CARMEN“Jasper,” I cried out as I went for the second option I had after finding out that he had locked the door – I started to open my purse and reach for my phone. “Please, don’t do this.”“I’m not going to do anything to you,” he assured me, his voice dangerously low.In a bid to dial 9-1-1 on my phone, I made the mistake of letting my purse fall to the floor and took his attention to my hands to see what I was doing.“You’re not listening to me, Carmen!” He yelled, grabbing my phone from my hand and throwing it aside.He stepped away from me and raised his hands in the air to show me his gesture of surrender and harmlessness.“I said, I am not going to do anything to you. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again, walking even further back.“Open the door,” I requested, causing him to frown at my request.“We’re not done talking. We need to finish this right here and right now before any one of us walks out of this room,” he argued, and I nodded. “The first thing I need you to do
CARMEN“What?” I asked as Jasper stared at me after his command for me to call Kate and tell her what I had been doing with Dave.“You heard me, Carmen, but if you want me to tell you again, I want you to call Kate right in front of me and tell her what you have been doing behind her back with her husband, who happens to be your stepbrother,” he repeated.“Jasper, you know I cannot do that right now. It’s not my place. If anything, Dave should be the one who tells her about it,” I told him, my tone pleading.“Carmen, do you want to get a divorce?” he asked, sounding over and done with my words.“Why are you asking me that, Jasper? You just said you would want us to scrap everything and have us start all over again,” I reminded.“And I told you the one thing for you to do in order for that to happen,” he countered.“She deserves to hear it from the right person, Jasper—”“And what about me?!” he yelled, interrupting me. “Do you think I deserved to hear it from your mother? Why didn’t y
CARMEN“I’m coming back to the United States.”I didn’t know how to take the news. I couldn’t bring myself to think of what would happen the moment my parents set their eyes on each other again, and I had gotten used to my father being all the way in a different country, safe from whatever harm my mother had to inflict on him.“Why? I thought you would only come back after Steve is healed and everything,” I said as I wiped my tears.“That was the initial plan, but after Steve found out everything, I don’t think he can handle coming back here and seeing her after everything he knows. He wants her in prison before he comes back, and he wants his son fully protected as well as you, his stepdaughter.”I should have known that Steve would be completely shattered by the truth, but it had to be told to him. I imagined that it was better than dying without knowing that the person he trusted was the killer.“When do you think you can come?” I asked.“I was thinking of coming in five days, but
CARMENMy hands were still trembling when I found the file that I had been searching for, tucking it under my arm placing the diagnostics back where I had seen it.“Oh, my God,” I whispered as hot tears welled in my eyes and I made no attempt at blinking them back or even trying to cover up for it.“Oh, my God!” I repeated when I got into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. I took a picture of what my father had requested for and sent it to him before collecting myself into a ball on the floor as I stared into space.If Jasper had HIV, then I most definitely had it as well.“How the hell did he get something like that?!” I yelled, knowing that there was nobody around to hear me.I took my phone and started to research the causes of HIV in people as if I didn’t know most of it.“God, I cannot do this.” I shook my head, standing up and grabbing my purse before storming out of the house and getting into a taxi.Even the driver could tell that something was wrong from the way he kept g
CARMEN“It’s negative, Dave!” I announced when he picked up the phone, tears flowing down my eyes as I laughed.I didn’t notice how hard it had been for me to breathe until that moment when I realized that the air going into my lungs was easier in its passing.“Carmen,” he called my name as if he was also breathing a sigh of relief. I could hear him laughing at the other end of the phone, causing me to laugh with him.People walked past me, giving me a double take to figure out what was wrong or right with me.“Where are you right now? Can I come to pick you up? I feel like you’re drunk on all of these emotions—”“No, no!” I shook my head as if he could see me. “You don’t have to. I’ll go home and have a talk to Jasper about it. I think it’s going to affect his mental health in a bad way. With everything that’s been happening so far, I don’t think you and I should be seeing each other until it’s all settled.”“It’s completely fine. Just get home safe, okay?” he said.“Oh, I will,” I t
