Chapter 8
Just when Alex and Langston had canceled their plan with Andrew and Tatiana because they didn’t want to hurt anyone, and they would find some other way to get Tatiana off Alex’s back, Andrew went to the restaurant that Tatiana worked at to get some breakfast. Tatiana had been fired from her job as a secretary because she was caught talking on the phone with a man, telling him indecent things that she wanted them to do together, and her boss, Attorney Nancy Handler, couldn’t handle such behavior. She was doing it in front of a client that was waiting for Attorney Handler to attend to her, and the client brought her eight-year-old-son with her, who had never received child-support from her father, and the woman, Sharon Berkley wanted to see if there was a way to force this deadbeat dad to pay up. Nancy Handler specialized in family-related cases, and she was known for not losing one case in her entire twenty-five-year-long career, and she’d tracked down so many deadbeat dads that men in this town and in the entire state of Florida were scared to death of her. That happened two weeks before, and as always, an irresponsible father was no match for Attorney Handler. She didn’t stop until she tracked him down, and now he had to pay one thousand dollars of child-support every month from now on and retroactive child support, at one thousand dollars a month, for eight years. That was a total of ninety-six thousand dollars, and he would have to come up with that money quick. That wasn’t a problem because he was a computer technician and he would earn up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. He worked for everyone in town and one job could make him up to four thousand dollars in one day. He just wouldn’t earn four thousand dollars every single day because most of his jobs were economical. They involved anything from removing malware to replacing hardware to fixing laptops that had come apart because of an accident, and putting a laptop back together was one of the most expensive jobs, as well as replacing all of the hardware in a computer, a job that Cameron had recently done. The reason why he would make loads of money was because he would do up to five jobs every single day. Every job and the money he’d made for that job would be written down on a piece of paper for when tax time came, and he had copies of all the receipts. Cameron received notification of the court’s decision today, and his little world would come crashing down in the blink of an eye. He was a good guy, relatively. His only defect was his inability to take responsibility for what was his. Fortunately, Courtney was Cameron’s only child. He was already screwed up enough as it was.
That morning, Andrew called the waitress over, Tatiana, and when she came over with the little writing pad for the order, he asked for a sandwich made of sausage and egg, a big one, hash browns on the side, coffee, and orange juice to drink. This was one of the most famous restaurants in America, part of one of the most prestigious restaurant chains. Tatiana couldn’t stop looking directly at Andrew while she took his order. When he finished ordering, he looked back at her, stunned, thinking he’d offended her somehow. Smiling politely, he asked, “Did I say or do something wrong?”
“No, you didn’t. You’re a gentleman. It’s just…” She’d learned a lesson after being fired for her naughty behavior. “I don’t know how to say this without being disrespectful. You’re very handsome.”
“Why, thank you! That wasn’t disrespectful at all. In fact, you’ve made my day because although I’ve heard this said in a thousand different ways that were very vulgar and disrespectful, I’d never heard it said so beautifully by such a stunning woman like you.”
She smiled. “Thanks. Your order will be here shortly.” She walked away, still with that smile in her face, the smile of a teenage girl that has fallen in love for the very first time, and then she gave the order to the cooks. “Give him some pancakes on the side,” she told the cooks, “and tell the boss to deduct that from my check.”
“Wow,” commented Lee, one of the cooks. “You really like this customer, don’t you?”
Blushing, she said, “Don’t ask questions. Just do it,” and walked away from there to attend to the next customer.
Fifteen minutes later, Andrew’s order was brought to his table with a little something extra. Surprised with Tatiana’s honesty, her boss heard about what happened and refused to take the money of those pancakes from her paycheck this month and he didn’t make Andrew pay for them either because he didn’t order them. Andrew was told that the pancakes were on the house, and although he didn’t expect this to happen ever again, he was impressed. He took the waitress’ breath away. Tatiana got so distracted that on her way to the restroom, her name tag fell from where it was a little above her breast. When she finished doing her business in the bathroom, she found her name tag on the floor right by the door, picked it up, put it back on, and walked out of the restroom, and went back to work.
Andrew enjoyed his breakfast, but even though he was satisfied and happy, he called the waitress over again. Thinking he wanted something more to eat, and that he was a bottomless pit despite being so muscular and having a six pack, and having only the body fat his skin needed to stay healthy, Tatiana went over to him. “I see you finished your breakfast. I thought there was something you didn’t like when you called me over and we would have to make it again, although we gladly do, every time a customer is not satisfied with his food. Do you want more?” She was stunned.
