Finally

Chapter 3 - Handsome Stranger

“What happened next?” Michelle asks, encouraging me to continue.

“It was six months after the attack before I found out the full truth about what happened. I’d just finished a class and was walking back to my room when my phone rang. It was the police and they told me that they knew what had happened to me and had my attacker in custody.”

The face of the man who attacked me becomes clear in my head. The face that visits my mind regularly and haunts my nightmares. His cold blue eyes and fat cheeks, the loner who for some reason hated young, blonde women. He saw me walking home and I fit the bill, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“The police were investigating a series of attacks on young blonde women across the city and were following the movements of his car on CCTV. It was through that they were able to find evidence of him waiting outside my university on the night of my attack. They see him leaving his car and following me at a distance holding a large wrench which was his usual weapon of choice. The camera loses track of us as we turn into the small pathway up to my block, but it wasn’t difficult to piece together what happened.”

“This man was the notorious criminal Lewis Butterfield?” Michelle asks me carefully trying to get the information without triggering me.

“Yes. In a way it’s good that I was so drunk, when he hit me I went down straight away so he thought I was dead and left me. If I’d got up or tried to run he would have carried on until he succeeded,” I tell her, voicing the thought I have on a daily basis.

“How do you feel knowing someone tried to kill you?”

“It’s strange because I don’t remember any of it, I didn’t even see him that night, there was no struggle. He didn’t sexually assault me that I know of so it all feels like it happened to someone else. The thing that worries me the most is the not knowing, the hour that’s missing. Did I just lie there unconscious for an hour or has my mind purposely deleted events that it considered too traumatic to keep?”

“I think with the force of the blow it’s likely you were just unconscious, but I can understand why you’d worry about that,” Michelle says kindly.

“That’s the moment that changed everything, I became a different person after that. I became less confident and more aware of everything, I wouldn’t go anywhere alone and began to feel depressed,” I admit.

“You managed to graduate though?” Michelle asks me.

“Yes, I was on track for top grades, but I had to settle for less in the end because of the time I had to take off to recover. I did my best in the circumstances, but it hurt me that all my hard work before the attack wasn’t enough to get me the grades I deserved,” I admit.

My friend and academic rival Emily beat me by far, but didn’t gloat like she would normally have and it was strangely more difficult to see her pity me.

“I took the summer off and then applied for a job outside of London in Hampshire. I didn’t want to stay in the city after the attack, I didn’t feel safe here anymore. My degree was in journalism and there was a publishing company in Southampton so I applied for a job there and got it. I moved there for the job despite not knowing anyone in that area.  In a way that was a bonus, I was able to start again where no one knew me or my history.”

“How was the job?”

Flashback:

It’s a warm September morning and I look up at the huge glass building in front of me, the sign ‘South Publishing’ standing out in clean black font on the white sign above the entrance.

This is it, my first day at my first job as an official journalist! Ok so it’s for a construction magazine, not something I know anything about yet and it’s hardly glamorous, but it’s a job I’m qualified for and it’s a start.

I walk through the open double doors into the lobby and I see a beautiful, smiling Asian woman on the reception desk so I head over to her hoping she can guide me.

“Hi, I’m Zara Harris, I’m starting work here today,” I tell her.

“Hi, I’m Ju, welcome to South. Which department?” She asks, her beaming smile widening to show off her perfect white teeth.

“Construction,” I reply almost embarrassed. It’s definitely the least exciting publication the company runs. Well it is in my opinion, but it was all they had and I can’t afford to be picky right now.

“Second floor,” she answers indicating the elevator on her left.

I take the elevator to the second floor and step out onto the floor that is my new work home. It’s an open planned office with bunches of tables together in small groups. There are two separate offices with glass walls and wooden doors. One is labelled HR and the other with Creative Director, everyone else seems to be at these bunches of desks.

I head to HR and introduce myself, I’m assigned to a large middle aged woman called Karen for training. I instantly dislike her because she closely resembles my high school English teacher who was terrifying and shouted all the time.

She shows me to the break room and we get a coffee from the machine before she shows me to my desk. There are six of us and our manager on our ‘team’ or rather 'bunch of desks'. We are researchers for interesting stories, if you can call any construction story interesting.

Karen tells me there are two teams of researchers, a team of editors, sales and customer care. All the layout and design is done elsewhere in another part of the building.

I instantly know which is the sales team, the table of mostly men in suits being loud and phones ringing non stop. There’s a board on the wall with names and figures on and they write on it occasionally, cheering each time someone does.

Customer care seems in contrast mostly women, they are quieter even though many are on the phone. I already know which group of people I prefer.

The training goes well and I adjust quickly to my new surroundings. Karen, it turns out, is nothing like my high school English teacher, she’s friendly and patient and I discover she’s worked here for 18 years so she’s also the Head of Training now.

Lunchtime seems to consist of people either eating at their desks or in the break room. The culture seems to be to bring your own food, not to go out so I’m relieved I packed a salad just in case. Karen eats at her desk so I do the same, I don’t know anyone else yet anyway.

By mid afternoon my brain hurts with all the new information I’ve digested and I need a break. I tell Karen I’m going to the bathroom and she tells me it’s out in the corridor through two sets of doors, by the stairs. I push the heavy door open and see the corridor she’s talking about is long with a set of doors at the end.

As I start walking the length of the corridor the far doors open and out walks the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He’s tall, almost a foot taller than me with smooth, tanned skin and thick dark hair which curls at the edges. His eyes are dark and piercing me to my core, they penetrate me and remove all the breath from my body. He’s so ridiculously handsome he looks like he’s been sculpted by a master artist. I find myself staring at this man who must be a model here for one of the fashion publications because he’s far too good looking to work on a construction magazine.

My heart is thumping inside me and I feel the wetness of my palms. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off him as I walk the length of the corridor. The most amazing thing is that he’s staring at me too! I’m convinced he’s looking at me wondering why the hell I’m staring, but then he smiles and his eyes look down shyly and... did he just blush?! Oh my god he’s too much, I feel like I’m going to pass out.

There’s one thing I need to know, who is this handsome stranger?