She Started It

Too late, I realise that’s because she’s already done everything she is talking about. There’s no way to stop her. These posts, these stories, they’ve been up for at least an entire day, and whilst we’ve been here on the island everyone back in England has been seeing these in real time.

Esther gasps. “You bitch,” she hisses. Her entire demeanour has changed, her shoulders rise up and her fists clench, scowling. She throws her phone to the ground, not seeming to care when the screen cracks.

Poppy stays relaxed, a confident smirk that challenges Esther to approach.

I bend down and pick up Esther’s phone. It’s open to a screenshot of her work emails, a message from her boss informing her she’s fired for inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment. Then I scroll through, finding pictures of other emails, confused responses from colleagues about what she’s sent them, some angry, some ignored entirely, others telling her she’s being reported to Human Resources. Dozens upon dozens of emails of Esther posing naked, her running into the sea, her coming back out drenched, water dripping down her naked chest. Each email comes with a message propositioning her colleagues in personalised tones. There’s even one to the CEO of the company.

This is the worst. Chloe can lose her Instagram following, Annabel can lose her husband, but this is calculated cruelty. The fear I was feeling before has ramped up to a whole new level, and now I’m concerned.

I can’t let Poppy reveal whatever it is she’s done to me.

But before I can do anything, Esther has slapped Poppy full in the face, the smack so loud I’m sure I’d have heard it standing on Deadman’s Peak.

“You’re fucking dead!” she screams. “Do you hear that, you bitch? I will kill you. I’m calling the police, I’m suing you, you’ll lose your precious doctor job and end up with nothing.”

“Esther!” Chloe grabs her by the arm. “Don’t give her the satisfaction!”

I remain where I am. It’s surprising—Chloe, who is usually the impulsive one, calming down Esther, the level-headed one. There are sides to them I’m learning even now, perhaps their true selves when the going gets tough.

“How could you?” Esther cries. “How could you do this?”

“You’re all a bunch of hypocrites,” Poppy says, though her voice trembles slightly. She’s backed off, holding her hand to her cheek. Even I can see the redness underneath. Esther is strong. That had to have hurt. Are her eyes watering? “You know how I could do that. Think of all you’ve done to me. Think of what you did, Esther.”

“You’re a psychopath,” Esther says. “And I’m done with this.”

“Why don’t you think about what you did?” Poppy calls. “I don’t remember you being so upset when something happened to me.”

“This bitch is going to pay for what she’s done,” Esther snarls. “I won’t take this, the second we get back to the mainland I’m getting in touch with a lawyer. There will be a way to prove Poppy did this rather than me, and they’ll have to give me my job back. They can’t just be able to fire me like that.”

She turns on her heels and walks away, heading towards the main lodge.

“Don’t run away, Esther,” Poppy shouts after her, sickeningly cheerful. “We’re on a tiny island, there’s only so many places you can go.”

“Go fuck yourself,” she yells over her shoulder, and carries on. One of the balloons from the other night is still stuck to the ground, and she stamps on it as she goes past. In that second I realise where she’s going. The emergency phone. I jump up and hurry across myself, just as she reaches it and steps back, on her face a look of horror.

“Esther?”

The emergency phone is within a phone box, quite old fashioned. I follow her horrified gaze to what is inside and put a hand to my mouth.

The wire has been cut.

This has been broken for hours. Days, even. The actual phone itself has vanished. Someone has even gone to the trouble of smashing the buttons, breaking a few of them off, just in case.

There’s no way to call the mainland now.

“Shit!” I’m furious, rage boiling inside my body and setting my skin alight. We return to the others.

“Why would you smash the emergency phone?” I shout at Poppy. I’m so mad I’m tempted to slap her too. But my body is still betraying me. Sweat emanates from my armpits and nausea swells in my stomach. Instead, I’ll have to use my words. “What if there’s an actual emergency on the island, like one of us has a heart attack or something? Or falls from the cliff? That’s just insane. You realise there’s still two days until Robin comes back?”