“No, I am like one more plain-old ham and cheese sandwich made of two slices of bread, from being full. I just want your phone number.”
“My phone number?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” She wrote her number down in her writing pad, tore off the page and handed it to him. Fortunately nobody saw that. They were too busy calling out other waiters and waitresses to make an order, messing with their net books and smart phones, or eating. Minutes later, Andrew shook her hand and walked out of the restaurant.
For the rest of the day, at work as the vice president of his father’s company, Andrew couldn’t stop thinking about Tatiana. Andrew wrote poetry for a hobby, but none of his poems would be erotic. They would always focused on how he felt when he saw something he liked, when he saw something he didn’t like, when something was eating him and he just had to write it down, and most importantly, when he was in love. The only body parts of a woman that he would describe were her face, her smile and her hands, and it would all be so romantic. Whoever would read this poems would either fall in love, melt, or feel unbelievably depressed for a few moments because in most poems, Andrew would describe in minute detail things that he was upset about and explain why he felt that way. These poems would eventually be published in book form, and the title of the book would be Emotions and consist of over 1,000 poems. In the meantime, Andrew would keep writing poetry without knowing that he would later want to publish this collection of poems, or rewrite those poems in journal form to turn that book into a memoir. Yep, now that he thought about it, that’s what he would do when it was time to publish these emotions. He was taking some of his lunch time to write a poem about Tatiana Gonzalez, his first, but it wouldn’t be the last, and there would be many more to come.
Alex decided not to meet Andrew in person because when the bomb would blow up in everybody’s faces, Alex would be the one that Tatiana would suspect was responsible for this mess, and her revenge wouldn’t be pretty. It would be relentless and she wouldn’t stop until she destroyed him for using another man to break her heart, now that he was way too weak to do that on his own. Meanwhile, Langston also decided to cut ties with Andrew, but Andrew wouldn’t let him do that because they’d been friends for too long. Nonetheless Tatiana would think nothing of Langston. Langston would have no reason to hurt her. He hadn’t even met her because he wasn’t interested in meeting her. He didn’t like girls who would corrupt innocent guys or guys who would corrupt innocent girls. He knew that people had to lose their virginity somehow, but when the person taking the other person’s virginity was much older and more experienced, Langston hated that. Alex was eighteen years old when he got together with Tatiana for the first time. No problem. Alex was an adult. The problem was that at the time, Tatiana was twenty-five, and she wasn’t known for being committed with a man, and famous for having had many one-night stands. Langston just knew that Tatiana wasn’t right for Alex, although Alex was head over heels in love with her. Langston thought that Alex deserved someone better, a woman who would at least have the ability to commit to the man that she claimed to love, a woman who would take a man like Alex seriously. There were plenty of women like that out there, and Alex found one of them, Olivia, but his relationship was still threatened. Alex was still beating himself up, trying to figure out how to get Tatiana out of the way. He had no idea that fate was a step ahead from him. Andrew and Tatiana had already met and fallen in love at first sight, and he and his friends had nothing to do with that. It was something that was meant to happen, that no one could do anything to stop. It was written in the books of Tatiana and Andrew’s lives. Now, the path to Tatiana’s destruction or eternal happiness had just begun. What would happen from here on out depended solely on her.
Ivan was in his space, giving physical therapy to one of his patients. When he bent her leg as he would always do, she screamed out in pain. He thought he was hurting her. “I’m so, so sorry!” He felt so bad he could cry.
“No, it doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she said, between heavy breaths. “It was my sister.”
“Your sister? What did your sister do to you?”
“She keeps hitting me in the legs with any hard object she can find, like broomsticks, baseball bats…I don’t know what her problem is because we’ve always gotten along and she never hurt me, even in my feelings, but her behavior is bizarre, and horrifying. I think she needs professional help. Something’s wrong. For no reason she just hits me, in my extremities mostly, where it hurts the most. She hasn’t hit me in the head because she knows she would cause further brain damage or kill me, but damn…I didn’t want to tell anyone anything about this, but I’m afraid if this doesn’t stop, my condition’s going to get worse.”
