Auctioned to Him 7: The Contract

by Charlotte Byrd

  The service is cordial and respectful. Since everyone there is pretty much white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, very few people shed any tears or express their emotions out loud. Ellie is having a hard time keeping her feelings at bay, but she squeezes my hand really hard from time to time and I whisper that it’s all going to be okay.

  “Thank you for coming, Ellie.” Caroline’s mom, Miriam, gives us both a quick hug. She’s an attractive woman in her early fifties with a slim waist and big black sunglasses that make her look a lot like Jackie Kennedy. We both give her our condolences and tell her what a wonderful service this was. There isn’t really much else to say in situations like these is there?

  “What did the toxicology result say?” Ellie asks just as Miriam is about to walk away.

  “Pardon me?”

  Ellie repeats the question without batting an eye. I squeeze her arm, trying to convey that this might not be the most appropriate time for this conversation. But she doesn’t really pay attention.

  Miriam takes a deep breath. “They said it was an accidental overdose,” she says. “She had a bunch of pills in her system. Oxy. Percocet. They said that she took a bit too much.”

  Accidental overdoses are a dime a dozen, especially with our generation of people. They happen all the time. I know of at least three people from high school who died from them. But knowing this isn’t exactly going to make Ellie feel any better.

  When Miriam walks away, Ellie walks away shaking her head.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, keenly aware of how odd this question sounds at a funeral.

  “Something’s wrong. She didn’t die of an accidental overdose.”

  “How do you know?”

  Ellie shrugs and looks somewhere into the distance. “I don’t know. I just do. She was always very careful with any sort of medication. She knew of a few people who overdosed and she never even mixed aspirin with booze.”

  “Well, she didn’t say that she had any alcohol in her system,” I say.

  “I know. It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “What are you saying, Ellie? That this wasn’t an accident?”

  “No,” she says, shrugging. “I don’t know.”

  On the drive home, I keep wondering what Ellie is thinking. If she doesn’t think that this was an accidental overdose, there are really only two possible explanations. One is that it was on-purpose. And an on-purpose overdose is a suicide. That word sends shivers through my body. I look over at Ellie. Is this what she’s thinking? That Caroline actually killed herself on purpose? I don’t know Caroline well. Actually, I don't really know her at all. Does she have a history of depression? Is this something that she thought about before? I have no idea. She definitely didn’t seem like a depressive. She was always excited and fun and ready to have a good time. But people are so much more complicated below the surface, aren’t they?

  The other possible explanation is that someone else did this to her. Someone put those drugs in her system. And that’s what we would call murder. When Ellie found her, she was already cold. She did CPR, but she was dead for at least a few hours already. Whatever Ellie did for her was futile. Could someone else have been in their apartment before Ellie came home? Of course. Caroline had lots of friends. And she could’ve gone out and picked up some guy and brought him home. Perhaps it could’ve been a girl, but who the hell are we kidding? It’s almost always a guy. But who would do this to her and why? I don’t know Caroline well enough to even come close to coming up with some kind of motive. I want to ask Ellie about a million questions. When I look over, I see her leaning her head on the seat belt and aimlessly staring out of the window. Perhaps this isn’t the best time.

  After saying hello to her doorman, we head toward the elevator.

  “Excuse me? Ms. Rhodes?” he calls out. Ellie turns around.

  “This came today by courier,” he says and hands her an envelope.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  She tosses the letter on the kitchen island and heads to her room. A few days ago, Miriam came by with three movers and packed up all of Caroline’s things. When Ellie saw what she was doing, she went to her room and stayed there until they left. Within a couple of hours, the whole room was stripped. They took everything. Down to the window treatments and the hooks that kept the paintings up on the walls. The place was left entirely barren. Miriam told me to tell Ellie that if she wants to live here for the rest of the lease, she’s more than happy to pay for Caroline’s part of the rent. She was just trying to be nice, but Ellie started to cry when I told her this bit. She hasn’t been inside Caroline’s room since then and hasn’t even opened the door once.

  My mind is spinning. I decide that the best thing for me to do at this junction is to just flip on the television and watch something stupid. The stupider the better. Grabbing a bag of chips from the pantry, I glance at the letter. Ellie usually gets all of her mail through the post office. Why was this one delivered by courier? Oh, shit, I hope it’s not Blake’s lawyers serving her with a lawsuit. That’s the last thing she needs right now.

