by Brittle, D M
“Please Jo, that is not helping.” Blake laughed once as he shook his head.
“No, I don’t suppose it is,” I agreed. “But don’t you see Blake that you are worrying and ruining your life when the odds are looking fantastic for both me and your mum?”
“I feel worthless if I have no control Jo,” he admitted.
“Having no control over what happens doesn’t make us worthless Blake, it makes us human and I’ll be completely honest with you, I didn’t come through everything that I suffered with Michael or Sara or Cooper to marry you and then die on you and leave you as a widow with two babies.” For the first time since Blake opened up to me, he smiled through his sadness. “And no way is your mum going anywhere either, she has a long happy life ahead of her, the doctor told her today that from the tests that they have done, the cancer hasn’t spread beyond the breast, she will need radiotherapy after the operation but it hasn’t spread Blake, that means she is going to be okay.”
“They said that?” He asked surprised. I nodded.
“Yes they said that and you would have known that if you had spoken to your mum yourself and not ignored her calls.”
“I have been too afraid to speak to her Jo; I didn’t want her to hear me like this.”
“I know that now, and she will understand. You panicked, I get that, but you have done yourself more harm than good Blake.”
“I really do admire you Jo,” Blake said. “After everything that you have been through, you find a reason every single day to smile, how are you not afraid anymore?”
“Because being afraid almost made me lose everything that was mapped out to be my happy ever after Blake. Someone taught me that a while back, didn’t I ever tell you?” I smiled.
“I feel like I have failed you,” Blake said as he began rubbing his hands over his chin nervously.
“You haven’t failed anyone Blake, you just showed me that you’re more human than robot; I was beginning to worry that I had married a machine.” I bumped my shoulder to his as he turned and smiled at me.
“I am so sorry.”
“Hey,” I leaned up to Blake and took his face in my hands. “Stop with the apologies, I’m just glad that you finally opened up to me. I have missed you, the real you, my fixer upper.” Blake smiled briefly before his hand reached up and swept the hair from my face and rested on my neck.
“I am so sorry that I missed our appointment.”
“That’s okay,” I replied honestly. “I understand now and I know that you wouldn’t have missed it intentionally.” I released Blake’s face as the babies began their nightly football match inside my womb; I took Blake’s hands and placed them over my ever-growing stomach. “They’re awake again; I can almost set my alarm by them,” I laughed.
Blake watched in fascination as his hands moved each time the babies kicked against him, “it’s amazing isn’t it?” he smiled in awe.
I nodded excitedly. “And they’re in a good position for me to go natural now too, and my blood pressure has come back to where it should be; everything is as it should be Blake.”
Blake’s eyes stayed firmly on the bump as his smile grew wider. “Sam said you had some good news.”
“You saw Sam?” I asked confused.
Blake nodded shyly. “When I realized I was late for our appointment I just focused on getting there, traffic was a bitch and so was every other driver on the road too. I got there and just barged on into her office thinking that you were still in there, luckily she wasn’t examining anyone and was alone; she had a stern word in my ear,” he said with a hint of amusement. “I would never have missed the appointment Jo, the meeting just dragged on and on until we eventually came to a deal.”
“So how did the meeting go?” Blake released his hold on my bump and relaxed back on the sofa as he ran his hands through his hair.
“I am going to film another two episodes; it’s the only way that we could reach a mutual agreement,” he sighed.
“Well that’s good, and of course we will come back with you too.”
“We will be filming in London,” he shrugged as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
“In London?” I asked confused.
Blake nodded as he reached up and pulled me back to him. “Is that good do you think?” I happily rested back in the place that I loved more than anything.
“I think that’s amazing.” I placed my lips to Blake’s neck and breathed in his scent before kissing him softly.
“I feel so much better for this talk you know?” Blake admitted.
“So you will never bottle up your feelings ever again?”
“Never, I promise.” Blake’s lips rested in my hair as he took deep soothing breaths. “Now tell me about you going off to visit Sara in prison.”
I moved even closer to Blake as his arm tightened around me. “Yes, I erm, I’m sorry about that.”
“I shouldn’t have found out from Theo Jo, you should have told me.”
“I knew that you would say no Blake, and it was something that I really needed to do.”
“I would have advised that you didn’t go Jo but being as stubborn as you are I know that I couldn’t have stopped you going,” Blake confirmed.
“Well, with how you had been feeling, it didn’t feel right telling you at the time, but I am sorry that I didn’t tell you, I will never do that again I promise.”
Blake’s hold on me tightened. “Did you get your closure?”
“No,” I replied sadly. “She is delusional Blake, completely and utterly delusional; she thinks that she has won because she pleaded guilty which means they will go easier on her tomorrow. I can’t wait to hear that she got what is coming to her, I just hope Theo can get a picture of her face when she realizes that she will never see the light of day again.”
“Were you scared being there alone?” Blake asked carefully.
“I wasn’t alone, well in the room I was alone; but I managed to rope Casey into taking me to the prison, much to her annoyance, but I was quite persuasive,” I admitted.
