The empty pocket that saved my life

Blake had everyone fooled at the start. Even my friends thought he was great. We were 18 year old sixth formers and he was studying medicine at Oxford University. Oxford. I used to love telling people that. I cringe when I think of myself at our family’s big Christmas party, telling every single relative that asked how I was that I was very well and that I was dating a lovely future doctor from Oxford University. I was so naïve, I can barely believe that I thought cleverness would make someone a good person. I didn’t think really.

Things started off well, unbelievably well in fact. Unbelievable, because of course it could not last. He used to have flowers sent to my house for no reason, buy me expensive gifts, take me to lovely restaurants. Now I know that this is a typical strategy used by controlling men to reel a woman in. Love-bombing. At the time, I was a silly 18 year old girl and the fact that a man in his twenties was spoiling me rotten, made me feel on top of the world. It was literally like a drug addiction. Some people say that the chemicals released in your brain are somehow similar to ones released when you take drugs. You crave the feeling of love more than the person. At the time I wasn’t able to analyse any of this and just thought I’d met the love of my life and that all after would be sunshine and rainbows.

It started in a small way, the control. If I mentioned the name of a male I was not related to, Blake would ask lots of questions, if that person fancied me, if I fancied them. Then there were little comments about my weight, and what I was wearing. I participated in a group hug at the New Year’s eve party we went to and he stormed off and did not speak to me for three days. He was really good at sulking. He’d often sulk for days even when I did not have the faintest clue what I’d done wrong. When he did finally come round, there would be the angry outburst, followed by and apology and an expensive gift.

The next stage came when I’d plan nights out with my friends, or to go to parties with them, but he’d demand that I came over to his place. “Who do you love more? Me or them” he’d ask. “You of course” I’d immediately answer. I’d make up excuses, say I was ill, rather than just tell them he wouldn’t hear of me going out with them.

Everything came to a head when I decided I wanted to go travelling. I’d not applied to University and my Grandma had offered me some money to see the world. She’d recently beaten breast cancer, and it had made her realise she wanted to see me enjoy the inheritance she had set aside in her will, while she was still alive. I booked myself a flight to the Philippines. Blake went absolutely ballistic when I told him. He started shouting about how I’d be sleeping with other men the minute I landed, and threw my laptop across the room when I tried to show him pictures of a hotel I liked. My Dad heard and threw him out of our house.

I was so scared of losing Blake that I almost cancelled my travelling plans, but my parents somehow talked me out of it, and helped me to find the courage to tell him it was over. I did but since love is an addiction, I ended up agreeing to meet him in a café before I got on the train to the airport. He, of course had a huge bunch of roses. I wondered what on earth I was supposed to do with roses on a plane. I was going to look ridiculous carrying a massive bunch of roses through an airport and trying to find somewhere to store them on the plane. Could you fit 50 red roses in an overhead locker? I realise now that this was probably another of Blake’s games. A joke at my expense, making me look silly on purpose.

“Let’s see your passport picture then, it can’t be as bad as mine” Blake had said in a rare moment of self-depreciation. He never said anything negative about himself, ever, so I should have known he was up to something. He handed the passport back to me and I put it back in the pocket of my coat. I went to the loo, picked up my coat and suitcase, and said goodbye to him.

“I hope you don’t regret this you know. Leaving me” he said.

“I won’t” I replied.

Everything was fine until I got to the check in desk. The lady behind the desk asked for my passport. I reached into my coat pocket and felt nothing. My hand clutched on empty air. I checked the other pocket, even though I knew I’d put it in my left one. Panic set in.

“Passport please” said the check in employee. I check my bag even though I know it’s not there.

“Did you forget your passport?” said the check in lady. I see red.

“It was just here!” I shout, frantically and desperately searching for my missing passport.

“Please don’t raise your voice” said the lady. I have no choice but to step out of the line. I start hyperventilating, and only just manage to stop myself from having a full blown panic attack. After five minutes I calm down enough to call my parents. We speculate about whether it could have fallen out on the train, but then mum asked me when the last time I had it was. I confessed to her that I met up with Blake, and then it hits me. He must have unzipped my coat pocket when I was in the toilet and stolen my passport. I burst into tears and my mum told me that we could report it as stolen to the police. She said she’s had a friend who’d had one stolen and she’d paid through the nose but managed to get a new passport in under two weeks. I got back on the train, tried not to burst into tears as I made the journey home. At the train station, both of my parents were waiting for me, along with a bag of my favourite snacks. They gave me a huge hug when they saw me.

That evening, I was helping Mum load the dishwasher and Dad was watching the news in the other room. He came into the kitchen, white faced. For a moment he couldn’t speak.

“Come and look at this” he said finally. Me and Mum followed him into the living room. The item that was on the news was about a plane that had crashed that afternoon. Everyone on board killed. As the item went on I realised the plane was going to the same location, at the same time, from the same airport as mine. Blake had stolen my passport to be spiteful, but he’s saved my life.

At the time, during that minute when I searched my empty pocket, my mind was in a state of panic. Yet when I look back on that minute, all I feel joy. Whenever I feel down or disappointed or upset in any way, I just relive the memory of finding my pocket empty. Then I remind myself that nothing I am ever going through is as bad as what would have happened if my pocket had not been emptied that day.