Chapter 5
The morning after, Annalia and Donovan got ready for school like each one had spent the night at their own house. They didn’t see each other that morning until they were outside, getting into Daniel’s sapphire-blue Mercedes, that Daniel would always leave their for Don to use in case Don’s car would break down. Shortly after, they arrived at the campus, shared a kiss on the lips and went to their respective classes instead of hanging out with people like they used to. Although these people would swear on their balls that they cared about the hottest couple on campus, and although not dressed sexy, the most provocative and beautiful couple, they were really working toward tearing them apart, and without knowing their true intentions, they got fixed on staying away from them because these people were ‘giving them bad advice and challenging their new beliefs’. Little did they know that was the best thing they could’ve done if they wanted their relationship to prosper, and if they didn’t want to do things they would later regret?
In her creative-writing class, Annalia came to a realization. All these people were giving her bad advice, right? Day in and day out, every time they saw her on campus, they would tell her that it was the twenty-first century, the second decade of this one, to eat the forbidden fruit, stain Donovan’s shirt and then throwing it out instead of washing it. Use him, spit him out, kick him back to your life, go as far away as you can and never see him again. In the meantime they were telling him not to take her seriously, not to even think about even starting a serious relationship with her, to let this be his first adventure, and then dump her because she was ‘far too experienced’ and older than he was and the marriage would never work. They would divorce within months, and the divorce would be their worst nightmare come true. Not only would he ruin his and her life if he went through with this madness, but he would also ruin the lives of his family and friends. Now that he wasn’t innocent anymore, he would go crazy and start sleeping around. Then no woman would take him seriously or marry him, because all women would think he was a total asshole who didn’t care about women at all. It would be a fiasco and it wouldn’t end pretty. It would probably end in death, either because of a terrible disease or suicide—or murder. She figured out what her and Donovan’s so-called friends were trying to do, get them to break up and abhor one another. Instead of just cutting them out of her life like she’d been doing for the past few weeks, she would take action. She wouldn’t take reprisal against them in any way, just expose them as the true charlatans they were, prove to everyone that these people could not be trusted at all. After class, she blueprinted what she was going to do, having it all very clear in her head, and was ready to execute her plan.
The plan was simple. As simple as a damaging email. On the last fifteen minutes of her second class, she got her laptop back on the desktop after it was on standby for a few minutes, opened her email program, and composed a new email to everyone she knew in the school. She had audio clips of every conversation that she’d had with these traitors. This would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that while these people were being friendly and compassionate to you when you were with them, they would turn around and talk shit behind your back and try to ruin your reputation, not just for your time you studied at UCF, but forever, and you’d have to move out of the state to leave all that nonsense behind and start a new life. She couldn’t allow them to keep doing this to her and her boyfriend or to do it to other people. She had to stop the snowball from becoming an avalanche that no one could control and would destroy everything in its path. She attached five of the audio clips, nine megabytes each because they were kind of long, but they were worth downloading and listening to.
Everyone was in for a shock when they got the email, 1,000 people, because that’s the maximum amount her advanced email program would allow her to put in a chain email. Then she pressed send and she never got a notification that the mailer had failed to deliver the message. Only hours later, the whole school was talking about it, and then next morning, none of these backstabbers could pass by anyone without having them look at them dirty and whisper things in each other’s ears or texting other people when they were alone. That left them wondering what the hell was going on. Rather than deleting the email from her sent-messages folder to protect herself, she left it in there because she wanted everyone to know that she sent it and it wasn’t someone that hacked her account and sent the email pretending to be her. Hours after that, the whole world knew, even the idiots whose masks were taken off, that Annalia had sent the email and when they went to confront her, Donovan was standing by her side, like a statue, and everyone that surrounded them serving them as a shield was doing anything but standing there.
“Gee, guys, is there a problem?” Annalia said, in a tone and manner they’d never seen before. They didn’t know that this side of her, which was in all of us, would ever come out. “You don’t look too happy. Something happened?”
“Yes, something happened. You happened. If you didn’t have all these nosy-ass people with you, I guarantee you we would all beat the shit out of you,” Ursula said. “How dared you, Annalia?”
“Excuse me? How dared I?” For the first time in a long time, those that knew her since elementary or middle school saw part of the old Annalia resurface, and they were beside themselves. “How dared you? How dared you do that to me and Donovan? We didn’t do anything to you! We’ve got something great going, and we’re finally setting a ground for the castles we’ve designed, before we start building them. Why do you want to tear us apart?”
