Page 57 of The Beach Holiday

THEN

Journal entry

I was an easy target, lost, wandering. Fertile. Now I am pregnant and ready to burst. I can see that now. I feel stronger. Stronger and more powerful than I have ever felt. And that was why Deny had to go.

Ula does not understand. I tried to ask him to leave, but he wouldn’t – he just wouldn’t listen.

Even after what he did to me.

Luring me in. Taking advantage.

I still have flashbacks, the way he had been calling me Cupcake down on the beach all night. The way I had tried to walk back to my cabin, and he had followed me. The way he pinned me down to the ground, told me he would kill me if I screamed.

But in the end it was he who screamed.

I didn’t want to be a mother, but I have been burdened with this task. I will do the best I can. But I was not shown how. I have called him Adi. I will do what I can.

Ula is not doing so well. She had fallen in love with Deny but in the end, she didn’t understand.

I stopped reading and stared at the words. This was not Ula’s journal I was reading. This was Avril’s.

We need to move on and quickly, there is a job on a neighbouring island. Ula is not doing well. She has agreed to come with me. But it is like a switch has just gone off, and I don’t think I will ever get her back again.

I was too scared to go back to my hut and too scared to go back up the mountain.

So I made my way back up to Ula’s place.

She opened the door as soon as I approached it as though she had been waiting for me.

I stepped inside and fell onto the mattress, leaving a gap on the other side so that Ula could lie down too.

‘What will happen to me?’ I whispered into the dark.

‘You’re like me now. If you try to leave, she will kill you.’