Adele Bellis - Brave: How I Rebuilt My Life After Love Turned to Hate

Certain details in this book, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect those involved.

HarperElement

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First published by HarperElement 2016

FIRST EDITION

Adele Bellis 2016

Cover layout design HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Front cover portrait Johnny Ring; newspaper headlines News Syndication

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

Adele Bellis asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008182090

Ebook Edition September 2016 ISBN: 9780008182083

Version: 2016-09-14

There was smoke, I remember that. As I ran into the road, my body consumed by pain, my flesh, my hair, my clothes were actually smoking. The rest of it still comes to me in flashes The eyes of my assailant, a look of pure evil in those deep, dark pupils buried between his hoody and the black scarf covering his mouth and nose.

I can still remember those first horrifying split seconds, that exact moment when I realised that the liquid that was dripping down my hair and through my skin wasnt water, but something much, much worse. And by the time my brain had scrambled enough sense to find a name for it acid every nerve in my body was screaming in pain.

I remember the old woman who I ran to. Moments before, she had just been any other person waiting for a bus and she could now have been my saviour. Except that when I grabbed her hands, pleading begging for her to help me, she looked down at her own flesh where the acid from my skin had seeped into hers and she cried out terrified as she watched her own flesh disappear.

I remember screaming for water.

I remember running into the road, weaving among the traffic, trying to get away from myself.

I remember feeling my ear melting from my face. I remember the sense of it shrinking and shrivelling on the side of my head. And the smell, I remember the smell, but I couldnt describe it here on these pages. The smell of your own face melting is not something anyone should ever have to attempt to conjure up in their mind. Not that part of an act of pure evil.

Yet among all that pain, that searing, scorching-level pain, I knew exactly who was responsible. My brain cut through that raging heat, the white fire that seemed to engulf every nerve in my body and reminded me of one name.

I remember that name more than anything.

I was struggling so hard to survive, just to live, not to melt away, although thats what I was doing in that moment; running like a wild woman into the road, seeing the horrified faces of strangers who had stopped to help and now ran from me to save their own skin. Literally.

But say Id been able to pause that scene. Say I could have stopped it there and then, just for a minute, just for a second, I could have had one logical thought that wasnt consumed by pain. Ive no doubt as to what it would have been. I would have thought: how did our love come to this?

Mum, can I borrow a tenner?

She glanced at me quickly and then back at Coronation Street.

Pass me my bag, Adele, she said.

I hovered beside her as she fished around in her handbag for her purse, the scent of my Calvin Klein perfume filling our small living room. But just as she pulled her black leather purse from her bag, just as she was about to flip it open, she looked up at me.

Where are you going?

Bowling.

I tried to sound casual, looking straight ahead at the TV, but I still saw her give me a quick scan up and down: thick mascara, pink glossy lips, long dark hair falling down my back, stringy top, jeans

In heels? she asked.

I shot a quick glance at my dad then, but luckily his eyes were fixed on the TV. When I turned back to Mum, I saw that her eyebrows were raised, awaiting an answer, the hint of a smile curling at the corner of her lips.

Yeah, Ill hire bowling shoes when I get there.

She looked at me for a second before shaking her head, turning back to her purse and pulling out a crisp 10 note.

There. Have fun, she said, putting it in my hand. And be careful! she called after me.

As I picked up my overnight bag by the front door, I couldnt resist a smile because, of course, I had no intention at all of going to the bowling alley; that was the kind of thing I did when I was 14. Now I was 16, and me and my friends had already figured out which pubs we could get served at.

Seconds later Id left our red-brick terraced home, the blueish light from the television flickering behind our bay window as I hurried down the front path towards the bus stop.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.

Just got on the bus. C u soon x

My friend Laura Woodcock. I was staying at hers tonight and we lived on the same bus route into town. She always texted me when she got on the bus so we could travel into town together.

The bus stop was a short walk from our house a route Id taken so many times in my life because this house was the only home Id ever known. Id first toddled this route when I was tiny, my hand in Mums, my older brothers Adam and Scott trailing alongside us, but these days Id hurry along to it in my heels and whatever outfit Id planned for my night out.

I felt the fresh crunch of the 10 note inside my palm and smiled to myself again. As the youngest, and the only girl in a family of two boys, I was used to getting my own way. For as far back as I could remember Id always been a daddys girl. My dad worked long hours as a self-employed painter and decorator, but he always had time for me. Hed spoil me rotten too: whenever we went shopping and I snuck some chocolate into the trolley, Mum would always tell me to put it back on the shelf, but I only had to whinge to Dad and it would be mine.

Kevin! Mum would moan at him.

Oh come on, Colleen, its just a bar of chocolate.

And Id grin to myself.

My brothers have tormented me my entire life, as older brothers do, from practising their WWE moves on me when I was eight or nine, in my knee-high white socks and hairbands, to throwing my dolly out of the pram onto the floor just to tease me. But all I had to do was shout Mum! and theyd get told off.

Leave your sister alone! Mum would shout through from the kitchen.

Id quickly realised that being the little sister made me almost invincible. But it wasnt always me that got the better of them. With all male cousins too, Id often get left out of their games growing up. Id run behind them, hoping theyd let me climb trees alongside them on sunny days when wed have a picnic down at Toby Walk, but often theyd run too fast for my little legs to keep up. It had made me try harder, develop a tougher skin, be feisty when I needed to be. But that wasnt a bad thing.