“Annalia…” said Noelle trying to cut her off.
“Zip it, Noelle. Cut the act right now. It’s over. You can’t manipulate me anymore.”
“Whatever happened to the good Christian woman we were getting to know?”
“Christian doesn’t mean doormat, Noelle. Shut the hell up and listen to me. It’s over. Everybody hates you. The people that I couldn’t send the email to, because I wasn’t allowed to put any more email addresses in when composing and preparing it, they know, and they can’t stand you. Everyone knows who you really are, and they can’t wait for you to get the hell out of this school.”
Everyone that surrounded the lovebirds screamed insults in agreement and some were ready to beat the bad gang senseless.
“I don’t understand it,” Charlene said. “Where did all this come from? What did we do?”
“Don’t ask me what you did, Charlene, ask me what you were doing. I know, girl, I understand that you weren’t a real participant, you were just playing along, always the follower, doing what you’re told so you don’t lose the friendship of these good-for-nothing bastards, well, you know what, Charlie? Lamentably you are working your ass off in an effort to keep the wrong friends. They’re not worth it, so get out of this while you still can, before you wind up committing a crime for them or helping them do so. You’re still in time, Charlie.”
With no hesitation, Charlie ran towards Annalia, Donovan and their crowd, looking at the bad gang with a face of horror and disbelief.
“Charlene Michelle, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hannah screamed, trying to pull her back towards her crowd by the left arm.
But Charlie said, snatching her arm from Hannah, “No, I am not doing this anymore. I’m tired of hurting others just to get you to stay by my side! I don’t need people like you around me! I’d rather hang out with Jason Voorhees! I know he’s going to get right down to it and kill my ass in one swing of his machete rather than stabbing me in the back over, and over and over, and watching me die a slow death when I can’t take any more of the stabbing!” She was screaming at the top of her lungs. “That’s right, you guys are using me, abusing me, and when I’m no longer good for any of your games or plans, you’ll discard me like a used-up piece of gum and die of misery, lonely, with no friends, right? Well I am not vain or anything, but I love myself too much to let that happen knowing I can do something to put an end to it before the downward spiral starts. It’s time I had some backbone, don’t you think? Only spineless people can submit to your desires, and I am saying this in every sense of the word, Alex!” Alex was Langston’ first cousin on his mother’s side, he and Langston named after their mothers’ father, Abel Alexander Bell.
“What is she talking about, Alex?” snapped Sonya.
“Don’t listen to her. She’s going to twist everything, she’s got it all wrong, and even if she were seeing things the way they really are, she’s not talking about what you’re thinking.” This was true. “Let me explain. What she’s talking about is how I got her doing things for me all day. Every time I need something to eat, I have her make me something. Every time I need something to drink I tell her to get me something to drink and she just has to get it. Otherwise, she thinks that if she doesn’t do what I want her to, when she needs me, I’m not going to do anything to help her. I’m just going to sit there and watch her going through whatever turmoil. That’s not the way I am. I may gossip and make fun of people and all that, but I am not the kind of person she’s describing. She’s not my little slave, in or out of the bedroom, much less in. True, I ask her to get me things, yes, when she’s at my house and I’m too damn lazy to get it myself, whatever it is I want, but I don’t have her going all around the house all day, serving me. No. I’m not going to let her make everyone think that I am someone I’m not and I do things that I really don’t.”
“But you do admit that you are a shit talker,” Kylie said.
“I gossip, but I don’t talk shit. I don’t tell people lies about other people. Everything I help spread around is 100% true.”
“Even when you say that our relationship’s a sham and it’ll end as quickly as it started,” Annalia added.
“Yes, even that…”
Everyone cut him off with their hysterical laughs.
“But that’s because this is what I believe!” he screamed. “I don’t think this, ‘relationship’,” he did the quotes around the last word with his fingers, “is going anywhere, and that’s what I say to everybody. I voice my opinion and I don’t give a flying pig if they agree with me or not. It’s just my opinion. Prove me wrong and stop defending what I deem something that should not be defended right now. I admit I gossip much more than girls do.”
Although it wouldn’t sound funny to every person that would ever hear it, they laughed hard at that one, too.
“Yes, I admit it. I admit that I talk too much.” He said this simulating a talking mouth with his right hand. “And I admit that I am nosy as hell and I love getting into other people’s business, but I never make up stuff and then spread it around like vermin and I never spread something around unless I see irrefutable evidence that it’s true, ok? So give me some credit.”
