Forgotten Bride 03-Becoming Benjamin, page 23
part #3 of Forgotten Bride Series
As I watched her reluctantly settle back into her seat, she didn’t take her eyes off me until I hesitantly turned back around to face the judge after Billy jabbed his finger in my sides a few times to make me behave.
“Mr Miller, you have pleaded not guilty on all charges, so we will reconvene to set a date for trial. It is your right to speak, should you deem it appropriate, so do you have anything else to add before we bring proceedings to a close?”
Without warning, Billy shoved me out of the way of the microphone just before I was about to speak and pulled it down to his lips.
“Mr Miller will not be making a statement at this time, Your Honour,” he announced.
“Okay then. I’d like to see counsel—”
“Actually, Your Honour,” I shouted, standing away from the microphone.
“Yes, Mr Miller?”
“My lawyer spoke out of turn. I would actually like to say something, if I may.”
“It is your legal right, although I suggest that you heed the word of your attorney.”
“I appreciate the advice, Your Honour, but I’d still like to say a few words if it’s all the same to you.”
“Go ahead,” the judge disgruntledly said as he openly checked his wristwatch.
“Not only am I innocent of all the charges that have been brought against me, but I was also the one who saved Mrs Anderson, and I can prove it.”
The audience burst into shouting once again, inciting the judge to take a few more swings with his gavel to silence them. I was holding on to Mom’s Saint Christopher necklace, so I squeezed it tightly in my palm before I turned around to scan the court attendants. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I spotted the familiar face of an old man, who I could barely recognise without his orange jumpsuit on, standing by the exit. Nevertheless, The Reverend was curiously waiting there with his arms folded over his chest, disappointedly shaking his head in my direction.
“Order!” the judge shouted.
“May I continue?” I said over the noise after I turned around again.
“Proceed,” the judge reluctantly said.
The room was deathly silent, and I took a deep breath, ready to unleash the heavily redacted story of how I released Olivia, knowing that admissions would rock the courtroom to its very core. Before I began, I glanced down at my open hand, noticing that Mom’s old Saint Christopher had imprinted onto my palm, and I smiled again before clasping it in my fist.
31
THE MOVE
ALEX – 2009
Five years. Five fucking years marooned on Friendzone Island, woefully watching from a distance as that pasty British bitch called Olivia systematically took everything that was once mine and gradually made it her own instead. I was forced to witness my best friend, the love of my life, grow increasingly distant from me with each passing day. I woke up with a glimmer of hope most mornings, fervently wishing that Nathaniel would finally open his eyes that day and come running back, seeking the eternal refuge of my arms. However, as the day wore on and my secret wish remained unfulfilled, I was left feeling only defeat and ire. What the hell did he see in her? What did she have that I didn’t? After half a decade of pondering the answers to those questions, the only logical conclusion that I arrived at was that I had the wrong set of genitals because, in my opinion, I was far better suited to Nathaniel in every other way.
“Do or die,” I uttered to myself as I parked my car at the bottom of the steep hill, grabbing my rucksack from the passenger seat before I set about trudging up to Nathaniel’s new place. It didn’t take me long to spot which one was his, largely because it was the only house on the street with a wooden sold sign speared into the ground in front of it. It was in a neglected area of Hammerdale, each house still inexplicably standing despite looking as if they were rotting away from the inside out and about to collapse at a moment’s notice. Even amongst the rest of the ramshackle residences, my love’s new purchase was particularly bad, with a massively overgrown garden and walls that looked like they were days away from crumbling into dust. The screen door was feebly smacking against the façade in the wind that was blowing that evening, so I put my foot in the opening to stop it from banging after reaching the porch. I let out a heavy sigh as I dropped to one knee, taking a small lock-picking kit out of my bag that I had bought from the local hardware store the previous day, and tried to remember the tutorial video I’d watched online before randomly selecting one of the tools that would help me gain entry.
What some might call breaking and entering, I preferred to call romance, and considering what I had already done in the name of love, the meagre trespassing I was committing paled by comparison. I was planning to very carefully break into his new home and leave a very special present for him inside, something that he knew was so important to me that he would instantly make the connection and realise how powerful my love for him was. Honestly, it was a kind of last-ditch attempt to win him over before he was fully committed to his relationship with Olivia. Nonetheless, considering there was a wedding on the cards and a baby on the way, I wasn’t sure whether I was kidding myself or not. For the sake of my own sanity, I had to believe that there was still a chance that he might change his mind and end up picking me instead, not least because I had already wasted half a decade waiting for him while secretly hoping he would finally take the correct decision on his own terms.
For a moment, I thought I’d heard one of the pins click inside the lock, and I was filled with glee, but when I pulled the pick out, I realised that, much to my annoyance, it had snapped off in the lock instead. I placed the broken tool in my pocket and shined my torch into the lock, trying to locate the loose piece of steel that was deterring me from getting any further.
“For fuck’s sake!” I scorned under my breath before desperately trying to fish out the shard of steel with my fingernails.