“Well tomorrow you will have me there with you, you will never go through anything like that again without me, I swear.”
I pushed out of Blake’s hold and sat up to face him. “I’m not going tomorrow Blake, I don’t need to go now, you are more important to me along with these babies and your mum, and I know that Sara won’t get off lightly so I don’t need to be there.”
“Were going,” Blake said firmly. “I will not allow her to put you through hell from the day that she turned up at your apartment causing a scene up until tomorrow without us seeing with our own eyes that she gets the book thrown at her; you need your closure Jo and tomorrow, you are going to get it.”
“Are you sure? I mean, we need to get up to your parents’ tomorrow, we don’t want to get there late evening with your mum’s surgery being the next morning.”
“We have plenty of time to get there once you get the closure that you need from the trial, I’m not taking no for an answer. We go there together; we show the world that nothing can hurt us, not anymore, what do you say?”
“I say that this is more the Blake that I know and love.” I grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and pulled him to me kissing him long and hard as the barriers around him finally fell and crashed to the floor and he allowed me back into his heart. We were both gasping for breath when our lips finally parted and Blake looked at me hungrily with a need that I hadn’t seen in him for a while.
“I think that we need to get to bed, we have a long day tomorrow and I don’t want you to be tired.” A small smile tugged at the corner of Blake’s mouth.
“I do want to go to bed,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure that I want to go to sleep yet.” I smiled as Blake’s lips crashed against mine once more. I could feel Blake’s smile too as our kiss deepened, he stood without losing contact before picking me up from the sofa and carrying me out of the lounge and through to the bedroom where we proceeded to make up for the distance that
we’d had over the past couple of weeks.
Blake
I wasn’t completely sure that I had done the right thing by suggesting to Jo that we should attend Sara’s sentencing, I had been dead set against it since Theo had explained to us both that Jo was no longer needed in court to give evidence. I imagined that being in the same room as Sara would be too stressful for Jo, too upsetting and traumatic but after opening up to Jo last night about my feelings I saw something in Jo that I never imagined possible; an undeniable strength that showed that Jo was no longer afraid of anything or anyone and was phased by nothing anymore.
Sara had put Jo through hell since last summer; that hell had continued right up until her visit only days ago, so getting closure was no longer an option, but a necessity.
We had continued to talk until the early hours once we had made up for the fact that we hadn’t been close over the past several days.
I was in complete awe of Jo. When I had first met her, she had a natural instinct to always run if things weren’t going to plan, she didn’t know anything else other than to run from her fears and hope that they didn’t follow her; it took a lot of time and challenges along the way to take that fear from Jo and bury it deep beneath the surface, so deep in fact that now, it was hard to know that that fear ever did exist.
Since last night when I had allowed myself to open up to Jo, I too had taken my fears and buried them alongside Jo’s and vowed that never again would I succumb to fear on such a high level that had made me close down and shut out those important to me.
“Are you sure that you want to do this?” I reached over and placed my hand to Jo’s trembling knee as I started up the range rover ready to head to court.
“Yes,” Jo replied confidently with a nod.
“You’re shaking,” I observed.
“It’s not because I am afraid,” she said quickly as she turned to face me. “It’s because today is the last day of my life that anyone will ever get close enough to hurt me. It will never happen again, I won’t allow it.” Jo gave me a nervous smile as she turned away and began fiddling with her hands that were rested in her lap; I placed my hands over hers and ran my thumb up and down her knuckles.
“Breathe Jo; everything is going to be okay.”
Jo shook her head as she began to laugh. “We seem to be taking this in turns don’t we?” She then inhaled a deep breath and turned to face me, “let’s go, let’s go and see the woman who tried to ruin us get everything possible and more. I am then going to stand on the steps outside the court where the story hungry prats otherwise known as journalists will be waiting with bated blood for a sneak peak or a scoop of what happened in there. I will then tell them what a complete bunch of tossers they are and that they can now move on to their next victim and leave us the hell alone…. Well I will probably put it in a nicer way than that, but you know what I mean,” she smiled.
“I love you Mrs. Mackenzie.” I leaned over and kissed my wife before putting the car into drive.
“I love you too husband.”
As we sat in the court room awaiting the judge to present Sara’s sentence, Jo’s eyes never looked away once from where Sara was now sat. Four prison guards surrounded Sara who was shackled and could barely move without their assistance, she was barely recognizable from the Sara that we had all known previous to now. Her eyes had made contact to where we sat only once; as she had been brought into the room her eyes had wandered the whole of the gallery looking for whom I presume would be her mother but I had already noticed that Mrs. McDonnell hadn’t turned up to see her daughters fate.
When her eyes had rested on Jo, Jo had lifted her hand and given Sara a wave accompanied by a smirk; Sara had smirked back just the same before turning to me and winking. Jo was right, Sara was completely delusional, here she was about to be sentenced for a long list of charges yet she still couldn’t resist playing the silly games which had landed her here in the first place.
