Dawn Bates

Moana Dawn Bates

Her breathing became shallow and laboured and the paramedics were talking about what was happening... "milligrams of this, heart rate dropping, breathing erratic... need to get there quick" all of it sounding as though she was back underwater where she belonged.




She imagined herself floating, sun on her face, bobbing along on the crest of the waves miles out to sea.




He said he loved her. Everything seemed perfect. She wanted to believe it. Apparently, she'd find it hard to have someone else love her.




One drunken night, he nearly killed her. In three years, she was spiked and raped twice, on nights out with him.




Toxic narcissistic love, and this is just the beginning.




Moana is the first of nine true stories written as fiction, because sometimes you just can't make this shit up.