After a few minutes of inept fumbling in the lock, I saw a beam of light flashing around inside the house and then heard footsteps drawing closer from inside, so I immediately grabbed my things and jumped off the porch to find a hiding place in the overgrown garden. I desperately tried to rack my brains and work out who might be inside. It couldn’t have been Nath or Olivia because they were staying with an acquaintance of theirs up in Sacramento. With my back propped against the wall while patiently waiting for the unbidden presence to make itself known, my heart was racing and pounding out of my chest, wondering who was going to catch me red-handed.
Only after I heard the door open and saw a dirty-blonde woman dressed in black shut it behind her did I start to calm down. In fact, I almost burst into laughter when I realised it was Nathaniel’s obsessive stalker, Stephanie, who was merrily humming a tune as she chirpily made her way down the garden path, blissfully unaware that I was watching her from behind a bush. I always despised her and could barely resist the urge to confront her, so I stuck my finger and thumb in my mouth to let out a piercing whistle, which made her almost jump out of her skin. After calming down, she squinted in my direction and seemed to recognise me as I slowly walked over to her before she started chuckling to herself with a wry shrug. It appeared as if we both had the same idea.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked sternly.
“Oh, you know. This and that. Checking the place out,” she mumbled before something dawned on her, and she shined her torch in my face. “Hang on, what are you doing here?”
“Er—Nathaniel asked me to look after the place. There’s a real problem with rats up by the creek, so I was just making sure no rodents had managed to burrow their way inside. It looks like I failed.”
“Bravo. A real knee-slapper,” she dryly remarked with an eye roll.
“Now, now. You’re not a slapper, just some bitch who can’t take a hint,” I retorted with evident sarcasm.
“So, let me get this straight: you’re checking on the place at—” she started before taking a quick look at her watch, “three o’clock in the morning?”
“What can I say? I’m a night owl,” I mustered.
“You’re a fucking liar, is what you are,” she laughed. “You know, I always thought you were a bit of a pervert. Come on, indulge me. Why are you really here? Trying to find some of Olivia’s panties to sniff?”
“Watch your tongue,” I threatened.
“Why? What are you going to do?” she goaded.
With gritted teeth, I placed my hand into my pocket and held the snapped lockpick tightly, pricking my finger with its sharp edge while fantasising about ramming it through Stephanie's neck. I menacingly began to make my way over to her with a sinister smirk, but just as I was poised to strike, she produced a taser from her own pocket and fired it up a few inches from my face, forcing me to recoil to my previous position with my hands up in surrender.
“Slow your roll there, big boy. You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
“Oh man, I can’t wait until Nathaniel hears about this,” I chortled as I backed away further.
“He isn’t going to hear shit because that would mean admitting you were here too, dumbass,” she chastised.
We both spotted the curtains twitching at the neighbouring house, so I slunk back into the shadows as Stephanie casually clicked a button on her key fob to open a fancy-looking convertible parked across the street. As she stepped away, she placed the taser back in her pocket before the next-door neighbour saw what was going on outside their house.
“This isn’t over,” I shouted after her.
“Oh, it is for now. Say hi to Olivia for me, will you?” she said before sauntering over to her car, which she immediately reversed down the hill.
As soon as the nosy parkers next door pulled their curtains closed again, I turned my attention back to the house, grabbed my open rucksack from the ground and surreptitiously started making my way over to the door. Stephanie had fortuitously left it unlocked during our brief altercation, so I just breezed into the house without having to rely on my woeful lack of lock-picking skills again. With a torch in hand, I started searching room by room, trying to discover what she had come to do. It was when I had gotten to the spare bedroom that I spotted the huge luxury gift basket she had left for them on a chest of drawers, overflowing with delectable-looking fruits and treats. After whipping the card off the top and tearing it open to read the contents, I couldn’t help being greeted with a pungent waft of the floral perfume it was doused in.
To my dearest Nathaniel,
Roses are red,
The night feels so blue,
Every moment that passes,
I’m longing for you.
Violets are sweet,
But not like your touch,
Come find me, my darling,
I miss you too much.
Forever yours,
Stephanie
I took out my own gift, the old and scuffed Saint Christopher pendant that was once my mother’s, to compare it with hers and burst out laughing at it with some incredulity. It was clear that my romantic rival had outgunned me on the housewarming gift front, so I crumpled her card up and stuffed it into my bag after hitting on a wonderful idea. I pulled out a pen and used a scrap of paper from Stephanie’s envelope to scribble a little note of my own.
“The fruit of the womb is his reward,” I said aloud as I wrote it down on the paper as neatly as I could.
With extra care, I unpackaged my painstakingly wrapped gift, placed the note inside and wrapped it back up, perching it on top of the fruit basket as if the whole gift were my own. I cautiously backed away and threw my bag back over my shoulder, the floorboards creaking with every footstep, and closed the door gently behind me before scurrying out of the house. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that my gift wasn’t going to win him over immediately, but I was just hoping that it would disrupt his train of thought enough to actually think about who he was choosing. Regardless of the outcome, at least I was doing something. I got back in my car, taking one last look at the house before I turned the engine on and started reversing down the hill with my lights off so as not to draw any more attention to myself.
