Have you ever thought about how you'll be remembered? I used to think about it a lot, more than I probably should have really but my brain was never any good at doing what it was supposed to. It was an intriguing idea, all the more interesting because it seemed unknowable. There was no way to be sure what the first line of my obituary would be. Still it was fun to think about, fun to wonder, fun to imagine the possibilities because they were endless.

Considering how much time I spent pondering this concept it made sense how jarring it was when I woke up one day and just knew, without a doubt, what I would be remembered for. It was strange, how sudden something that seemed so distant, so changeable, could in a matter of hours could become fixed. An unbendable truth that I would live and die with.

There were worse ways to be remembered, I thought at the time. It was embarrassing, and violating in ways I never would have imagined but it could have been worse. There were worse things to be remembered for. I wasn't the only person that would be remembered that way after all to hate my own circumstances was to hate all those this had happened to before. It could have been worse.

It got worse. It got so much worse.

To understand how I ended up bruised and broken in a hospital bed, and why I wouldn't change any of the circumstances that led to my injuries, you need to know about my relationship with Evan. That's why you're here anyway, that's why you're listening to me even though all you see when you look at me is that photo.

It all stared when I moved to London for a boy. Threw my life out the window - not that I had much of a life to throw - and I flew half way around the world like any old generic rom com heroine. My life was chic lit cliche and I loved it.

It was also embarrassing in a lot of ways, I didn't like to admit that my world turned upside down for a boy. I desperately didn't want to be that girl. One of my best friends had always been that girl. She always blew up her world every time she fell in love, and she fell in love with any body that looked at her. I was determined not to be her until I was and then I understood. It was not really about the boy, it was never about the boy, the boy was an excuse. That's why I don't regret falling for him, or following him, even after everything that happened. Even after what he did to me.

The boy I followed to London was not Evan Hooper. Evan is a minor character in my life story to be perfectly honest. The boy I followed to London was named Tyler and you know who he will become.

Tyler was terrible. The kind of guy your friends roll their eyes at as they try to subtly make you understand he's bad news. He wasn't interested in dating me, not then, but he was nice to me at a time when I didn't think I deserved nice. At time when I was desperately trying to learn to be nice to myself, so I couldn't see, couldn't tell, what was wrong. He was a distraction, an obsession, but I needed one. I've always been one to fixate on things, books, bands, television shows, people, it was all the same. Why simply like something when you could let it consume your soul instead?

I let him consume my soul and he didn't really like me. That's what he told me after I had made plans to move to London with him, for him. We could still be friends though, he loved being my friend. He liked having sex on tap without the responsibilities of a relationship, that's what he liked, but I was too lost in my obsession to notice. I didn't listen, made up my own mind instead. He wasn't ready, and neither was I. One day, when it was perfect, we would be together in the way I wanted. I wasn't wrong, I wasn't right either. It was stupid but it felt right at the time. Tyler was terrible but he was terrible in an exceedingly ordinary way. He was terrible but he wasn't dangerous. That's what I thought.

I moved to London for a boy, ended up finding myself and a publishing deal instead. Although the boy didn't go away, he was still there in the background, holding my life hostage until he deemed me worthy. It was not nice, but it was normal and that's what I wanted. He wasn't cruel, or violent, he was simply selfish and selfish boys were something a lot of people put up with.

As unreasonable as it sounds considering I was still seeing a boy that broke my heart regularly, I was happy. Happier than I ever imagined I could be. It's important you know that because it changes how you understand my relationship with Evan, which is what you want to hear about, it's what you're here for. And you need to understand that happiness is not something I expected to achieve. My mind is a mess, it doesn't work like it's supposed to and happiness was something that always seemed beyond reach.

My life has been a haze of anti-depressants and self destructive behaviour so I wasn't looking for happiness, I just wanted to be content. I wanted more than anything to have a normal life, a steady job, a steady boyfriend, a steady existence. Things that seem boring, unremarkable, undesirable, but that was the truth. When I finally achieved that level of stability I simply wanted to maintain the status quo. I wasn't looking for more, all I was after was ordinary.