“You have cerebral palsy, just like I do, but yours is more serious than mine, and the older you get, the weaker and more delicate you become. I mean it doesn’t mean that people can’t touch you or hug you, just that you can’t be physically abused. You can’t recover from it the way other people do. She’s going to kill you. You know something? I’m calling the police.” He got up to go to his office and call the police, but she stopped him by grabbing him by the leg.
“Wait. I can’t do anything against her because she’s my legal guardian?”
“So?” he said and made her let go. “Legal guardians are just like parents. You know that parents can’t abuse their children. The moment that the Department of Children and Families finds out, they take those kids away. Legal guardianship is not any different. The moment your guardian abuses or neglects you, you are taken away from him or her, forever, and she can’t even have contact with you anymore. She can’t see you again. Do you understand me? It doesn’t matter if you’re sisters. She can’t have a relationship with you ever again. I think you’ve stayed silent way too long. I’ve been hiding it from you but this is not the first time I noticed something wrong. Every time I move one of your extremities, you complain. You don’t scream the way you did just now, but you complain. Don’t think I can’t hear you because I have very good hearing. Believe it or not, I can hear people whispering things to each other, from a distance, if I am standing there.”
“Ok.”
“I have to report her because if I don’t, I could lose my license and I could lose everything because by not saying anything, I am becoming her accomplice. This is a crime, Nicole, just like murder, just like rape, and just like theft. People who know and say nothing are accomplices. Even if I weren’t a healthcare professional, it is my duty to report this. Even Jane Doe can report this, because otherwise, it will be just like she were participating in this abuse. Do you understand me? That’s what an accomplice is. Both the person who commits the crime and the person who keeps their mouth shut are just as guilty.” He went into his office and shut the door to make the call.
Just then, Aubrey, Nicole’s second sister, Nicole being the youngest, walked in. “What’s going on?” she said walking toward her sister and then she got on her knees. She had to pick her up from her therapy session early because Nicole had an appointment with her physician. Blood tests needed to be performed on her and he needed to know how she was doing. It was an emergency appointment because Dr. Hamilton hadn’t seen Nicole in eight months. Her follow up appointment was supposed to be two months before today and Ashley just didn’t feel like taking Nicole to her appointment. Without the denunciation that Ivan was making, Nicole was in big enough trouble already, and the court that awarded Ashley guardianship of Nicole, that judge would hear about this, and he would be extremely angry. Just failing to take Nicole to her appointment was neglect. If Ashley had had a last-minute complication, she should’ve rescheduled the appointment and the doctor would’ve seen Nicole three business days to one week later, but she didn’t even bother. Ashley could’ve cared less about her sister, but that would cost her everything, her freedom, and ultimately, her life.
Nicole asked her sister, “Haven’t you noticed the bruises in my arms and legs? She hits me.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Ever since she got my legal guardianship.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess she’s on drugs or something.”
“She’s going to deal with me.”
“Aubrey, don’t, please…”
“I’m going to kick her ass!” she screamed. “I’m going to show her how it feels.”
Ivan came back out. The police would go over to Ashley, Aubrey, and Nicole’s house to investigate the situation. No one knew that Ashley was perfectly healthy. She wasn’t under the influence of any legal or illegal drugs. She was doing this because she was heartless, because she had always secretly abhorred Nicole, because of the three orphaned sisters, Nicole and Aubrey would always get what they wanted no matter how outrageous or expensive, and since Ashley was always the black sheep of her family, she would never do anything to deserve anything from her parents. She would disrespect them, she would abuse them physically, they would send her to foster homes constantly and then she’d beg them for another chance, they’d allow her back into their home, and this was a Russian roulette that seemed would never stop, until Aubrey and Dalton Ward died, at the hands of their daughter, Ashley Ward. Ashley poisoned them both with arsenic one night, putting it in their dinner, but the dosage was so high that the poison killed them in one blow. They died a horrible death, and Ashley was going crazy because ever since her parents died, they wouldn’t leave her alone. Every night she would dream about them trying to kill her with their own hands and wake up so frightened that her heart was pounding, and she had to wait over a half an hour to calm down and be able to get up. She suffered from SUNDS, a condition that would soon kill her, not before she suffered the consequences of her evil and unjustified actions. Ashley’s reign of terror would stop today.