CARMEN“I cheated, Carmen.”I froze in place, not sure what to do about what Jasper had just confessed to me or how to take it.“How drunk are you right now?” I asked as I stared at him, trying to see if he was trying to play a sick trick on me.“Do you think I’m saying this because I’m drunk? I don’t…I don’t know how to keep this away from you anymore. It feels all wrong. We have both done each other wrong.”I took steps away from him with a shake of my head in confusion.“I don’t understand. Who did you cheat with? What do you mean by that?” I blurted, my heart starting to heat up as if someone had set fire to it.“Carmen, you said you were not going to leave me,” he reminded.“Is that how you got sick?” I asked, and he replied with nothing but silence that told me that my guess was most likely correct.“When did you do it? Did you even know the person that well, or was it just a moment with someone you didn’t know?” I didn’t know what I would do with the information if I got it, bu
CARMEN“Can I at least know what’s going on here?” Jasper asked, interrupting the glaring session between me and my mother. “What are you going to the police for?”“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know,” she replied with a smirk as she looked at me. “Should I tell him what you did, Carmen, or are you going to give me what I want?”Who was to say that she would not blurt everything out to Jasper as soon as she had the number.“I trusted you to keep quiet about something once. How should I trust you again when everything you have done is break it?” I asked.“Spare me that nonsense, Carmen. It was only right for your husband to know that you have been sleeping with your brother, but this… This doesn’t have to be something that he knows about,” she negotiated.“If you go to the police for something that I did in my defence, I will go to the police and tell them about something you did on purpose, and I’m sure Steve would be glad to back me up,” I threatened back, causing her eyes to go wide.“Ca
CARMEN“What are you talking about? My mother is missing, not dead,” Jasper protested as he was read his Miranda rights and was being taken out of the house.“She’s not dead,” I told them with surety, not sure whether to tell them that I had proof of that or not, but the cops all looked at me with pitiful expressions, as if they knew something I didn’t.“I need my lawyer,” Jasper muttered when they led him into the car, and I assured him that I would be with him as soon as possible.I ran into the house to grab my phone and call Mariah to ask her what was happening, but the minute someone picked up the phone, I knew that something was wrong.It was Solene on the other end of the phone, sobbing so much that my heart slowly started to tear open and bleed into my stomach.“Solene, tell me what happened. They just arrested Jasper, and they kept saying that Mariah was murdered. I don’t think I understand. Can you give her the phone?” I asked, not knowing why tears were filling my eyes but
CARMEN“Are you sure about this? Maybe you heard him wrong the first time. Besides, I just got out of prison. I highly doubt that he’ll want to get to see me just yet,” I said to Dave as we slowly walked towards the front door of his father’s house.“You just have to relax for me, Carmen,” Dave said, placing a hand on my lower back. “I didn’t hear him wrong. He clearly said it after his divorce with your mom that he would feel better about giving us his blessing now that he’s not married to her.”We got into the living room, where Steve sat with his legs crossed as he took note of something from a piece of paper.“Dad, look who’s here,” Dave called for his attention, making him look up at us and stand up to give me a good look. I almost laughed at his reaction, but I was too consumed by nervousness to make a sound.“Carmen, what… Come here, my sweet child,” he said, walking towards me and meeting me halfway with a hug.“What happened to you?!” he asked as he pulled away from the hug a
CARMEN“How may I help you?” the woman who stood at the doorway asked me, and I had half a mind to apologize and tell her I had the wrong house before walking away, but I decided to stay instead.“Is Dave home?” I asked.“Mr. Wilmer is home, but he didn’t tell me he was expecting anyone,” she answered, looking down at my hands which held the small box where the wristwatch was. “You can tell me your name, so I can go tell him—”“You really don’t have to,” I said, stopping her from walking back in. “Just let me in, please. I have something important to talk to him about.”“I understand that you probably know him, but I don’t want to get into any trouble. It’s my first day at work, and I don’t want to mess this up.”“You won’t,” I assured her. “You just have to trust me.”It took a moment of hesitation before she finally sighed and stepped aside for me to walk in.I glanced at the little girl she had in her hand with a smile on my face as I got to see just how much she looked like Kate.
