“Fuck you very much, Benny,” Leo mutters over his shoulder, giving Benjamin the finger as he starts to leave.
I finally pull my head out of my ass, stop laughing, and lunge after Leo, grabbing his arm again, tugging him to a stop and making him turn around to look at me.
“You, aren’t going anywhere,” I inform him, still clutching tightly to his arm as I look back at Benjamin. “And YOU are a fucking idiot! We are not engaged, there isn’t any wedding, and you need to get that through your head before I ram it in there with a two-by-four!”
Benjamin’s face falls and as I stand here looking at him in his three-piece suit and slicked back hair, I wonder what in the hell I ever saw in him. He’s a pansy-ass idiot, and I can’t believe I never realized just how stupid he was.
“But, mother already booked the country club! It’s a fantabulous location for a wedding and I can’t just have her cancel it,” he whines.
“For the love of God, stop using that word. You sound like a douchebag,” Bettie complains, coming into the hallway with Emma Jo on her heels.
“We heard loud voices and came down to see what was going on,” Emma Jo explains, looking nervously around the room and the tension flying through the air.
Leo tries to turn away and pull his arm out of my hand again, but I refuse to let go. Quickly moving around to stand right in front of him, I drop my hold on his arm long enough to grab fistfuls of his t-shirt and pull him down so he’s forced to look at me.
“Benjamin and I broke up before I came back to Bald Knob. He proposed, I said no and ended things, and I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over a month. We aren’t engaged, we aren’t planning a wedding, and I wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on Earth, standing on a deserted island holding the last cup of coffee,” I explain.
“That cuts me deep, Babykins. Really deep,” Benjamin sighs.
“Shut the hell up before I punch you in the neck,” Bettie threatens. “Get your ass back in the kitchen and stay there until we tell you to come out.”
Benjamin does as he’s told, knowing better than to mess with Bettie first thing in the morning before she’s had a chance to cuddle up with Baby Cecil.
When he disappears from the hallway, Leo’s face finally starts to soften and not look so homicidal anymore. I move in closer to him right as his cell phone rings. I take a step back, moving over by Bettie and Emma Jo to give him a little privacy, even though we can hear everything he says.
“Hey, Buddy, what’s going on?” Leo speaks into the phone, keeping his eyes glued to mine. “Really, the M.E. got the report to us already? Right. Yeah. Something in a triangular shape, narrow at the top, and then tapering out?”
My mouth suddenly goes dry and Bettie whispers a curse under her breath next to me. While Leo continues to listen to Buddy talk, his eyes slowly move away from mine and go right to the side table that he’s standing next to.
“And he’s sure it was something in the shape of a triangle? Something with a point on one end?” Leo asks, staring at the empty table for a few more seconds before his eyes come back to mine.
As hard as I try to not look guilty, it just makes me think about it so much that I start doing everything that will point the blame right at me. I bite my lip, I wring my sweaty hands together, I fidget with my hair, and I bounce nervously from one foot to the other until Bettie finally has to put an arm around me to keep me still.
Leo finally ends the call, his eyes never leaving mine as he slides the phone in his back pocket and stands by the door silently. I can feel his disappointment and hurt like a physical punch to the chest and it almost makes me bend over at the waist, clutching my heart.
“Alright, fine, I admit it! I killed Jed with the stupid award that was on that table,” Emma Jo suddenly announces.
My head whips around to her and I stare at her with wide, horrified eyes until she gives me a tiny, barely visible wink and I realize what she’s doing. She’s trying to cover my ass with Leo and there’s no way in hell I’m letting her do that.
“Shut up, no you didn’t. I’m the one who killed Jed. I lost my shit in a blind fit of rage and stabbed him in the back of the head with the award,” I proclaim, smiling at Emma Jo when she narrows her eyes at me.
“No you didn’t! I killed him and that’s final!” she shouts.
“You did not! Stop trying to take his murder away from me!” I argue.
“I killed him and then I buried the award back in the woods where no one will find it, so THERE!” she screams at me.
