Fruit Fly

Leo is lying. He actually fell into the canal by accident and is manipulating Mandy with the goal of getting into her house to rob her. To build trust, he asks her to be his sponsor for sobriety. 

Leo fabricates a detailed story to elicit Mandy’s sympathy. He claims that a man attacked him with a knife over a stolen meth pipe and held him underwater in the canal. To make the story more compelling, he claims that he can’t swim. He also knows that Mandy’s real name is Mallory Maddox and that she’s an author.

Mallory presents Leo with a worksheet on post-trauma growth, but he resists, asking to go to her house for more privacy. She deflects and encourages him to talk in the café. He tells her about his past, mentioning that he was good at English but got into trouble at school. When he says that he had a sexual relationship with a teacher, the mention of this abuse makes Mallory feel out of her depth, and she tries to end the session.

Angered by her reaction, Leo storms out of the café. Mallory follows him onto the busy street, where they encounter her friend Joanie and her two children, Crispin and Layla. Leo tells Joanie that he’s Mallory’s boyfriend, though Mallory quickly corrects him, saying that he’s a client. When Joanie refuses to give him money, Leo snatches an elderly woman’s handbag, causing her to fall and hit her head on the pavement.

Leo reflects on the theft he just committed, insisting to himself that he was compelled to do it. His justification for the act was the common knowledge that old women carry cash, strongly implying that he has robbed other elderly women. He reflects that someone should tell elderly women to stop this practice.

As a crowd gathers around the injured woman, Brenda, Joanie urges Mallory to call for help. Mallory only pretends to dial 999, faking a conversation with emergency services. A nurse in the crowd provides first aid, and Mallory eventually asks a stranger to make the real call, claiming that her phone battery has died. To prevent Joanie from telling Ronan, Mallory tells her that Leo is a client and that their sessions are confidential. Instead of waiting for the police, Mallory goes straight home, adjusts the house so that Ronan won’t know she was out, and begins to write, incorporating the day’s violent events into her novel.

While hiding under a canal bridge, Leo counts the nearly £100 he stole from Brenda. He wants to buy drugs but avoids his usual contact, Mo, who recently made him eat a live goldfish. Using Grindr, Leo contacts a dealer named Tommy. After stealing a new set of clothes, Leo meets Tommy and buys a bag of mixed drugs for £100. He climbs into a dumpster containing bags of dead vegetables and gets high. In his altered state, he feels a pang of regret and texts Mallory to apologize and ask for another meeting. He then posts a new poem, titled “I AM A POTATO,” to his Instagram account, @Alias22.

Mallory emails new chapters of her manuscript, Slay, to her editor. In the message, she claims that the story’s authenticity comes from the trauma of her brother, Nick. When Ronan gets home, Mallory pretends that she’s been working on therapy notes all day, but he reveals that Joanie called him about the incident in the street. He criticizes Mallory’s appearance and accuses her of neglecting herself. Claiming that he’s concerned for her well-being, Ronan confiscates her car keys and demands that she share her phone’s location with him at all times. He gives her a book on preparing for parenthood before going upstairs. Mallory immediately texts Leo and arranges to meet him in Priory Park the next morning.

Leo meets Mallory in Priory Park, feeling anxious and wanting money for more drugs. He tells her about his childhood, claiming that his mother was raped, that he never knew his father, and that social services took him away when he was seven. He says that his mother, Cherie, had a drug addiction and died when he was 15. During the conversation, his phone rings with the caller ID “Mum,” which he quickly hides from Mallory. After abruptly ending their meeting, Leo secretly follows Mallory and discovers where she lives. Now aware of her address, he contacts Mo and agrees to go to his apartment for a “party,” where Mo has promised he will be “punished.”

Mallory receives an enthusiastic email from her editor, who reports that everyone in the office loves Slay. The head of sales, Pam, has called the story “necessary” and “urgent,” and Stan asks for five more chapters and a synopsis. The praise gives Mallory a vision of a new life with creative, successful friends. Later, Ronan initiates sex in the shower. Mallory mentally detaches herself during the encounter and notes that she was lying to Ronan when she said she was no longer taking birth control. Afterward, she sees a Grindr notification from Mo inviting people to a party and begins to type a reply.

At Mo’s apartment, Leo is given a powerful mix of drugs. Mo calls him his “toy” before handcuffing him to the bed. While incapacitated, Leo is sexually assaulted by Mo and several other men. When he tries to vomit, he’s gagged with a sock. After a dissociative gap in his memories, he suddenly finds himself outside without knowing how he got there. He’s wearing his clothes but is shoeless, disoriented, and holding about £200 in cash.

Late that night, Leo arrives at Mallory’s house, high and bleeding, and rings the doorbell. Mallory rushes outside, desperately trying to keep him quiet so as not to wake Ronan. She drags him off the porch and onto the pavement. Leo reveals that he knows her full name and followed her home. He claims that dangerous people are after him. In the midst of the confrontation, Mallory feels a strange and powerful sense of being alive. Just as Leo accuses her of being obsessed with him, Ronan appears on the pavement behind them, wearing only his boxers and holding a hardback copy of Pericles and Mallory’s phone, which is open to the Grindr app.

Ronan throws the book, hitting Leo in the face. High and angry, Leo challenges Ronan to a fight, but Ronan begins dialing the police, which forces Leo to back down. Ronan asks if Leo is the client Joanie mentioned, which Mallory confirms. Ronan warns Leo to stay away before grabbing Mallory and pulling her inside. Leo leaves, taking the book that Ronan threw at him. From the street, Leo watches through the window as Ronan verbally abuses Mallory and drags her out of the room.

Leo wanders away, realizing that the £200 he received from Mo is gone. As the drugs wear off, the full trauma of the sexual assault floods his mind. Overwhelmed and seeing no escape, he goes to the canal and wades into the water, intending to drown himself.