“That’s smooth, Alex,” commented Carmen, “real smooth.”
“Yes, Carmen, it is. I think it is. I was going to show my true colors to these two eventually and to everyone that doesn’t know me as well as they think they do—after breaking them up.”
“Why, instead of letting time fly by and wait for something to go wrong, and for them to break up as a result, and then laugh in their faces and saying, ‘See? I told you it would never work…’ why were you trying to break them up? How does it affect you that they’re together? Perhaps they are meant for each other, and will be in the end of all this, and you would’ve destroyed a great love between two fabulous people!” Paula retorted. “Don’t you care about that? I mean, Alex,” she gave an angry laugh, like a scoff, “I don’t know how many relationships or flings you’ve had because unlike you I don’t get into other people’s business. Living my own life is hard for me, so why try to live everyone else’s lives, even the life of only one other person? But think about this…how would you feel if you had a great relationship, if you thought you’ve found the one, and then someone comes and tries to break you up, taking the love of your life from you forever, and then after everything’s over, you found out that she was the love of your life? What would you do? Wouldn’t you feel hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, so how…?”
“But you see, Paula, I am too young to see life that way. I am going to enjoy my life, not by sleeping around, like most men my age do, twenty-two, but by doing what I want.”
“…And destroying people’s lives,” Donovan added.
“No, Donovan, I don’t think I ruin lives.”
“I think so.”
“But I don’t! You know why, Donovan, dear? Because if you don’t want people to know, then don’t do it.”
“You think it’s as simple as that.”
“I heard that from a Latino guy, translated into Spanish, and that’s the motto I live by now, sir, and yes, I do think and will always think it’s as simple as that.”
“…Until you make a mistake that will ruin your life forever even if only one person found out about it, like committing a crime.” Donovan started a tragic story narrative that could happen to anyone in real life. “Say you enamor a girl and when you are about to do the deed, she says no. You have sex with her anyway, despite her pleas and screams. The morning after or whenever it’s done, you realize you’ve raped someone. You have to find a way to silence your victim or everyone will find out. It will ruin your life. You go to jail. Would you still think that if you don’t want people to know something terrible you’ve done, then simply don’t do it? Would you still believe that and live by that, and keep unearthing people’s darkest secrets?”
“If I did something like that, you know how everyone would know? Everyone would find out after I went to the police station and turned myself in, because I know better than that. I’m not saying I wouldn’t commit a crime if I lost control of myself or common sense, just not that. That is…despicable, just don’t use that example, all right? Don’t even make up a story about that using me as the main character and villain of said story. That’s not right.”
“All right, Alex, I realize I went too far with my example. I am sorry. But you don’t deny that if you were desperate enough and just out of your mind enough, you’d steal or you would murder someone, and upon knowing what you’ve done when you come back to your senses, you wouldn’t want anyone to find out, not even your very closest friend.”
“Yes, Donovan, I admit that. That’s common sense, isn’t it?”
“So if it makes perfect sense to you, why do you keep throwing people under the bus?”
Alex let his head down and reflected on his past misdeeds for a minute. Then, he reckoned that all this time, he was so, so wrong…and the last time he did this was this morning, as soon as he got to school. No one would do anything against him because he was the one through whom everyone could find out the most terrifying truths about students that seemed to be so sweet and non-threatening. Alex had unmasked so many people they all had to leave UCF and try to transfer the credits they’d earned there to another university or college. Some succeeded in doing that and some didn’t. They only had to thank Alex for their demise, and they would never forget him. Most of those people would be left without a career, but if they ever got to face him again, that day would be the last day of his life. They weren’t the kind of people to sit there and do nothing when they felt they’ve been wronged. None of the people who were the target of their revenge survived to tell the story. They were so callous that if revenge led to murder, they didn’t care. That son of a bitch just had to pay for what he did, no matter what it took. The worst of all this was that these demons in the flesh didn’t know their day was also coming, for some, sooner than expected. They wouldn’t have many years ahead of them to continue to do evil things to innocent people. Alex was innocent too in a way. Showing people the true colors of other people was not harm to those that were stripped. It was, as a matter of fact, the right thing to do. It was our duty as good people to expose liars, thieves, and murderers, or just plain old dirty, nasty hypocrites that frankly, society didn’t need, according to Alex and according to most people in this world, people who used common sense at all times and were sane, and knew where they were and what they were doing. Those that had no empathy for anyone or were sociopaths felt differently. Some of them didn’t have five years to live. Some of them didn’t have five months. Two of these men and women didn’t even have five days. They were destined to die the way they deserved, and no one in the world could keep that from happening.