“Oh, yeah? Well, I killed him and then tossed it into Bald Knob Lake where no one will find it, so HA!”
We go back and forth for several minutes until Bettie finally throws her hands up in the air and steps between us.
“For fuck’s sake. I’M the one who killed Jed. I actually got into town earlier than everyone thought just for that reason. Bettie Lake did it, in the backyard, with a major award,” Bettie says, like she’s reading a card from the game Clue.
“ALL OF YOU NEED TO STOP TALKING RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!” Leo suddenly shouts, causing all three of us to shut our mouths and look over at him.
His eye is doing that weird twitching thing again, and now I’m worried this is the thing that will officially throw him over the edge and give him an aneurism.
“Bettie, take Emma Jo and go sit your asses down in the living room. Payton, get your ass outside with me. NOW,” he orders, pointing to the door with his nostrils flaring.
“What should I do?” Benjamin asks, poking his head out from the kitchen.
“SHUT THE HELL UP!” all four of us shout at him in unison.
Benjamin scurries back into the kitchen, Bettie and Emma Jo go into the living room, and I follow behind Leo as he marches out the door and stomps down the steps. He stops when he gets to the middle of the front yard and turns to face me.
“You have one last chance. What is going on and what are you not telling me?”
I take a minute to think about everything that happened today and over the last couple of days. I think about the fact that if that murder weapon turns up, I don’t have an alibi for the night Jed was killed because I was passed out face-down on Emma Jo’s living room floor. And then my brain kicks into high gear and I realize, Emma Jo doesn’t have an alibi either. Hypothetically, I could have grabbed the award from the table, snuck outside in the middle of the night, and killed Jed without Emma Jo ever knowing because she was upstairs asleep. And the same goes for her. She could have just as easily done the same thing and I never would have realized she’d been out of the house.
My heart drops and my stomach plunges to my toes. Right when everything is finally all out in the open with Leo, I’m standing here in front of him while he waits for me to admit I don’t have any more secrets, wondering if my best friend could have been the one responsible for this whole mess. I can’t bring myself to tell him this, no matter how much it will kill me not to. I can’t hurt Emma Jo like that. I can’t put that seed of doubt in Leo’s mind and force him to investigate her. I won’t do that to her.
“At least answer this,” Leo finally speaks when he realizes I’m not going to. “Were you really never engaged to that jackass, and did you really not spend the last week while you were here with me planning your wedding?”
I let out the breath I was holding when he asks me something a hell of a lot easier than what I thought he would.
“I swear on Baby Cecil’s life, I was never engaged to Benjamin, and I’d rather shove a rusty fork in my eye and live without coffee forever than plan a wedding with him,” I reply.
Leo sighs with relief and I’m so happy the conversation has moved away from murderers that I continue talking without thinking. Something I should never be allowed to do and honestly, I don’t understand why someone hasn’t assigned me an adult so I can be supervised at all times.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Benjamin, but honestly, I didn’t see the point. We broke up before I came home, a
nd it’s not like this thing is serious and we need to tell each other about every person we’ve ever dated before,” I say with a nervous laugh, remembering the whole ‘falling in love with you’ thing he said inside all over again and suddenly feeling like someone is choking me.
Leo is dangerously quiet for a few seconds, and I quickly realize I should have just kept my mouth shut because every time I open it around him, I seem to say something stupider than the last time.
“Who said what we have isn’t serious?” he finally asks.
“Well, I mean, you never said it WAS serious, sooooo…,” I trail off, once again ignoring the falling in love with you thing because holy shit! I’m pretty sure my best friend might have killed her husband and all of these monumental things are happening all at once and I’m in a full-blown panic right now.
“I kind of thought I made myself clear when I said I was falling in love with you just a few minutes ago,” he replies. “I didn’t say it sooner because I knew it would freak you out.”
He gets right up in front of me, his body as close to mine as he can get without actually touching me, and I hold my breath for whatever he’s about to say next, knowing it’s probably going to ruin me all over again.
“I was serious the first time I saw you in that hospital room, even though you didn’t remember me. I was serious the first time you found out who I was and couldn’t stop picturing me naked.”