“What happened?” Ivan asked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Ivan, you did nothing wrong. Quite the contrary, you’ve been wonderful to my sister. She says that you’re the only man she’s ever trusted besides our father, and you know our father’s gone.”
Nicole looked at Aubrey, stunned. She didn’t mind Aubrey telling him this, thus he would know eventually, one way or the other, but she was surprised. Although Aubrey treated her with respect, Nicole had always thought that Aubrey didn’t really want her to be happy, that deep down, she hated her just as much as Ashley, and that the only reason why she wouldn’t abuse Nicole, not even verbally or psychologically, was because she knew how much weaker Nicole was than her, and Aubrey would never abuse the defenseless. She always had compassion for them. Today, Nicole discovered that she was wrong about Aubrey. Aubrey loved her more than anything in this world. It was just that Aubrey would never tell people the way she felt about them. She preferred to show them, whether it was love or hate, because to Aubrey, actions were everything and words were absolutely nothing. She’d been lied to and betrayed so many times, even when she was very little, by her own family, that she no longer believe in expressing her feelings to people. What was the use? It was better to show them that she meant it than it was to say it without meaning it.
“I just came to pick her up because she has an emergency appointment with the doctor. The doctor is waiting for her as we speak. He cancelled all his other appointments and he won’t leave his office till he sees Nicole.”
“Oh, my God,” he said, looking at Nicole, “Nikki, what’s wrong?” He got on his knees again. “Why has the doctor gone to these extremes?”
“My sister had an appointment with him, a follow up appointment, nine weeks ago, and Ashley didn’t take her because she didn’t feel like it, because, she gestured the quotes around her words with her fingers, ‘Nicole wasn’t going to die for missing a stupid appointment, and Ashley had more important things to do’. I hate my sister. She’s a bitch, a whore, and I want to punch her out so bad…”
“Aubrey…!”
“I know you love her and you still have a soft spot for her because she’s your sister, but this is just too much! The whore has got to be stopped! She’s gone too damn far!” Aubrey looked at the bruises on and under her thighs and her legs. “Oh, my God, Nicole, how could you hide this from me?”
“I didn’t want you and Ashley fighting. She’s aggressive. She could kill you.”
“Oh, with all due respect, I’m not you, honey. I can defend myself extremely well, and I am much stronger than her. She’s afraid of me. I slapped her silly the other day for talking shit and she trembled, fell on the floor, and pissed her pants, literally. Then, she said, ‘I’m going to get you for this’, and I said, ‘What you’re going to poison me like you did Mom and Dad? You try, bitch, just try’.”
Ivan gasped and placed both hands on his face to hide his tears.
“You know what really happened to our parents?” Nicole screamed.
“Yes, I do. Of course I do. I haven’t told anyone anything because I don’t have proof, and I don’t think proof will ever be gathered. It would be my word against hers and our Dear Ashley’s always had a way with people. You know that, well, she can and always could manipulate everyone except Mom and Dad. That’s another of many reasons why she killed them but she ain’t killing me. I’ll kill her first and dance, laugh and sing all the way to jail, and keep dancing, laughing and singing all throughout the ninety-nine years of my sentence.”
Ivan and Nicole stared at her, stunned. They’d never heard anyone talk like this about going to jail before. Most people that were on their right minds were scared to death of jail and they would do anything to stay out of there no matter what kind of crime they’d committed, but Aubrey despised her older sister so much that she would be thrilled to go to jail for killing her sister and stay thrilled all throughout her life sentence, like she said. And the worst of all this was that Aubrey was on her right mind. Her hatred for her sister was just too intense, just too uncontrollable. They didn’t say anything to her after that. They didn’t blame her. Ivan’s brother, Emmanuel was a good man, but if Emmanuel had turned out like Aubrey, Ivan wouldn’t talk about killing him. He would’ve already killed him a long, long time ago.