* * * *
Alex was in his room, crying. He was depressed, just for a moment, but even if the sadness went away, he wouldn’t change his mind for the third time about what he’d just experienced. From now on, he would only worry about him and ignore everybody else. If he caught a young couple cheating on each one of their significant others like he’d done a million times, he would pass them by and forget about the whole thing. He didn’t know that he wouldn’t be minding his own business for long. In the near future, he would change his mind again and become a private investigator, and then, he wouldn’t turn back again. This earned him great money and gave him a chance to do what he loved the most, unmasking hypocrites.
The phone rang in his dorm. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, or until tomorrow even, but he had to answer this call. What if it was something important? His parents and siblings were fine at home, but what if something horrible had happened to Langston, the only family member who was going through a rough time right now, his cousin, whom he loved like an older brother, thus he was the oldest sibling in his immediate family, whom he loved playing and hanging out with more than anybody else, the boy that had taught him so many great things that would serve him as life lessons, before he literally went bad? “Hello, Alexander Bell?” Only his family and friends would call him Alex, but when saying or giving a first and last name, he’d go by Alexander Bell to avoid confusion with his true first and last name.
“Hello, Alex.” Langston was the only one that called him Alex. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Question is, how are you doing?”
“Ah, we’re not sharing my grave vexation, but you’re not ‘fine’. I can hear it in your voice, it’s kind of broken, and your tone…”
“Fine, I am not fine, but we’ll get back to my problem later. How are you?”
“Alex…”
“It’s not a drug or sex problem. That’s all I am going to tell you for now so that you don’t freak out imagining the millions of possibilities. Answer my question, Langston, damn it!”
“Every day I’m getting better, and I hope it keeps going this way for me because I’ve been doing so well that I am going to get released from rehab early, and I won’t have to go to a psychiatric hospital afterwards. Can you believe it? They actually trust me to stay on the right track!”
“Weren’t you like way out there, Langston?”
“No, I wasn’t. Turns out all I had was severe, but not chronic depression, thank God. I am still depressed because you can’t get over pain you’ve endured for years in a couple of months. It’s just impossible.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’m getting there. I am coming around.”
“So how much earlier are you going to get released? Heard it would be three to six months depending on how you would respond to the treatment.”
“As much earlier as—tomorrow.”
Alex screamed, “Oh, my God, are you serious?”
Overhearing the conversation from behind the door, Olivia, his girlfriend, assumed it was bad news, and opened the door without warning or permission. Then she stormed into the room, closed the door behind her, as Alex heard her coming in, and then sat in front of him on his comfortable computer-desk chair.
“Yes,” Langston said, with a bright smile on his face, “I am. My prayers have been answered. That means that after all I have done, God Almighty still loves me.”
“God will never leave us or forsake us. Remember that. Besides you’ve never blasphemed. I know that for a fact, so when it comes to how it is between you and Him, all is a-ok.”
“Thanks for the reassurance, man. You don’t know how good that makes me feel.”
“Hey, he answers your prayers giving you exactly what you want. You must be pretty special because, I don’t know if you know this, but in reality, God answers all our prayers, just not the way that we want most of the time. He doesn’t always give us what he want. Sometimes he gives us the exact opposite and sometimes he sends us a sign, a message.”
“I thought our prayers were only answered when we got what we wanted.”
“Not uh.”
“You know a lot more about this than I do, Alex.”
“I read the Bible every day, not all day and all night long like some people do, but I do read it, especially when I don’t understand something that happened, you know, the reason why someone told me something that shook me to the core, like today.”
“Who told you what, and what made it that bad?”
“First the person reproached me for everything I’d done and then he asked me if I would keep secret something horrible that I did, like killing someone in a fit of rage or a moment of madness, or stealing something when I really need it and I don’t have money to buy it at the moment. I said yes. He said that if I felt that way, why wouldn’t I just let people be and let them deal with the aftermath of each of their wrongdoings and stop being some kind of watchdog. I mean I am saying it in my own words, but the words mean the same thing to you, right, just the way that I interpreted them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I read the Bible today because I was wondering why this person…?”
“Tell me who it is and what drove him or her to say these things to you.”
“I don’t want to cause problems between you and that person.”
“You mean it’s someone I know? Oh, now I want to know who it is even more, and if you don’t tell me everything, I won’t give you candy.”