Evan was not ordinary. He was not what I wanted. I wanted to meet him, of course I did. I'm human, more than that I'm a fan. Evan Hooper, one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, known for being charming and handsome. A dreamboat, an incredibly talented dreamboat, who wouldn't want to meet him? Even people who don't like him want to meet him, but that's all I wanted. A conversation, a hug, a hello, anything he was willing to give. I was only after a moment.

Of course I wanted to meet him, I just wasn't interested in knowing him.

We met at a party, a party I didn't want to go to but was dragged to by my publisher because important people would be there and if you want to be a successful writer you have to please important people. My worst nightmare but I had a plan, go in do the rounds, leave as soon as possible and then spend the rest of the night crying into a tub of ice-cream going over every single mistake I made in the company of people cooler than me. Just a standard Saturday night really.

Then I saw him, everyone saw him, it was impossible not to. He wasn't in the centre of the room but he was the centre of the room. Both shorter and taller than I imagined, he captured everyone's heart without even trying. It made me want to run and hide. Unfortunately I was on my fourth gin and tonic, which was just enough courage not to flee from the scene at the sight of him.

My publisher, Nikki, knew the man Evan was standing with, she pulled me towards them without giving me the option of admiring him from afar and so proceeded the most embarrassing conversation of my entire existence. A conversation I will obsess over until I can't think anymore. One that will keep me up at night until I'm ninety, as a relive the horror word for word.

No one introduced him you see. He didn't need an introduction, he was Evan Hooper. But I was desperate to make a good impression, which was understandable but not very well executed, and for some reason I thought the best way to make him like me was to pretend I had no idea who he was. This was ridiculous as I was, and I still am, a massive fan of Evan Hooper. The kind of fan psychiatrists write papers about.

He wasn't introduced so I introduced myself, sticking my hand out for him to shake, even though Nikki had already given him my name. He looked confused but he shook my hand because he's nothing if not polite, especially when people act weird around him. He said his name was Evan, because he does that even though everyone knows, and it was nice for a moment.

I started speaking, I can't remember what I was saying, but I guess I was speaking very softly because he leaned forward, which I misinterpreted as him leaning in for a kiss so that's what I did. I kissed him, kind of sloppily on the cheek in the middle of a party full of people that could make or break my career. He was, quite understandably, concerned about this kiss and he pulled away so drastically even I noticed through the fuzz of alcohol that I'd made him uncomfortable.

In the horror of embarrassment I tried to extract myself from the situation but my brain was not firing on all cylinders and in my haste to escape I lost control of the fifth gin and tonic I had held that evening. My drink went all over Evan's nine hundred dollar shirt and I'm fairly sure I stopped breathing. I was in so much shock I didn't even notice the tears that had started streaming down my cheek. I just keep repeating the words 'I'm sorry' over and over again like a child that's learnt something new.

Having a panic attack in front of someone is not an ideal first impression to make. It's even worse when that someone is one of your idols. But if you have to have a panic attack in front of a celebrity, Evan Hooper is a good one. Without stopping to wipe the gin from his top he herded me, being sure not to touch, into a side room where he proceeded to talk nonsense for about twenty minutes until I calmed down enough to make conscious decisions. I wouldn't find out until later that he learned that skill after suffering panic attacks of his own, at the time he seemed like a miracle.

My defences down because of the anxiety induced hormone imbalance, I answered any questioned he asked much more honestly than I would have in other circumstances. I don't really remember much about what I said but somewhere along the way I must have mentioned that on Sunday's I like to take my guitar out and go busking.

The busking sounds cooler than it is, it actually began as an exercise my psychologist assigned for me but I liked it so I kept it up. It's a way for me to get out into the world, deal with the eyes of strangers on me, but it's okay because I have my guitar to make me feel safe. Like a shield against any negative energy. I'm not particularly talented, I'm not interested in being a musician, I mainly enjoy playing silly pop songs in front of sad strangers. My friends don't even know where I go because it's not about them, it's not about being seen. It's about being just another face in the crowd.

