As Ariana launched into her last song, Dangerous Woman, I told Nell that we’d need to leave before it ended to beat the crowd. My dad had said he’d pick us up and would wait in the car park outside. So, a couple of minutes before 10.30pm, we made our way out to the lobby.
Standing there in the foyer, I watched as my beautiful, smart and caring best friend headed over to a bin to throw her cup away, then got out my phone out of my bag to text my dad. Nell came back, smiling, and said, “This has been the best night of my life – love you, Freya!” I told her I loved her too. Then I pressed ‘send’ on my text and everything went black.
"My entire life changed in a millisecond"
Ididn’t realise it at first, but I’d been caught up in one of the most prolific terrorist attacks that the country has ever seen, leaving 22 dead and 119 people injured. When I came around days later, I found myself lying in a hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling, confused as to why I couldn’t move my body.
Everything felt strange, all my limbs heavy. I’d been in an induced coma. I strained my eyes to one side, my neck rigid, and saw my dad with a sunken face, speaking to a nurse. The first thing I asked was, “What happened?”
I watched as my dad’s mouth twisted into a shape I’d only seen once before, when we'd had a family bereavement, and listened as he told me there’d been an attack on the arena.
The second thing I asked was, “Where’s Nell?”
My dad took hold of my hand.
“Nell has died, Freya,” he told me, his eyes filling up.
I couldn't compute it, I just lay there for hours, still staring at the ceiling, unable to understand. I replayed fragments of memory in my head. An ambulance. Singing at the concert, how happy we'd been. It was all scrambled.
Later that day Nell’s mum dropped off one of her old cuddly toys, a little stuffed owl, which smelled of Nell’s favourite Victoria’s Secret body spray. Somebody tucked it under my hospital blanket and I kept it there for the entire five and a half weeks I spent at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, breathing in her scent for comfort.
As well as having a part of my heart ripped out over Nell’s death, I had serious physical injuries to contend with too. Both my legs were broken, shrapnel had invaded my entire body, even embedded into one of my eyes, and my left arm had metal rods sticking out of it as part of the bone was missing.
I lay on my back staring at the same ceiling, feeling distraught, numb, overwhelmed. I had multiple major surgeries in quick succession. My lowest point came about three weeks in, while waiting in the burns unit with my parents, who’d barely left my side since the attack. “I feel like my life has been snatched away,” I told them. “I feel so angry.”
They listened, talked me through every single emotion, and my mum encouraged me to keep my focus on the future. I decided not to watch or read any of the media coverage surrounding the attack, as it would be too painful.
“Feeling angry won’t do you any good in life,” my mum said, in a soothing voice, although I knew she was angry and suffering too. My entire family were. “Don’t let them take your happiness away, it’s what they want.”
There were small glimmers of good during those early weeks; Ariana came to see me and the other survivors, and I cried on her shoulder as she signed my notebook – that piece of paper is now framed and on display in my bedroom. My sister also arranged for Harry Styles to call me – all I can remember of our conversation is telling him I loved him and him saying it back. The rest is a blur.