his mates were moaning that he spent too much time with me, instead he sent their calls to voicemail and snuggled up on his dad’s sofa with me watching another DVD.

He looked after me too. I only had to mention that I fancied a Ribena and he’d be down the shop getting me one. Or he’d be up and down the stairs to his bedroom, making me a cup of tea or a slice of toast, and it felt nice to be looked after. I felt safe with Anthony. But it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen that he had an edge, with other people, of course, not me. When he got drunk he would get a bit angry: it was almost like he was looking for a fight with people at the bar. But I’d pull on his arm, and whisper to him to go home, and he was fine. Because under that hard exterior, I knew Anthony was a softie. I liked the fact that people referred to me as ‘Anthony’s girlfriend’. While I was with him I’d never have any boys hassling me, that was for sure.

We went from 0 to 60 in a matter of days. There was rarely a morning when I wouldn’t wake up to a text message from him. He’d take me on the train to Norwich to go to the cinema, or for a meal, and he always picked up the bill.

‘You’re so lucky,’ Amie would tell me. And I knew I was. Having Anthony to myself was all I’d ever wanted, and he was the perfect boyfriend, so charming, so wonderful. I could feel myself falling for him. Not that Mum thought he was as wonderful as me. She met him a few days into the new year when some of Scott’s friends were over at my house drinking. Anthony came over to meet them and it seemed like the best time to introduce him to my parents.

He shook their hands and said all the right things, and as I went to leave to go out with them, Mum called to him: ‘Make sure you look after her.’

‘Don’t worry, I will,’ he said.

But the next day when I asked her what she thought of him, she pulled a face.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There’s just something about him.’

But she didn’t know Anthony like I did. No one did.

In mid-January he’d planned a Thursday night out with the lads. I decided not to go because I had college the next day, but I texted him while he was out.

Have a good night xx

Thanks babe xx

But the next morning I didn’t wake up to a message from him like I usually did. Instead there was one from his friend Chris saying: Call me.

First I tried Anthony’s phone, but it just went to voicemail, and then I assumed maybe he was using Chris’s phone, so I called. But when Chris answered and I asked for Anthony, I was unprepared for his reply.

‘He got arrested last night,’ he said.

‘Arrested!’

‘Yeah, he had a fight. They’ve remanded him in custody.’

‘Remanded him? What? Why?’

‘Well, he’s only been out of prison a few months, hasn’t he?’

I let the words settle a moment. Prison? Anthony? This was the first I’d heard. And in that second, with those few words, everything came crashing down. My happiness plummeted through the roof, landing in a pile at my feet. I’d never even known anyone who’d been arrested, let alone gone to prison. And now I was being told that person was my boyfriend.

‘He’s not in court until Monday …’ Chris was saying. ‘We’ll know more then …’

But when I put the phone down I couldn’t stop the tears. Monday? So I had to spend the whole weekend without him.

I staggered downstairs to Mum, my tears already streaking long salty trails down my cheeks.

‘Oh Adele,’ she said, wrapping me in a hug as I cried to her. ‘You’re too young for all this, you don’t need to get involved with a lad like this.’

‘But I really like him, Mum,’ I sobbed. ‘I really really like him. It’s such a downer to start the new year like this.’

I was absolutely devastated, but then my phone rang. It was Anthony.

‘Babe, I’m so so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m only allowed one phone call but I had to ring you.’

‘What happened?’ I sobbed.

‘I was in this club and someone slagged my mum off and I beat him up.’

‘Oh Anthony,’ I said.

I felt torn then because instantly I could imagine how he might have felt. I remembered how quiet he’d been when he told me about his mum dying, how all I could do was wrap him up in my arms. I knew too how angry he got when he was drunk and I hated myself for not being there, because I would have been able to stop him and then we wouldn’t have been in this mess.

‘I know, I know, I’m sorry, but you promised me you’d wait for me.’

‘Of course but why –’

‘Just keep your promise,’ he said. And then he was gone.

Without Anthony’s arms to comfort me, I fell into my mum’s.

‘You can understand why he did it,’ I said.

‘It’s terrible,’ she said. ‘But he should have thought of you, he should have walked away. Don’t get mixed up in all this, Adele, you’re too young.’

But didn’t she see? I already was.

Chapter 2

Control (#u5267be30-3979-51c5-bacd-7dff8fa89951)

For the next 24 hours my mind veered wildly one way and then the other. Sometimes I felt angry when I remembered this wasn’t Anthony’s first stint in prison, a detail that when we’d been lying in bed, a tangle of arms and legs, he’d conveniently forgotten to tell me. It certainly explained why I’d never seen him around before that September when we’d met. And that made me feel angry, especially when I thought back to that conversation as the clock struck 12 on New Year’s Eve – among the fireworks and happiness those eight words from him: ‘I’m not the man you think I am.’ Was this what he meant?

My phone didn’t stop that day, not once word had got round about the fight. Apparently Anthony had broken the guy’s arm and his jaw, though of course Chinese whispers over the weekend exaggerated his injuries more and more. But everybody thought that the only person who really knew was me, and so that’s why they were calling and texting. It was big news among our crowd, and I was at the centre of it, which, I’ll admit, at 16 felt exciting.

What’s happened to Anthony?

Heard Anthony’s in jail. U ok, hun? x

And yet the irony was I felt completely in the dark. After all, it turned out I didn’t really know my boyfriend at all. And that made the anger boil and bubble inside.

In the next moment, though, I felt overwhelmingly sorry for him. I closed my eyes and all I could picture was that tattoo on his right arm, that tribute to his dead mum. Who wouldn’t flip if someone said something about her? Someone he’d loved so much that he chose to carry her in black ink at his side always. Wouldn’t anyone do the same?

‘You can’t wait for him, Adele,’ Mum said. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up in all that, you’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you.’

Dad glanced up from the TV. ‘Your mum said she knew something wasn’t right about him,’ he offered.