I want to roll my eyes, but my face is frozen in shock, so I stand here like a mute as he continues.
“I was serious the first time I kissed you, I was serious every time I covered for you and put my job on the line when I thought you might have known something about Jed’s death, and I was serious the first time I buried myself inside you and every single time after that. I’ve been serious this entire fucking time, so now it’s your turn. Are you going to freak out, or are you going to tell me you feel the exact same way?”
I can’t speak and I can’t stop the tears no matter how much I want to. I need to say something; I know I need to say something but I have no idea what the hell to say. I don’t know what to do and I don’t know how to make such a life-altering decision after a handful of days when my best friend might be going to prison. I know I should articulate all of this, but I can’t. I can’t do anything but stand here in front of him, ripping both of our hearts in half because I’m scared and I’m a coward.
“That’s what I thought. Have a nice life back in Chicago,” Leo mutters.
He turns and walks away from me, crossing the street to his car, and I just watch him go. I stand here in the middle of the yard and I let him go, knowing without a doubt that I am now officially and completely ruined.
CHAPTER 36
Coffee: A warm, delicious alternative to hating everybody every morning forever.
—Coffee Mug
“You have to get out of bed, this is very unhealthy,” Emma Jo complains, moving over to the window and opening the blinds.
“GAAAAAAAAAAH, CLOSE THEM, IT HURTS!” I scream, covering my hands over my eyes like a vampire being burned by the sun.
I feel like the undead right now, considering I’ve done nothing but curl up under the covers and cry for the last week. Okay, that’s not true. I got up a few times, once to take a shower and another time to go down, grab Baby Cecil and bring him up to bed with me.
“Also, this is a fire hazard,” Emma Jo scolds, moving Baby Cecil from the top of the bed to the nightstand, pushing aside the twenty or so dirty coffee cups that litter the surface.
“But he loves me unconditionally and never lets me down. I need him,” I whine, reaching for the machine as Emma Jo smacks my hand, unplugs it, and scoops it up into her arms instead.
“And if you want him, you’re going to have to come downstairs into the kitchen and drink your coffee like a normal person.”
I huff, pushing myself up to lean back against the headboard and cross my arms over my chest.
“You’re mean, and I don’t like you very much right now.”
“Yeah? Well I don’t like you very much right now either. What in the hell are you doing, Payton? If you’re so miserable without Leo, then talk to him,” she urges, tucking Baby Cecil under one arm as she sits down next to me on the side of the bed.
She grunts a little sound of pain and quickly gets back up, flinging back the covers and grabbing what she just sat down on.
“Why are you sleeping with a spindle from the headboard? Is this some kind of kinky sex toy? Oh, my God! Did you break this off and use it!” she shouts in horror, tossing it across the room where it hits the wall and falls to the ground.
“No, you sicko! I broke it when Leo and I were…when Leo was…” I can’t finish the sentence without crying and Emma Jo sighs, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry I broke your headboard. I promise I’ll buy you a new one.”
I swipe the tears off my cheeks and Emma Jo leans forward, putting Baby Cecil on the floor by her feet, sitting back up and turning to face me.
“I don’t care about the damn headboard, I care about you and what you’re doing to yourself. You let Leo walk away because you said you knew things would never work out and you pretended like it wasn’t serious, even though you knew damn well it was. You talk this big game about how you have a life back in Chicago and you can’t stay here, but yet, here you stay,” Emma Jo states.
“I stay because I’m waiting for all of this mess with Jed to get cleared up so I know you’re okay. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave,” I reply indignantly.
“Stop being such an asshole, it’s giving me a headache,” Bettie announces, walking into the room and making the bed bounce when she flops down on the other side of me on her stomach, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Strap on a set of balls or I’m not letting you drive by Leo’s house anymore.”
“You drove by Leo’s house like some crazy ex-girlfriend?!” Emma Jo exclaims in shock.