Esther is just as furious. “You’re a stupid bitch. Look at what you’ve done.”

Poppy shrugs. “Was that me? I can’t remember.”

“Do you not care if one of us gets hurt?” I say. “Because that someone could very easily be you.”

“I like the sound of that,” Esther says.

Chloe and Annabel are united in this: eyes gleaming, we all turn to Poppy, a new idea forming in our minds.

“Careful now, Tanya,” Poppy says. “Anyone would think you were threatening me. And you don’t need to lose your head. There are still the emergency flares, if there was a real issue. Calm down.”

“But we can’t use those just to call Robin back!” I snap. “You know that. They’d send out the coastguard. You’ve stranded us.”

“You’ve endangered us!” Chloe cries. “My entire livelihood is at stake because of you. My whole life.”

“You did that,” Poppy says. “With your homophobic comments. Not me. My original plan for you was to just leak some naked photos, like I did with Esther.”

“I want to leave!” Annabel says. “I want to get off this stupid island and back to the mess of my life and try to sort out what you’ve done, because you’re not getting away with it. I will make sure that you pay.”

“And what about Tanya?” Chloe asks, causing the rest of us to fall silent.

That woman. I could strangle her. “Forget about me. I don’t want to hear it.”

Annabel looks perplexed. “But you must want to know what she’s done. She could have ruined your job.”

“Leave it, Annabel,” I snap.

“No, she’s right,” Poppy says. “I didn’t get to talk about you, Tanya.” She waves my phone in the air, full of glee. “Last one.”

“Don’t do it,” I say, in a low voice, aware of how menacing my tone has become.

It doesn’t faze Poppy. She tosses my phone back at me, and once it’s caught between my hands, she begins speaking.

“Tanya has already lost her job.”

“What?” Annabel stops in her tracks.

“You heard me,” Poppy says. “Tanya lost her job months ago. Have none of you bothered to notice she hasn’t organised an event in half a year? Just like none of you noticed Harry left her around the same time, I suppose.”

I open my mouth to try and argue against this, but I can’t. It’s true. I haven’t done anything for months. I tried to make the others think I was just throwing private parties, not grand public events with invitations open to people.

They all stare at me, gobsmacked, and I know I’ve gone very still. My knuckles turn white from how hard I’m gripping.

“But why?” Annabel says. “How could you have lost your job? I don’t understand. Is that why Harry left you?”

“It’s hard to know what to do to someone whose life is already ruined.” Poppy is enjoying this now. I want to wipe that smug grin off her face. “But then I found out how you lost your job. And I have to admit I was surprised.”

Esther gasps. I can’t bring myself to look at anything other than the ground.

“I messed up at work,” I say. “The heiress’s birthday party six months ago. I should have known when you mentioned it. The entire event was a disaster.”

It had been a huge event, a boat cruise down the River Thames for a sixteen-year-old daughter of a Russian billionaire. She was something of a minor celebrity herself. Everything should have been planned down to the last detail, but I was distracted. Busy with my own issues. One of her friends managed to sneak some drugs on board because I hadn’t hired enough security for the event, and the birthday girl ended up in hospital getting her stomach pumped.

“And why was it a disaster, Tanya? How did that poor sixteen-year-old end up in hospital for three days straight whilst her parents were furious with you?” Poppy persists. She’s enjoying this. “Well, drugs are a terrible thing, aren’t they?”

“Christ, Tanya,” Annabel says. “She overdosed? How could that happen?”

“I wasn’t focused. It shouldn’t have ever happened.”

“Oh, Tanya knows all about drugs,” Poppy says. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d supplied them to her yourself. Thank goodness you at least had some sense there.”

“What?” Annabel looks perplexed.

Chloe is biting her lip so hard it’s starting to bleed. She knows what’s coming.

I can only brace myself for impact.

Poppy continues. “Did you all know that Tanya has been addicted to cocaine for the past two years? Because everyone else does now. I made sure to update all your social media with your confession.”

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