After such an awful Saturday night, I really needed my Sunday morning solitude. A way to think through the negative thoughts without fixating. So I put my guitar on my back and headed out to my usual spot in the hopes of forgetting my mistakes for a couple of hours.

One of the things I like to do in my Sunday shows is play popular songs that correlate to things that have happened in my life that week. It helps me distance myself from experiences that feel too much. Naturally after the horror at the party I added a couple of Evan Hooper tunes to my set list. It was always the same, start with a fun but vague personal anecdote then play a song everyone can sing along with. It worked every time and almost always filled my hat with the sound of clinking coins by the end.

That Sunday, on my second Evan Hooper song someone started singing along. While that's not unusual in itself, people often liked to join in, the fact that the voice was instantly recognisable made the experience slightly more unique. The lucky few that managed to pull themselves out of bed for a walk on that Sunday morning were in for a treat when international superstar Evan Hooper joined a random busker on the corner for an acoustic rendition of one of his biggest hits.

How I kept playing I'll never know, perhaps I used up all my embarrassment the night before and I was simply unable to muster any more shame in regards to Evan Hooper. Maybe I was just running on automatic, as my mind drifted from my body and I no longer had control of any actions. Whatever it was, I somehow made it through the song and then found myself on a Sunday morning coffee date with Evan Hooper.

He just wanted to see how I was, that was his excuse. Like he felt responsible for my bizarre reaction to meeting him. I think maybe, looking back now, he just wanted someone to talk to about his anxiety with. Someone that understood the experience of panic. Someone that wasn't trying to fix him.

It took me ten minutes to confess just how big a fan I actually was, and when I told him he laughed because apparently I had given that away with my encyclopaedic knowledge of his career in our conversation during my panic haze. Generally when people laugh at me, no matter how good natured, I feel a sense of unease and disappointment. But with Evan it was different. Every time he laughed at me, and he laughed at me a lot, he made it feel like I was included in the joke rather than being gawked at from the outside. He has that effect on people.

After a few too many therapy sessions dedicated to the topic I can now say the reason I felt so comfortable around Evan was that I thought our relationship was temporary. It felt like it wasn't real, like nothing I said or did with him had any impact on my everyday life because he didn't fit into my everyday life. I was sure Evan would be confined to a wonderful weekend that would in a few years become a fantastic anecdote for family gatherings. Problem was Evan didn't want to be confined to a weekend, and that made things a lot more complicated.

This is where my desire for normality becomes important. I knows it's difficult to understand if you're living life without mental illness but I'm not looking for adventure. My brain is an adventure, so the honest to goodness truth is I'd rather not. Every day was a fight, it still is, even though I am relatively functional at the moment that could go belly up at any moment. Maintaining a certain level of control over my environment is imperative to my health. Being friends with Evan Hooper was not conducive to an uneventful existence.

At first I was able to compartmentalise, I kept assuming my time with Evan was temporary. It was something that would end so I would enjoy it while it lasted being sure not to allow him to affect my life at a structural level.

Everything stayed the same, mostly. I went to the same coffee shop to write everyday. I still had sessions with my psychiatrist, still took my meds, hung out with my friends, sent memes to group chats, and went over to Tyler's place every time he called. Everything was the same except sometimes I texted Evan Hooper. And occasionally I met Evan Hooper for coffee. And once I went to Evan Hooper house to help him finish a song he was having trouble with. It was nice.

Evan left London and I figured that would be the end of it but it wasn't. Evan kept texting, he even called occasionally to talk through a song or sometimes just to chat. We didn't talk everyday. We weren't living in each other's pockets, but it was regular enough to become routine and that concerned me. Still I could ignore the inevitable until Evan invited me out with his friends. That felt like something concrete in contrast to the liminal conversation we'd had up til that point.