CARMEN“Did you tell anyone? I told you not to tell anyone. Did you tell anyone?” I blurted to Evan as I found him standing and waiting for me on the day of my release.“Relax, Carmen,” he laughed. “I only told them that I was coming to check up on you. Why don’t you want them to know that you’re being released, anyway? Are you planning to live as far away as possible without them knowing?”“No,” I answered. “I just… I didn’t want them standing out here and waiting for me to come out. I still need to prepare myself for everything. It’s been a long three years, and I don’t know how they’re going to react.”“I’m sure all this is not what they’re thinking about right now. Trust me when I say that those people will wait for ten years if they have to,” he informed me.As much as it was assurance enough to hear those words from Evan, it didn’t make my heart beat any slower than the speed at which it was going.“Thank you for going through the stress of picking me up, by the way,” I told him
CARMEN“Cartier!”I flinched when I heard my last name being called by the prison guard as she stopped in front of the cell I shared with two other women – Reese and Naomi.She chewed her gum aggressively, using her baton to hit the cell bars, as she watched me so intently that I almost started to dig a hole to hide myself in.“You have been here for a while now, Carmen. It’s time you took the bull by the horns. Don’t let people like her intimidate you,” Naomi said, giving me an encouraging pat on the back to approach the prison guard and ask her what her deal was and why she was calling me.“What…what’s the matter?” I questioned, looking down at my feet to avoid making eye contact with the woman.“Are you ready for your board hearing today?” she asked me, leaning against the bars with folded arms.“I think so,” I said with a nod.“Well, then.” She sighed and took out the key to the bars, opening it for me to step out.“Good luck, Carmen! I’ve had two board hearings so far that have n
CARMENEvan was now standing in front of me with a silent reminder for me to keep my chin up and that I would be fine after the trial, but it was getting harder to do so.After the prosecutor finished asking me questions, I started to feel as if every answer that I had given had dug me into a hole that I would not be able to come out of.“When the victim was making those moves towards you, you called out for your mother, didn’t you?” he asked.“I did.”“Well, to demonstrate just how far her voice must have reached when she called out to her mother, we tested it. I called out to different sound experts to the house, and I was asked to stay in the farthest room from the kitchen. At 70 decibels, I could hear someone calling out to me from that room.”“From the footages gotten from the security cameras around the house, Mrs. Wilmer was not even in the farthest room to the kitchen. In fact, at the same time that Ms. Cartier is seen shouting for her mother’s help in the kitchen, we can see
CARMENMy mother stared at Evan with a shocked expression on her face as he submitted a flash drive to the judge as evidence.“The house where you left after you got married to Mr. Wilmer had a lot of security cameras, which Mrs. Wilmer here may have forgotten about when she slipped into the kitchen and put about ten pills of aphrodisiac into the victim’s drink,” Evan explained as the video on the drive was played for the whole courtroom to see.I had not thought that Evan would work that hard and go that far to get evidence, but he did. Was that why he had been working with my father the whole time? Even I didn’t know about that.“If we watch further, we can see that there was no complete and direct contact between my client and the victim that they were involved in any sexual discussions with each other. To further prove that an aphrodisiac was used in this footage, we have receipts from the pharmacy that she bought them from that week.”“Do the prosecutors have anything to add to t
CARMENDave and I shared a look of disappointment, and I could see that he had made up his mind to be with me no matter what his father said, but that didn’t stop me from feeling bad.“This whole thing between Bianca and I is not close to being over, and I believe she’s going to raise hell before everything is finalized. I have all of that in mind, and I don’t want anything to distract me just yet. Perhaps, after the divorce, we can revisit this talk,” Steve explained.I completely understood why he didn’t agree to the whole thing, but that didn’t mean I was not hurt by it.“You can take all the time you need to think about it,” I encouraged. “We wouldn’t want to put you under any kind of pressure.”“Carmen and I have something important to discuss. Thank you for giving us your honesty, father,” Dave told him as he took my hand and led me out of the room as he asked me, “Which of the bedrooms is yours?”“Here.” I took the lead from him and opened the door to my room, slamming it shut
CARMENBefore Dave could take me into the room where his father was staying, I pulled him back. I tried my hardest to hide my annoyance from him, but I could feel it coming off in waves, and I was certain that he could tell as well.“Is something wrong?” he questioned, and I raised my brow at that.“I should be asking you that question, Dave. I know you’re mad at me, and you should be mad at me for what I hid from you, but you haven’t spoken to me in a week. We can’t just leave things hanging and go in there to tell your father about us.”“I know, Carmen. We have a lot of talking to do, and I do have a lot of apologies as well, but I don’t want to prolong this. The more we keep him the dark, the less likely he is to be happy about the news. We can talk about everything else that we haven’t talked about during the week after.”“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked. “With everything that my mother must have planted in your mind against me—”“She planted nothing in my mind against
CÀRMEN“What…what are you doing here?” I asked, looking around to see if I could find out if someone else came with him – perhaps Kate or his father.“I wanted to talk to you about everything,” he said.“There’s nothing to talk about. We’re divorced,” I replied, wanting to turn around when he grabbed me by the wrist.“What are you doing?” Dad asked, finally bringing Jasper’s attention towards himself.“Who are…” Jasper trailed off as recognition grew in his eyes, and he took steps back as be looked between me and my father.“You’re… You’re her father,” he noted. “They said you were dead.”“If she doesn’t want to talk to you, don’t you think you should take a hint and leave her alone?” Dad asked him, ignoring his shock and refusing to give him any explanation.“I just wanted to have a short and important talk with her about something, that’s all,” Jasper defended.“Excuse us,” I told Dad, a little curious to know what Jasper wanted to say even after we had legally gone our separate way