Hours later, Dr. Hamilton was checking out and documenting with his old-fashioned camera, in which photos couldn’t be altered unless they were scanned into a computer and altered in the computer. After taking twenty photos of her different injuries, he handed them over to the police officers that went all the way to his office to investigate given the graveness of this case. Since it was a doctor who had taken the photos, there was no doubt that this proof of the crime was as real as the world itself. Within minutes, Ashley was arrested for physical abuse and negligence and taken to jail. She couldn’t handle it. She went crazy as soon as she arrived to the county jail. She had a bond of five thousand dollars, her aunt paid it, and she was released, but she was ordered not to have contact with either one of her sisters ever again. She was really sorry for everything she’d done, but she doubted that this ordinance would ever be lifted. She was depressed and because she couldn’t sleep, thus every time she tried to, she would have a horrible nightmare about her parents, she wanted to kill herself. She would leave her sisters alone in a while, but eventually, she would fight the courts to have the right to have a relationship with her sisters again. She would prove to the world that she changed, and then time would tell if she would be able to get back what was left of her family. She also felt that during all this time she’d been locked up, hours that seemed like years, she’d paid for what she did to her parents because the girls there would beat her up just for looking at them and they would humiliate her by pouring their food on her. The first thing she did when she got to her aunt’s house was sit with her aunt at the dining room, drink coffee and discuss the latest events in her life. Aunt Aurora noticed that Ashley just wasn’t the same. She was willing to make a change in her life. Ashley had never even attempted to apologize for anything. Before now, Ashley’s only virtue was being honest at all times and not saying something unless she meant it and felt it with all her heart. When Ashley looked Aurora in the eyes for the very first time since she walked in the door, after she rode in her car with her and everything, Aurora noticed that the normal brightness in human eyes was gone in Ashley’s eyes, and even her beautiful bright-green irises looked dark, like she was dying. After a long conversation the two women hugged and didn’t let go of one another, crying in each other’s shoulders, for hours. Ashley was amazed that despite everything that she had done, Aunt Aurora was the only one that supported her and still loved her like a daughter, even knowing that Ashley had killed her brother in law and her beloved sister, Aubrey. Aurora was convinced that Ashley killed her parents because she had serious emotional problems, and because, since she was little, she would have something important to say and her parents would brush her off. She was a big girl. She could take care of herself and deal with her problems of everyday life, unless she got sick or someone in the family or in school would do something horrible to her. Ashley would feel sad, come home to her parents for some comfort, and they would tell her to grow up and stop crying, while they took their time to listen to and comfort their younger daughters. Ashley was eight years older than Aubrey and ten years older than Nicole. Nicole was twenty-one and Aubrey was twenty-three. Aubrey had just divorced her husband after finding out that he was cheating on her with a woman in her fifties since the beginning of her marriage, but sadly, Aubrey was pregnant with her first child, a child she would name Nicole Renee, Nicole after her sister and Renee after her best friend. Maury, Nicole’s husband, wasn’t as horrible a guy as everyone thought. Yes, Aubrey was unbelievably beautiful and dazzling, and a woman who would do anything to keep her man happy except degrade herself in any way, because luckily, Maury didn’t enjoy any sexual behaviors that were considered bizarre by most, acts that were humiliating to women, just good old sex, but Maury had always had a thing for older women, and preferred them over younger women, much, much older women, fifty being the youngest, sixty-five being the oldest. No matter how hard he tried to get over that and be happy with Aubrey, he couldn’t do it. It was awkward because Maury was only twenty-four years old. Nevertheless, Maury was willing to take care of his child and support her. He wasn’t a deadbeat father and he would take care of what was his, very well. He knew that he was Aubrey’s only sex partner. She’d been with him since she was nineteen, and they married when she was twenty, but despite trying to have babies, she couldn’t get pregnant until now, for some reason, the worst-possible time. Nicole was following her sister’s footsteps and waiting for the man of her life. She knew that despite her physical disability, she could attract lots of men. In fact, every time she passed by, men would ignore her power chair and see her like she was walking, and with all the treatment she was getting, she would walk soon, for the first time, and for the rest of her life. She just needed to know how to use her nerves and her legs. She’d only used them to transfer from one place to another, and her legs were weak, before she started getting therapy and she’d been receiving therapy for six months. With every therapy session, her arms and legs would become stronger, and every time that Ivan persuaded Nicole to do her walking exercises, she would, and she was learning how to use her legs, how to walk, so now, it didn’t feel as awkward anymore. She thought that someday she’d be able to walk on her own. She would just need one operation, to help her legs bend and stretch all the way, and she would be able to walk much better than she did now. She had balance, great balance, but her legs were too weak to walk through a room. She could stand up and stay standing up, but only for a fe