After an administrative cock-up made by the realtor, Nathaniel and Olivia’s moving day had been pushed back a few weeks, so when the long-awaited day eventually arrived, they were both beyond desperate to finally get the keys and start living at their new home. I was banking on Olivia not being there due to the fact she was heavily pregnant, but she was so damned excited about the prospect of moving into their run-down shack that no one would have managed to convince her to stay away. When the three of us arrived at the house, I opted to stay in the front yard, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before they stumbled across my cute little present, so I mindlessly started the donkeywork of moving the huge number of boxes from the rental van onto the porch while excitedly waiting for the fireworks to start.
After begrudgingly picking up the closest box at the back of the truck, I couldn’t help but notice that Olivia’s name had been scrawled onto the side of it in permanent marker. I almost tossed it back because she was the very last person on earth that I would have wanted to help, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together if I was in the house with them when they found what I had left for them. I shook the contents lightly whilst carrying the box up to the house, holding my ear to the cardboard in an attempt to work out what was inside. To me, it sounded like glassware or some kind of ornament set, so I glanced around before purposefully dropping from waist height, hearing the diligently packed contents smash and crack, and then booted it up the driveway for good measure. After I was convinced that the contents were beyond saving, I slowly bent over and picked up the package again, shaking the now-granulated innards with a mischievous smile on my face.
“Whoops! Butterfingers!” I quietly exclaimed to myself.
I plonked it down on the porch with the rest of her meagre belongings before happily marching back down to the van for another box; however, the sense of victory was short-lived because it had been replaced with the ever-familiar dart of self-loathing by the time I was to grab another box. I leaned on the back bumper of the van, wiping the sweat off my brow as I looked at the house with apprehension. I flippantly checked my watch, thinking that they couldn’t have found my gift yet because I would have heard Olivia blow her top if they had, even from where I was standing outside. Suddenly, like clockwork, I heard muffled shouting, and shortly afterwards, the screen door violently swung open. I watched with an uneasy smirk on my face as Olivia emerged through it, thundering down the path and directly toward me. I’ll admit that given her enlarged size, I did feel a stab of fear given the speed at which she was waddling, but at the very last minute, she totally blanked me and started storming down the hill towards the main road instead.
I knew that Nathaniel wouldn’t take long to come out of the house too, wanting to confront me about my gift, which had just caused an argument of epic proportions, so I dusted off my clothes and casually waited by the van, attempting to look concerned as I watched Olivia’s hilariously round body bounce down the hill. Sure enough, after less than a minute, Nathaniel burst through the front door with a bemused expression on his face, holding my ripped-up card in one hand and the Saint Christopher pendant dangling in the other. I leaned against the back bumper and squeezed it with both my hands while biting my bottom lip, awaiting the inevitable inquisition.
“Alex? Did you see which way she went?” he sullenly asked.
“Down towards the main road. Did something happen? She looked pissed,” I asked as convincingly as possible.
“We just found this,” he announced with a slightly accusatory tone, handing me the torn remnants of my card as well as Mom’s necklace.
I mindlessly tried to piece them together on the bed of the van as if I didn’t know what was written on it, awkwardly trying to avoid Nathaniel’s eyeline as he stared at the back of my head in a bubbling rage.
“I’m sorry, I just—” I mumbled.
“Why are you sorry?” he interrupted. “It’s not like you sent it!” he exclaimed.
I crumpled up my face, staring back down at the card I had already pieced together before I looked back at Nathaniel.
“It was her, wasn’t it?” he announced.
“Who?” I bemusedly asked.
“Stephanie. I’m telling you, that woman is never going to leave us alone!”
“Wait, you think Stephanie sent you this card?” I asked.
“I mean, she went as far as to break into our home so she could leave us this card. How fucking creepy is that?” Nath boomed.
“Pretty creepy, I suppose,” I admitted in defeat.
“Not to mention the rotting fruit basket it was placed on.”
“Rotting?” I asked with a wince.
“Yeah, it must have been sitting there for weeks. There are at least twenty thousand fruit flies buzzing in the nursery at the moment.”
I was standing there with my mouth agape, knowing that my grand romantic gesture was in tatters, but given that Nathaniel thought the whole thing was quite disturbing, I had no choice but to allow Stephanie to take the credit for it. I was desperate to tell him it was me, just to see his reaction more than anything else. Nevertheless, after reading the room, I knew it would be the end of our friendship and might not incite the epitome of love I was hoping for.
“She’s crazy,” I said as convincingly as I could.
“Clinically insane if you ask me. You’d think after so many years of rejection, she would finally take the hint, you know?”
“Yeah,” I laughed awkwardly before carefully picking up the pendant.
“What’s that necklace? Do you recognise it?” he asked.
“It’s a Saint Christopher. He’s the patron saint of travellers.”
“I swear I’ve seen you wearing one of those. Back in college, maybe.”
“They are pretty common,” I uttered. “Hey, you should wear it,” I said brightly.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m serious. They protect the wearer,” I said, trying to put the chain over his head.
