Juliana stopped. Drew a deep breath. Stared at Kelly with cold, hard eyes. ‘You fucked up.’
All the energy, power and adrenalin drained from Kelly’s body as though a plug had been pulled. It rushed out of her with such ferocious intent that she closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. Juliana’s firm hand clasped her elbow and led her to the couch.
Kelly sat down. Opened her eyes. ‘What have I done now?’ she whispered.
Juliana tilted her head, her expression softening. She brushed a stray piece of hair from Kelly’s face and tucked it behind her ear as though she were her mother. ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘You look like you’re one piece of bad news away from a complete mental breakdown.’
Kelly’s throat closed over and her eyes betrayed her, tears welling. Her bottom lip quivered uncontrollably, her face searing with an unfamiliar, prickly heat.
Juliana reached out with both arms and Kelly fell into them as everything broke. The unstoppable tears. The shuddering spasms of her chest. The gasping for air. The humiliating moans. She couldn’t hold any of it back.
Juliana gently stroked her back and made soft, soothing sounds that were totally incongruent with her usual woman-of-steel demeanour. Kelly burrowed into Juliana’s soft bosom, searching for comfort and safety, reduced to barely more than a terrified infant following its most primal instincts.
She seemed to be there for a long, long time before the shuddering slowed, the crushing grip on her chest faded to a blunt ache and her tears finally dried up. When she lifted her head from Juliana’s lilac shirt, there was a broad, dark stain across the woman’s breasts.
Kelly sniffed loudly, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and motioned at Juliana’s shirt. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said, surprised she still had a voice.
Juliana looked down at the stain. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time somebody has wept at the sight of my breasts,’ she said. ‘They are a work of perfection, after all.’
What a wholly outrageous and inappropriate comment. What a perfect thing to say. ‘You might be even more messed up than me,’ Kelly said.
Juliana waved her finger in a circle around Kelly’s face. ‘You haven’t seen all this yet.’
They laughed.
Kelly took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled. ‘What have I done?’
Juliana took out her phone, swiped, tapped and held it in front of Kelly.
At first, she wasn’t sure what she was watching. It looked like the video from a phone. Unsteady. Echoey sound. Erratic movements. Kelly narrowed her eyes.
Then she recognised herself. And her voice. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered.
It was the supermarket. Whoever was filming had zoomed in on her exchange with the man who had made her wait and then asked her about buying tampons. Although it was her in the video, Kelly watched in horror at the woman screaming and then throwing eggs at the man. She willed it to end. Willed her past self to stop. To walk away.
Instead, the woman on the screen slammed her palms against the man, watched the egg yolk run down his shirt and charged out of the store. The camera began to follow her, panning wildly between the swearing man and Kelly’s retreating figure but a store assistant appeared on screen. His hand filled the vision. ‘Please stop filming!’ he yelled.
And then the video ended.
Kelly began to compute the possible outcomes. She ran scenarios in her head about the damage this could cause. The impact on her career, her exams, her job at the hospital. But she didn’t know enough.
‘How bad is it?’ she asked.
Juliana put her phone away. ‘It was uploaded to YouTube an hour ago. It’ll hit mainstream media by lunchtime. With the attention you’ve had from the article, your socials and the Care for our Kids Appeal, it’ll get significant coverage.’
Kelly stood up as her anger surged. ‘I told you all that putting me up as your poster girl was a terrible idea. Now, look at what’s happened. This is my fucking career, Juliana!’
Juliana stood too and fixed Kelly with an intense and defiant stare. ‘It wasn’t raising your profile that was a bad idea. It was assaulting a member of the public. You’re a walking time bomb, Kelly. You need to get your shit together.’
Kelly knew Juliana was right. She stared at her for a long moment, deciding whether to fight and continue to shift the blame or enlist her help. She realised she had no choice.
‘What do we do now?’
‘I’ve already contacted Stephen.’
Kelly’s mind was blank.
‘The Society’s Director of Corporate Affairs,’ Juliana explained. ‘He was there when we first met.’