When Evan told me his friends were desperate to meet me I realised something that should have been obvious but wasn't because of who I am, and how my brain works. He had told his friends about me and that felt absurd. Insane. Ridiculous. I thought he was treating our relationship the same as I was, as something separate from our lives, something outside of ourselves. I was wrong, but I'm used to being wrong, that wasn't the problem. The problem was Evan's request bleed the lines between us and the rest of the world which forced me to ask myself a question that I was hoping to avoid.

This question is important. It's important because Evan has blamed himself for what happened to me and he will do it again before the world forgets. He thinks it's his fault because he's the one that invited scrutiny. He's the one that made my decisions, my body, my life, public property. He's the one that chose to be famous after all, he's the one that willingly gave up his privacy. I'm an innocent bystander. It's obvious, except it's not because I made a choice too and I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

When I met Evan he wasn't an unknown kid. He was already Evan Hooper, superstar. He was already a public figure, privacy was something he knew little of as did anyone that chose to spend time with him. When Evan asked me to meet his friends, that was him asking me if I wanted to open myself up to the possibility of being publicly scrutinised. He might not have realised that's what he was asking but I knew it, and it's a decision I did not take lightly.

I'll admit, I did not anticipate this exact outcome. This was not one of the potential scenarios I ran through with my psychologist, my best friend, my mother. But there were similar situations, every one of them ended with me being laid bare for the world to judge. Not something many people would be keen to experience, but for me it was potentially lethal.

I could have said no to Evan, in fact I almost did. I very nearly decided my mental health was more important than any potential friendship I could have with him. People shouted at me about that, and they probably will again now. How could I pass up the opportunity to be friends with Evan Hooper? But any change to my routine, my life, has the potential to ruin all the progress I have made and Evan, he had the potential to ruin more than most.

In the end, after careful consideration, I chose Evan. You know that because otherwise I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be in this situation. I chose Evan for a lot of reasons, most of which I don't care to share. You don't deserve everything. All you need to know is that I made an informed choice to enter into Evan's world. That was my decision and I stand by it, even after everything. Anyone that blames Evan, even Evan himself, for what happened to me is ignoring my own agency. This is my life, and I take full responsibility.

Despite the drama of my decision, letting Evan become a permanent fixture in my world didn't change my life all that much. I hung out with Evan sometimes, met some people I wouldn't have met without him, saw some places I wouldn't have seen without him. That was it. I still spent most of my time writing in a coffee shop and binging Netflix with my friends. Sometimes Evan joined us, it was nice.

Our worlds crossed occasionally, but Evan and I lived very different lives.

Yes, my social circle expanded but Tyler was still there. He was always there. I didn't stop wanting him because I had Evan in life. Evan wasn't a replacement for Tyler or anyone else. Evan was just Evan. We weren't dating, we weren't looking for that. He was himself and he carved out his own place in my heart but we were never dating. I wasn't interested in dating Evan Hooper, I was interested in dating Tyler and Tyler was still terrible. I'm aware of how unreasonable that seems given the contents of the photo everyone enjoys talking about so much, but that had nothing to do with dating.

People often ask me what Evan and I talk about. It's kind of a strange question because Evan and I talk about what friends talk about. We just talk. About life, love, work, everything. The standard friendship discussion topics. My fear of Evan rocking my world so hard it fell apart was largely unfounded. Our friendship was exceedingly ordinary and I liked it.

One day, an ordinary day in an ordinary friendship, the stars aligned in disappointment and we both had an awful time together. Tyler was being particularly terrible, and Evan had broken up with his girl of the month. We we friends, we were heartbroken, we just wanted to have a little fun so that's what we did.

There's kind of a limit to the amount of trouble we could get into in public when you're friends with a superstar. So instead of having some kind of wild weekend in Vegas we decided to stay home, in his giant house, with a bunch of food and booze and a playlist filled with eighties bangers. We played video games, caught up on TV, got drunk, and cried about everyone that had ever hurt us. It was a fantastic weekend, with too many memorable moments to mention, and it doesn't matter because the only thing anyone cares about is that we fucked.

Yes, we did fuck.

