by Sean Platt
“What do you mean?”
“Warren said Dad was the one who orchestrated it all, made everything happen.” Jon’s voice cracked. “He said Dad was behind it all.”
Between chewing his lip and imagining Houser making fun of him, Jon managed to keep the tears from falling. And for a second, he actually managed to smile, thinking it was easier to lose it for a scene than hold it together in real life.
“What’s the surprise?” Cassidy said “You didn’t know your dad was capable of that? Do you not know your own father?”
Jon admired how Cassidy could stare into the center of his pain and twist the knife anyway. He nodded his head. “Sure, I knew he was capable. But that didn’t mean I thought he was capable when it came to me.”
If Cassidy wanted to say anything, she kept her mouth shut.
Jon looked into her eyes, and asked, “Why would you do it?” he said. “Why would you make a deal with my family if you hate us all so much?”
Cassidy was quiet. She was fighting to stave off tears of her own.
“I didn’t know all the details about the deal until I came back from rehab. Warren went straight to Sarah with the deal. God only knows what he said to convince her. She wouldn’t ever tell me. I guess she didn’t want me to feel any guiltier than I already did, but I’m guessing he bullied her, told her all sorts of shit about you.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Just things she said, indirectly, but never fully,” Cassidy said, losing her battle against her tears. “Sarah wanted so much for me to be off the pills. Hell, she wanted it for me, more than I did — more than she wanted you for Emma Ryan.”
“Emma Ryan?”
Cassidy wiped her eye. “Yeah, Emma Ryan. That’s what Sarah called the baby until she knew for sure it was a girl. If it had been a boy, he would’ve been named Ryan.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I wish I’d known.”
“Don’t say anything,” she said, nuzzling into Jon and laying her head on his chest. “I’ll be sorry enough for the both of us.”
Jon started stroking her hair, so much like Sarah’s. Within two minutes, his lips were again on hers as his hands rubbed her breasts through her shirt.
“No,” she moaned, squirming against him.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she whispered, rubbing her body against him.
Cassidy pulled herself from Jon, tore the boxers from his body, then rubbed her half-naked self against him.
Fourteen minutes later, Jon was ready to start snoring again. Cassidy lay breathing beside him, her inner thighs, now sticky, braided in between his as she grazed her nails along the length of his chest.
Jon drifted off, thinking of the life that could have been with Sarah, a life all the more painfully evident as he lay entwined with her doppelganger.
* * * *
CHAPTER 8 — Milo Anderson
Saturday morning…
Milo was reading Imajica on his Kindle when the nurse came into his room, trying to ignore the itching beneath the bandages on his arms.
“You have a visitor.”
Milo looked up smiling, hopeful for a moment that his dad had returned.
It was Alex, not his father
Alex had a backpack slung across his shoulder, his face was bruised like he’d been in a fight. The nurse left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Milo to face Alex alone.
“Hey,” Alex said awkwardly. “I heard about the accident. Sorry to hear about Beatrice.”
Milo said nothing, keeping his eyes on his Kindle, pretending to read the words on the screen.
“Are you okay?”
Milo said nothing, unable to release the anger and rage he felt for what Alex’s dad had done.
Alex stayed rooted between the foot of the bed and the door, as though afraid to come closer uninvited.
“I just want to say I’m sorry about what my dad did. I know that no amount of words will ever make up for it. And I know you must hate me. But I don’t want to lose you as a friend. You’ve been my best friend forever, man.”
Tears stung Milo’s eyes, but he refused to let them flow in front of Alex.
Alex continued, sniffling back his own tears, “I’m sorry he killed Manny. I’m sorry he killed Jessica. I wish it would have been me, instead of either of them. If I could go back in time, I would take the bullets. I’d take all of them!”
Milo looked up, finally moved to speak. “Yeah? How about Katie? Would you let Katie take one of those bullets instead of Jessica?”
Alex looked at him, confused.
“What? Why would you even ask that?”
“Real convenient that your dad killed the girl I liked, but not your girlfriend!”
“What the hell are you saying? That I’m glad he killed Jessica? That he killed her for me, like he was trying to help me out or something?!”
The accusation fell from Milo’s mouth without logic or sense. Yet, there was something that felt right about this path. Felt right in attacking Katie’s fate versus Jessica’s.
Milo suddenly saw the center of his anger. Sure, some of it was directed at Alex for what Mr. Heller had done. But there was something else, something ugly, and surprising for Milo to see in himself — jealousy.
Jealousy that Alex — once again — got the girl, while Milo’s first true shot at love, was dead and buried. And before he could stop the rest of the words from coming, he spewed them like black bile in a stew of vomit.
“It should’ve been Katie! Then you’d know how this feels! To lose someone you love!” Milo screamed, anger and tears mixing into an embarrassingly volatile concoction.
