I didn’t leave Milton Keynes because I was ready. I left because something inside me finally broke in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore. I’d spent so long pretending I was fine, holding myself together with whatever scraps of strength I had left, but the truth was I was exhausted — tired of surviving, tired of pretending, tired of carrying everything alone. Leaving wasn’t a brave choice. It was a necessary one. Staying would have destroyed me. Going was the only chance I had at finding myself again.
I met my son’s future father on the day of a Bon Jovi concert. I remember sending photos to my friend back in the UK — she still had her shiny pink skinny trousers. His brother had long hair and was handsome in that carefree way some men are. My friend had already met him. My future fiancé was tall, handsome, and different. When I first saw him wandering around my friend’s back garden, I thought he was a bit strange, full of nervous energy he didn’t know what to do with.
The gig was incredible — the only time I ever saw Bon Jovi live. Afterwards, we all ended up in my friend’s pool, laughing, drinking, floating in that strange space between fun and fate. I had no idea that the man I’d just met would become such a defining part of my life. We stayed upstairs at my friend’s house that night. I won’t go into more detail, but he was interesting — different from anyone I’d known.
The next morning, he left my friend’s house and said, “Moving out, moving in.” And just like that, he moved into mine.
I was on the contraceptive pill. I thought I was protected. I thought I was being careful. But life had other plans.
It didn’t take long for the cracks to show. He broke the indicator stick on my car so I couldn’t go out. He smashed my artwork. He threw a glass at my head and then gaslit me, twisting the story until I questioned my own memory. Some of the glass stayed lodged in my scalp for years. A friend eventually pulled it out for me long after the relationship was over.
Before I met him, I had been working as an escort. When I asked him the next morning if he was one too, he immediately said, “What’s an escort?” — far too quickly, far too defensively. I didn’t believe him. He kept getting phone calls from someone I didn’t know, and the secrecy made my stomach twist.
We went to London for a night. It was a male massage place in Notting Hill. He pretended to be gay, which was strange, but I brushed it off. I ended up at a local pub with one of the men who worked there. I felt sorry for him because I knew exactly how awful that life could be. That was part of why I wanted to leave Milton Keynes — I wanted to leave all of that behind me. The escorting. The massage parlours. The shame that wasn’t really shame, but exhaustion. I wasn’t embarrassed by what I’d done to survive, but it had taken its toll.
I fell pregnant about two months after we met. The pill didn’t work, and I hadn’t missed any. I was shocked. He was seven years younger than me, handsome, different, from a country I’d dreamed of visiting since I was a child. I’d had a stamp of Piha in my stamp collection when I was little. New Zealand had always felt like a place I was meant to see.
Then he began lashing out physically at himself. It frightened me. It was sudden, unpredictable, and it showed me a side of him I didn’t know how to manage — especially while pregnant and already overwhelmed.
I rang his mother and told her what was happening. She paid for his flight home. My mum lent me £800. I was running — but I was also relieved. I was leaving Milton Keynes behind. Leaving the violence. Leaving the chaos. Leaving the version of me that had been slowly disappearing.
We flew for 33 hours, stopping in Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, and Perth for refuelling. When we flew over Ninety Mile Beach, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years — excitement. Real, pure excitement. New Zealand looked like paradise from the sky. I loved the wop‑wops — the bush, the forests, the wildness. When we landed, his mother picked us up. I remember staring out the window at the African lilies lining the motorway, amazed by how beautiful they were. I didn’t know then that they were considered a pernicious weed. To me, they were a welcome sign — a symbol of a new beginning.
I was away from all the triggers of Milton Keynes. Away from the violence. Away from the escorting. Away from the memories that clung to me like smoke. I left my past behind and stepped into a country that felt like a clean page.
The next chapter of my life — my new life — was waiting for me in New Zealand. And for the first time in a long time, I felt free.