It was good.

And that's all I have to say about it.

Evan liked to take photos. He has this old fashioned film camera and it was his most prized possession. He even learned how to develop the pictures himself. He's got his own dark room and everything. I always teased him about being hilariously hipster but I get it. Digital is too dangerous. Phones are hacked, photos get stolen. Evan controls his photos and he's the only one that sees them all. I've only seen some of the albums myself and he has hundreds. You have to be one of the lucky few to see any of them. It's a version of history that is his alone and that's important.

Being friends with Evan means being in those photos. He takes them when he's happy, when he's sad, when he's excited, when he's mad. He wants to remember, he says. Wants to remember the way he saw things rather than the way the world saw him. He took a whole role of film that weekend, so many memories captured but just one worth selling.

It hurt, as much as anything, that something so special to Evan was violated. My bones are broken but so is my heart, I cannot believe someone stole that piece of Evan and shared it with the world. I can't understand how anyone could do that, especially someone that was trusted enough to see those albums, someone that got to experience the world through Evan's eyes. Someone saw a piece of Evan's soul and decided they could make a quick buck. It's not okay, but it happened.

Eight months, that's how long it's been since that weekend, since that photo was taken. It was a wonderful weekend, there's no doubt, but it's not something that's been on my mind continually since then. Evan and I have made more memories since that weekend, but we weren't naked for any of them though so you're probably not interested. The people want sex, they want shame, they want scandal. Generally we're much too ordinary for that.

In the eight months since that weekend some things did change, but Evan and I stayed the same. Sex didn't change anything about our relationship, although I'm sure you won't believe that. Life changed, we move forward, moments became memories and that's what happened to that one fun weekend. Eight months is a long time. Evan released an album that was not about me, and I released a book that was not about him. We had our own lives. We have our own lives.

The biggest change, or the change most significant to this story, was that Tyler finally decided I was relationship worthy. I don't know why, he never said. He acted as though he was doing me a favour but I didn't care, it felt like all my hard work had paid off and I was finally living the life I dreamed off. Published author, live in boyfriend, and I was managing my mental health better than I ever had before. To be perfectly honest sex with Evan, as nice as it was, didn't even rate compared to everything else that happened in those eight months.

None of that matters now, not really, because two weeks ago I woke up and my world had split open and leaked all over the universe. Suddenly my life was Humpty Dumpty, there was no putting me back together again.

It was strange because when I got the call I didn't think about the violence involved in someone exposing my body without my permission. Not at first. The only thing I could think was that I could never see Evan's mother ever again and that made me sad because I loved Evan's mum. When Evan called, that's what I said to him. He was going through PR options, telling me he would make sure the person that did this paid and all I could think about was how awkward it was going to be with his mum. He laughed at me again. It was nice.

I quite quickly realised awkward in-laws were the least of my problems but I really want people to think about that initial reaction. This photo wasn't just something to end up on listicle about great celebrity PR disasters, it was my life and it was personal. It was, in a lot of ways, shockingly ordinary. But that's not what you want to hear.

You want to know what it feels like? I know you do. I would be curious myself if it hadn't happened to me. I want to tell you but I'm not sure what to say. Do I talk about how I was sick the first time I heard someone discussing my body on the nightly news? Do I mention the panic attack I had when I saw a close up of the scars on my thigh in a magazine at Tesco? Do I tell everyone about the people I called friends that blamed me for letting him take that photo? What about the fans, people who I thought of as my people, who basically accused me of raping Evan because they couldn't see why he'd sleep with me willingly.

There's no way to explain the experience without it seeming flippant considering what happened after but it was an assault. My body belongs to me, it is mine to share with who I want and that choice was stolen from me. My body was stolen from me and handed to the world for judgement. And they judged me, you judged me, without a thought for my rights, or my expectations for fairness, for goodness.

More than anything it sucked because that weekend was fun. It was a marvellous memory that was stolen from me, from us. You all got your grubby little hands all over it and it will never be the same again. I love Evan, I don't regret what we did but I think it would have always made me sad, even if the next part hadn't happened.