Okay, so I got out of bed and out of the house one other time in the last week…
“No! I didn’t drive by Leo’s house like a crazy ex-girlfriend!” I argue as Bettie and Emma Jo both frown at me. “I had Bettie do it while I hunkered down in the passenger seat, thank you very much.”
Emma Jo sighs, closes her eyes and shakes her head.
“It was a pathetic display and I was embarrassed to be a woman that day, but she bribed me with a fifteen percent raise, so what’s a girl to do?” Bettie asks Emma Jo with a shrug.
I feel like the biggest idiot on the planet, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I know what I did was wrong and I know I made the wrong decision, but I can’t take it back now. I can’t fix it, even if I knew how, which I don’t. After Leo left me standing in Emma Jo’s front yard and I finally managed to convince Benjamin to go back to Chicago and never contact me again, I stupidly thought Leo would call or text or come back by the house. I felt worse with every hour and day that passed when he didn’t do any of those things. I deserved his silence, but that doesn’t mean it hurt any less. I tried a hundred different times to pick up my phone and call him, but what the hell would I say? Everything I said is still true, nothing has changed. My life is in Chicago. I moved away from Bald Knob because I needed to get out of this small town where everyone knows your business and there aren’t any opportunities to grow or change or be anything other than a small town girl, living in a lonely world.
Shit. Now I’m using lyrics from a Journey song to justify my life. I’ve reached an all-time low.
Emma Jo leans over and pulls my arms away from my chest, holding my hands in hers.
“Leo called me last night,” she says softly, making my ears perk up and my heart beat double-time. “The mess with Jed is officially cleaned up. I don’t want you to go. I’ve loved every insane minute of having you back home and being your friend again, but it’s okay. If you need to go, you can go. I won’t stop you. I’ll be sad and I’ll miss you, but I won’t stop you if you feel like that’s what you need t
o do.”
I should feel some sort of relief at her words, but I don’t. I should be scrambling out of bed, grabbing my laptop and booking the first flight back to Chicago, but I can’t.
“What do you mean, the mess with Jed is officially cleaned up. What happened?” I ask, deciding to focus on this mess first, instead of trying to figure out why I’m not more excited to know I can finally go back to Chicago.
“Well, it looks like the medical examiner has officially ruled Jed’s death as an accident,” Bettie informs me.
“What? How is that possible?” I question in shock.
“There were a hundred and twenty-seven people who confessed to his murder at last count,” Emma Jo says, taking up where Bettie left off. “Too many confusing stories and confessions, no witnesses, no viable suspects, and no murder weapon equals case closed. Did you know we have a sprinkler system installed in the yard?”
I shake my head at Emma Jo’s question. She nods and continues.
“Yep. We had it put in about ten years ago. A couple of the spigots have pushed up out of the ground a little higher over the years. The medical examiner concluded that Jed must have tripped over something, landed on one of the spigots, managed to pulled himself off of it, and then bled to death in the yard.”
My jaw drops open and though the explanation seems plausible I guess, something just doesn’t feel right about it. There’s still something unaccounted for.
“What about the missing award from the front table?” I whisper.
Emma Jo squeezes my hand, but doesn’t say anything for a long while. Finally, she lets go of my hand, gets up from the bed and walks over to the window, staring out into the backyard.
“The first time he hit me, I was so shocked, I actually laughed,” she speaks softly with her back to me and Bettie. “I didn’t laugh the next time when he broke my nose and I couldn’t breathe from all the blood dripping back down into my throat. It became my reality, my way of life. Watch what I say, be careful of what I do, but even then I wasn’t guaranteed to walk away without a bruise or something broken, it all depended on his mood or which way the wind blew or something other stupid thing that had crawled up his ass. He kept doing it, because I kept letting him. I had no other choice, nowhere else to go. I didn’t have a job or my own money. I was a housewife. That’s all I’d ever known. I spent twelve years making up excuses for why I couldn’t attend certain functions or why there were marks and bruises on my body that make-up and clothing wouldn’t cover when I did leave the house. I made up excuses for the beatings, I made up excuses for him and I came up with a hundred different excuses for why I couldn’t leave.”