“Look at her sitting there like it’s the Sara show, does she seriously think that these cameras are in here because she is filming for a new episode of ‘Orange Is the New Black?’ She is about to have that smirk wiped straight off her smarmy, ugly, waste of space face,” Jo murmured as the judge entered the room and took his seat, “and I can’t bloody wait.” I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my lips at Jo’s evaluation of the scene that we were sat amongst, even in moments as serious as this one; she always managed to say something to lighten the mood.
Each charge against Sara had been read out by the judge accompanied by each sentence given for that particular charge. Her sentences each ranged between two years and fifteen years depending on the seriousness of the crime but totaled together Sara would be spending the rest of her life in prison with no option for parole.
As the judge finished giving out Sara’s sentences, the only noise that could be heard in the gallery was the shrill scream that Sara released upon hearing her fate.
“I pleaded guilty!” she yelled before turning her attention to her lawyer. “You promised me! You promised me that they would go easier on me if I admitted it all! And now I am going to die in prison! I am going to die in that hell hole!” Sara began to sob uncontrollably as she fell to her knees in disbelief, finally the smug smile had been wiped off her face as she had now realized that this wasn’t a game but it was true reality.
“And that there, is my closure.” I turned my attention to Jo who was smiling happily and appeared completely relieved; her eyes were still burning into Sara as her screams continued to echo around the courtroom.
“I never thought I would feel this way Blake, seeing someone down and out like she is shouldn’t feel this good.” Jo shrugged lightly, “but it does feel good, in fact it feels more than good, it feels bloody amazing.” Jo reached over and gripped my hand in hers before finally turning her attention to me. “Does that make me a bad person?” Her smile only faltered a little as she questioned her happiness.
“No,” I replied honestly. “It’s justice Jo, for everything that she did to you, for everything that she planned on doing, for being responsible for Cooper’s death; it’s all justice and you deserve to be happy and to feel relieved because she wanted to ruin you Jo, but all she has done now is ruin herself and she deserves everything that she had got.” Jo nodded before turning back to face the judge who was about to speak.
“Miss McDonnell, from the day that you were charged for the crimes set out against you until this morning when you walked into this room and smiled up at your victim, you have shown not one single ounce of remorse for the crimes that you committed. You made an innocent person’s life a living hell and yet you have continued to goad your victim at every opportunity. I have watched video footage of your meeting with Mrs. Mackenzie that took place only days ago and because of that footage, amongst everything that I have read here in front of me, I consider you a danger not only to your victim but also to society.
You have shown nothing to me that would make me even think that you could go back to living a normal life without attempting to hurt either your victim or somebody else, and for that reason I am left with no choice but to remove you from the public domain for the rest of your living days.”
“He was mine! He loved me, he still loves me, I know he does! Those babies should be mine; everything that she has, it should all be mine.”
Sara was still crying but her sobs had quietened as the verdict began to sink in. Sara turned immediately to face where Jo and I sat, her attention turned to Jo.
“I am sorry, I am really really sorry!” she began. “I shouldn’t have done the things that I did to you, I know that now, but you took him away from me! You took what was mine and that is not fair! Look at me,” Sara lifted her chained wrists towards us, “do you think this is a fair way for me to spend the rest of my life? If I could go back in time, I swear to you I would never have hurt you. You shouldn’t have taken him from me but I shouldn’t have tried to hurt you please, please Jo I am sorry,” she be
gged.
Jo shook her head slowly at her; the smile on Jo’s face had now been replaced with a frown as she watched Sara begging for mercy. “It’s too late Sara,” she said simply. “It’s just too late.”
Sara was lead out of the courtroom shortly after, her screams still echoed around the room as everyone began to gather up their belongings and leave.
“How do you feel?” I asked Jo as she stood and shrugged into her jacket.
“Like I can breathe again,” She replied. “You?”
“The same,” I replied honestly. “You ready to face the wolf pack?”
“I’m ready.”
We stood on the steps of the courtroom as the media gathered together in front of us ready to hear what Jo had to say. Theo had already addressed the crowd where he had made them aware of Sara’s sentences.
Jo stepped forward, clinging to my hand for support as the crowd began to quieten down.
“The past seven months have been a living hell where Sara has been concerned. For reasons that I still don’t fully understand and never will, she made it her personal mission to destroy me, she tried on numerous occasions to end my life but fortunately I am the one who is able to stand here today in front of you all while Sara begins a lifelong prison sentence for each and every one of those crimes that she committed against me. One person who isn’t here today to see that justice has been served is Cooper Henderson, Cooper, again for reasons that I will never fully understand, took Sara in and allowed her to reside with him while she persisted in her vendetta against me. Cooper died because Sara was too stubborn and too cowardly to face up to what she had done; this unfortunately sealed Cooper’s fate when he died at the hands of Sara. I do believe in second chances and I do believe that there is always a right to every single wrong but where Sara McDonnell is concerned there could be no right from the moment that she discharged herself from the clinic in Washington and made it her personal mission to ruin me and my life, she didn’t stop until she had no other option otherwise I know that she would have continued her attack on me until I too would have died.