Everyone knows what happened next but no one knows how to talk about it. That makes sense because there's no way to continue discussing the photograph without acknowledging the part you played in it's distribution, in his reaction. Your faults are tied with this topic and it makes you uncomfortable. I get it.

I went home that day in search of comfort. It had been hard, being yelled at for hours about our stupidity, my stupidity. How could we let a photo like that exist? Surely I knew better than that? Listening to people talk about me as though I was not in the room, discuss how best to deal with my body like it wasn't connected to a living breathing human consciousness. I spent the day being treated as a problem that needed to be solved, a nuisance, a weight on their existence. I needed comfort. I needed someone to tell me it was all going to be okay. I needed home.

I could have gone to a friends, they all invited me. I could have gone to Evan's, he practically begged me to go home with him. He felt responsible. I could tell. Those were all good options, great options, but I was tired. I didn't want to talk, or think, or make any more decisions, I just wanted the comfort of my bed and I wanted Tyler. Although you might not understand it Tyler was a comforting presence for me. He was.

The sense of relief I felt walking through my front door was unmeasurable. Weight shed from my being like the skin of a snake. I spent the day hounded by strangers and suddenly I was surrounded by the familiar. It was indescribable. Then I saw him, standing hunched against the kitchen bench like a man defeated and I felt terrible. Seeing him like that was more deflating than any of the other judgement I had received that day. It was my fault he was like that, I hadn't even thought how he would be affected by the photo. It hadn't even crossed my mind and that felt wrong. I was in the wrong.

I was ready to comfort him. I was going to comfort him. I went to comfort him when he hit me.

He hit me before he said anything. It was the first time he had ever hit me. The first time I'd ever been hit by anyone. I didn't know how to react, I didn't know what to do. There was no test, no example, no preparation for what happened. I was on my own, I was alone. I didn't know what to do.

The questions he asked were designed to confuse me. They were specific, but they were vague. They didn't allow for the answers I wanted to give, the ones that would explain, the ones that would help him understand. He didn't want to understand, he didn't want an explication, he wanted to confirm my guilt. He wanted an excuse to punish me for what I had done.

"How many times did he fuck you?" he asked and I wanted to answer once but I couldn't because that wasn't the answer to the question he was asking.

"Do you love him?" he asked and I wanted to say no but that wasn't the specific truth.

He started ranting, and raving, and walking, and shaking, and I should have left. I should I have run. I should have gone for help. I should have fought back. I should have done something but I didn't. I didn't and now everyone won't stop telling me what I should have done. I can't stop thinking about what I should have done. I can't stop dreaming about what I should have done.

Why didn't I run?

Why didn't I call for help?

Why didn't I fight back?

I didn't run, didn't call for help, didn't fight back. I let him hit me again because I thought he would stop.

I thought he would stop.

Tyler was terrible, but he never hit me before. He never raised a hand against me. He'd never been particularly jealous or controlling. He didn't seem to care enough for that, and then suddenly he cared. He cared too much. He wasn't like that, I thought he would stop. He had lost control but I thought he would stop. Once he understood, once he calmed down, I thought he would stop.

He didn't stop.

He shook me and asked the same questions over and over. I still didn't know how to answer them, he took my silence as confession and he hit me again. He hit me again. He hit me again. He hit me again.

This is the part everyone wants to know but no one wants to hear. Here's where he hits me some more, and he throws me to the ground, and he rips my clothes, and he keeps shouting at me, and he keeps hurting me. Even when I finally fight back, he keeps hurting me. There are gory details, about where and how he touched me. Every inch of my injuries is in the police report that leaked. The report you read as sensationalism. Everyone agrees that what he did was horrific. Inexcusable. No question, no argument. You want the world to know you condemn his actions but you never want to know what he said. What do words matter when physical violence is involved?

But words matter.

His words matter.