Alex’s face turned an angry shade of crimson and he stepped forward. “I don’t know how it feels to lose someone I love? I don’t know? I lost my dad! Yeah, he went nuts or something and shot up the class, but before that, he was my fucking dad! And now he’s gone, and I’m burying him this week. So don’t fucking tell me I don’t know how it feels to lose someone I love. I’d say on the scale of deaths, dad is a bit higher up there than a girl you had a crush on!”
Alex unzipped his backpack, reached in and grabbed a thick black spiral, then threw it at Milo.
“I brought this so maybe we can finish it together, but fuck it. You’ve already decided our friendship is finished.”
Alex turned toward the door and stormed from the room, leaving Milo alone and crying, their last unfinished screenplay sitting in his lap.
* * * *
CHAPTER 9 — Brock Houser Part 2
Saturday morning…
Houser woke up from the blackness feeling like he’d been hit by a truck.
Light slowly bled through his blurred and sleep crusted eyes as he tried to turn his heavy head, and make sense of his surroundings.
He couldn’t move.
Houser’s arms were bound by straps.
A machine was beeping behind him.
“He’s waking up,” a woman’s voice said.
What the hell?
“Where am I?” he asked. Or tried to ask. A tube in his throat kept the words in his mouth.
An overwhelming feeling of being trapped seeped through his brain. Houser struggled, trying to get up, craning his neck to see what the hell was happening.
Several hands held his body down.
What’s happening to me?
“Please don’t move, Sir. You’ve been in an accident and we’re operating on you.”
Operating?
What happened?
That’s when he saw the surgeon sawing his right leg off below the knee.
Houser fell back into the blackness.
* * * *
CHAPTER 10 — Warren Conway
Warren’s house
Saturday afternoon…
The phone rang.
The screen said Jones, but that wasn’t the man’s real name.
“Warren,” he said into the phone.
“Hello, sir
. I just wanted to report that the operation was a success.”
“Good. And the flash drive? Did we recover it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And? What was on it?”
“We’re not sure. It was damaged by the water. I’ve got my guys trying to recover it now. What should we do about the mother?”
“Do you think she saw what was on it?”
“No. If she did, she wouldn’t have given it to Houser. And if she did, well, who’s gonna believe her?”
“No,” Warren said. “I suppose not. And what about Mr. Houser? What’s the situation there?”
“Mr. Houser has been taken care of.”
“Good,” Warren said. “Stay by your phone. I might have another job for you soon.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
In the STUNNING season finale!
Next week!
WhiteSpace: Episode 6
The Season Finale
by Sean Platt &
David Wright
Copyright © 2012 by Sean Platt & David Wright. All rights reserved
Cover copyright © 2012 by David W. Wright
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The authors have taken great GIGANTIC liberties with locales including the creation of fictional towns (and islands!) The authors rarely leave their home states and research is limited to whatever the spirit of Magellan tells them via Ouija Board.
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* * * *
CHAPTER 1 — Sarah Hughes
Hamilton Island, Washington
Friday
September 1 (the day of the shooting)
Morning
Sarah woke up with the same hollow feeling that had haunted her every time she dreamed of Jon.
Mourning the unspooled fantasy of a life spent together; with him and their daughter, Emma. One big happy family. The way it was always supposed to be.
It had been nearly a decade since she’d seen Jon, and yet, after the dreams, it still felt as though he had only been gone for days. His wide smile, his gentle touch, his voice whispering in her ear, and even the undeniable sexiness of his scent were still so strong in her memory — fixtures in her mind as comforting and familiar as home.
I have to stop watching his damned movies.
It was always worse after the dreams. Months could go by and she’d be fine, going on, content — hell, even happy — with her life. But then something would happen to remind her of him. She’d see him on the news, run into his family, or sometimes it would be a face that Emma would make, and the next thing she knew, she found herself in front of the TV watching one of his movies and taking trips down memory lane.
But the trips did little more than rip the wounds of his betrayal and her decision fresh open. And what-if’s served as salt.
What if she had taken Jon back?
What if she had told Warren to go to Hell?
What if she had just let Cassidy do the time she’d rightfully earned?
Had her wrong choice been right? And even it was, did right mean worth it?
No matter how many times Sarah played what-if?, she always ended up feeling like the loser, filled with resentment, and mourning the best life she never had a chance to live.
Sarah hated feeling bitter, or like a loser. She had done just fine on her own, great even, raising Emma as a single mom. Besides, it wasn’t as if there were any guarantees of a golden life, even if she had managed to stay with Jon. It wasn’t like he hadn’t cheated on her 15 minutes into his first flicker of fame. Who was to say he wouldn’t have done it again? Probably on repeat. Sarah had read the tabloids covering his many drunken exploits — indulging in women from costars to runway models. And then there were the drunken violent encounters with the paparazzi. How many cameras had he grabbed? How many photographers had he beaten up? How many lawsuits had he been involved in? Too many to count.