His words matter because his words were the same words I had seen on the cover of a national newspaper the morning before he hit me. The same words I had heard on the radio as I drove home. The same words on morning television. Repeated over and over again on Twitter and Facebook. The same words I heard whispered as I walked by.

Slut.

Whore.

Ugly.

Fat.

The message was the same, whether it came from a blog or from the man raping me. It was clear, I felt it in my bones as they broke. I feel it now. I deserved what happened to me. I brought it on myself. I should have known better, been better. What he did was horrific but it was my fault. If I wasn't such a fat ugly slut whore it wouldn't have happened. He shouldn't have done it, but I should have stopped him.

I'm not strong enough to dispute those claims. I wish I were because I know I would never blame any other woman in my position. But it feels true, it feels like it's my fault. And I'm sorry. If I'm going to take the blame you are too.

The world felt entitled to judge me when that photo came out. You felt entitled to judge me, openly, loudly, harshly. I chose to be friends with Evan, I admit that. I chose to make myself vulnerable to public scrutiny, I accept that. But you chose to engage. Tyler chose to hit me, he chose to attack me, he chose to break me. But you chose the same words he did. Whether it was your intention or not, your words bolstered his, they gave him permission, they told him he was right. He used your words to justify his violence and now we all have to live with that.

This is my legacy. I have no control over that. Whether I want it or not people will remember me as the girl tied up in the naked picture with Evan Hooper. And the girl who got beat to a pulp because of it. I became that girl when I met Evan, when I moved to London, when I fell for Tyler. I am naked forever. That's who I am now and I hate it.

I hate that I'm that girl. I hate that I made mistakes that seem obvious when it's all laid out like this. I hate that a boy blew up my world.

I don't hate Evan Hooper. I'm glad to know him. We're not in love but I love him. I don't hate what happened that weekend. I don't even hate the photo, although it ruined me.

I hate the person that stole from Evan. I hate that his trust was broken like that. I hate that something so special to him is now tainted beyond repair.

But I don't hate Evan Hooper.

Evan came to the apartment that night. My neighbour has a teenage daughter. She loves Evan and he was lovely to her. She was a good kid, that's why he let her have his number. Said to call him in case of emergency, insisted he was leaving her in charge of my safety. It was very important he said. He never expected that call. I don't think she expected to make it. She called Evan when she heard me screaming, she didn't know what to do, her parents weren't home, she was alone. Evan told her to call the police and he came.

Reports said he almost killed Tyler that night. He said he would have if he wasn't so worried about me. He only hit him twice. He thought I was dead. He hit him twice. Then I screamed and he stopped. I wish he'd died but I'm glad Evan didn't kill him. I wish I'd died but I'm glad Evan didn't have to watch me.

Evan Hooper saved my life. I can't hate him.

I do hate Tyler. I don't regret meeting him. I don't regret following him to London. I don't regret that he changed my life but I hate him.

I hate him.

There are too many things to wonder, too many circumstances to regret. It feels pointless and it feels petty. I don't know how I am going to get through this. I don't know how well my body will heal. I don't know if my mind will cope at all. If I weren't being watched I would stay hidden. I would ignore the outside and focus on myself until I was either broken beyond repair or fixed for good. But I am being watched, so I don't have that option. The world won't stop talking about me and if you're going to talk, I want to at least have my say. I want the world to know, want to Evan to know, that I am broken but I don't regret it.

It's oddly freeing knowing how you will be remembered. It releases me from the pressure of legacy. My expectations have reached their limit, there's nowhere to go. I can do what I want. None of it matters. History has decided who am, everything I do from now on is a footnote. It's for me alone, no one else. I broken but I am free and my freedom allows for honesty. It allows for clarity. It allows for escape.

All I want now is for you to understand your part in all this. To accept the role you played in my assault. You gave Tyler the words he used to punish me and that is something you cannot escape from. Something you must learn to live with, as I try to live with what happened to me.

I know how I ended up here in this hospital bed, beaten and bruised. I know what I did. I know the choices I made. I know how I got here. I understand my part in all this. I know how I will be remembered. Do you?