That Jon was barely a shadow of the man she once knew. This fixture in People and Entertainment Weekly, and TMZ, was miles apart from the Jon of her dreams.
She had made the best possible choice.
So why the hell do I always feel so bad?
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the covers over her head, gifting herself with a few more minutes of self-pity before crawling from bed to begin her day, determined to return to her regular happy self before the first bell rang.
Her door creaked open. Seconds later, Emma plopped on her bed. “Wake up, Mom,” she said in her usual song. “Time to go to school.”
Sarah wiped her eyes as Emma ripped the covers from her head, smiling her giant I’m up way too early, with way too much energy smile.
“Why are you crying, Mom?”
Sarah was immediately embarrassed, like she always was when caught thinking of Jon. She never cared if Emma saw her cry, except when the tears were caused by the girl’s father — the father Emma might never know the truth about. “I had a sad dream, that’s all.”
Emma stared at her mom as if she didn’t quite believe her. “About what?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, Sweetie. Just a dream, baby. All ready for school?”
Emma stood up and twirled, showing Sarah her blue and pink striped shirt and flared bottom blue jeans with the embroidered bottoms. “Readier than you! Just need to put my shoes on.”
“OK, I’ll be out in a few minutes. Can you make me a bagel with butter?”
“Regular or everything?”
“Surprise me,” Sarah said.
Emma’s right eyebrow arched with the weight of a sudden, great idea. “OK!” she said, then hopped from the bed and ran from the room.
Sarah forced her feet onto the carpet, and then her body into the shower, thanking God it was finally Friday.
**
Sarah hit the bottom stair, then rounded the corner into the kitchen to find a dinner plate decorated with a bagel and a sliced orange, and a Snoopy mug brimmed with coffee, all of it arranged and displayed like it was waiting for a tip when finished.
“Do you like your surprise?” Emma said, surfacing from the other side of the kitchen bar.
Sarah looked down to see that her bagel was two different halves — one regular and one everything.
“It looks amazing,” Sarah smiled, mustering as much enthusiasm as she could before the caffeine.
Emma pranced to the living room and looked out the window. “We should bring our umbrellas. It looks like rain today.”
A chill ran down Sarah’s spine. Not at the thought of rain. It always seemed like it might rain. This chill had nothing to do with the cold. It was an odd feeling — sudden and unmistakable and without a molecule of sense. Though the feeling might have been impossible to define, if Sarah were forced to give it breath, she would have an immediate answer:
It felt like today was the day she was going to die.
* *
Sarah leaned over and kissed Emma on the forehead as she dropped her off in front of her classroom.
“I love you,” Sarah said.
Emma stared over her mother’s head at a row of lockers, clearly embarrassed as Hudson Ralston walked by into their classroom, stealing a smiling glance at Emma.
“Who’s that?” Sarah asked, as though she didn’t know Wendy Ralston’s rascally son.
Emma’s face turned red. “Nobody
,” she said, shifting on her feet and obviously wanting to get to class.
Oh my God, she has a crush! Too cute.
“OK then, see you later,” Sarah smiled. “But I wanna know everything later.”
“Stop, Mom,” Emma said, making her eyes big. She turned, waved goodbye, then disappeared into her classroom.
Sarah watched as Emma sat beside Hudson. Emma looked up and waved a hand anxiously at her mother, shooing her away.
Sarah smiled and turned toward her class, tears welling in her eyes.
My baby is growing up WAY too fast.
I didn’t like boys until . . . oh, wait. Yeah, about the same age.
Sarah went to her classroom, then sat at her desk, waiting for her students to start shuffling in as she graded quizzes from the day before. As she moved the finished quizzes to their quickly rising pile, her thoughts kept circling back to Emma’s rather adorable crush.
When Sarah was Emma’s age, she had a thing for Jon, even though she hid it fairly well so as not to upset the obvious crush Cassidy was carrying. If Cassidy had known Sarah liked Jon, she would’ve made Sarah’s life miserable. It wasn’t that Cassidy was a bully — though some people saw her that way — but she was super competitive with Sarah for reasons Sarah couldn’t understood at the time.
It was only after Cassidy started dating Tommy Decker, when Sarah finally began entertaining the thought of liking Jon. When they started dating in middle school, Sarah was terrified that Cassidy would get upset. Things were great between them, better than ever, and she didn’t want to upset the harmony. Cassidy had taken the news surprisingly well. She was happy with her steady stream of guys, or at least it seemed so at the time. Cassidy said she would be bored to tears going out with one guy, especially a “rich prick” like Jon.