  I pick up the envelope. When I read the return name and address, my heart skips a beat and all the blood drains from my face. It’s from Caroline.

  Chapter 14 - Ellie

  When I read the letter…

  Aiden bursts into my room without knocking and everything becomes a blur. He hands me a letter. He points to the name at the top. It’s from Caroline. But how can that be? No, this isn’t from my Caroline. This is all a terrible misunderstanding. A joke, even. A very unfunny and terrible joke.

  “You have to read this. Please read this,” Aiden says. I shake my head.

  “I can’t.”

  “Please, please open it. Caroline wanted you to.”

  I shake my head. I can’t. I can’t bear to know what it says.

  “Can I open it?” he asks. I shrug. I guess. Why not?

  “My dearest Ellie,” Aiden reads. “If you are reading this letter, then I am in fact dead. I’m so, so sorry. I hate to do this to you because you are my closest friend, but there’s no one else I trust. I’m sorry, Ellie, but I had to do it. My life was just not worth living anymore. Every night, I had nightmares over what Tom did to me. He haunted me all the time. He plagued me. No matter how many times I talked to the therapist about it, nothing made it better. But I know that this will. I know that this will put me out of my misery once and for all.”

  Tears start streaming down my face. Aiden stops reading, but I nudge him to continue.

  “I love you, Ellie, and now I have to ask a favor. The biggest favor of my life. Please don’t tell my parents about this letter. Please don’t tell anyone, except maybe Aiden. For all I know, he’s probably there with you anyway.”

  Aiden laughs. “She knows us too well,” he says. I nod and wipe my eyes, but more tears come to replace those that have just been wiped away.

  “I did my best to make it look like an accidental overdose and that’s what I want them to think. It’s better this way. Less painful. I love you, Ellie. Forever and ever. I’m sorry I won’t be able to share the rest of your life with you, but I just want you to know that you made my life bearable. And for that, I will be forever grateful. I’ll see you again on this side or the other. Caroline.”

  Aiden takes me into his arms and I bury my face in his chest. Everything turns to black.

  * * *

  The following morning, I wake up thinking that everything that just happened is a dream. Maybe I was just asleep for a very long time and none of it is real. When I climb out of bed, I see her letter on my desk. I run my fingers over it. No, unfortunately, this is not a dream. Not even a nightmare. Shit.

  Suddenly, I hate her. What she did was beyond unfair. Who the hell does she think she is? Who gave her the right to do any of that? She kills herself and then covers it up? So, why tell me? Why do I have to be the only asshole out there who knows the truth? Why can’t I just go on thinking that she had an accidental overdose just li
ke her parents? Why do I have to have this burden to carry around with me?

  I feel sick to my stomach. I barely make it to the toilet in time.

  “Ellie? Are you okay?” Aiden yells from the other room. I hear him come into my bathroom and knock on the bathroom door.

  “I’m fine,” I mumble into the toilet bowl and throw up what’s left of last night’s meal. When I finally lift myself off the floor and brush my teeth, anger courses through my veins. I wash my face, but it doesn’t make the fire that’s building within me go away.

  “Do you want me to make some breakfast?” Aiden asks.

  “No thanks. I’m just going to have some tea.”

  I grab a seat at the island and stare into space.

  “She planned this,” I say. “She planned to kill herself.”

  “Yes.”

  “That letter was hand-delivered,” I say, trying to understand her plan of action. I don’t know why I feel the need to get to the bottom of what happened, but I do. “It wasn’t mailed. Then it would’ve come too soon.”

  “Ellie—“

  “If she would’ve mailed it, then it might’ve come without her being dead. No, she couldn’t risk that. She had to have that letter be delivered after the funeral. The courier had to know for sure that she was dead.”

  “Ellie—“

  Aiden keeps interrupting me, but I don’t want to hear anything that he has to say.

  “But I doubt that she told him what she was going to do. Maybe he just had to look for the announcement in the paper and then deliver the letter after he saw it.”

  “Ellie—“

  “What?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m a masochist, Aiden. I don’t know.”

  Neither of us says anything for a while. My thoughts continue to swirl around what Ellie might have done to orchestrate this whole thing, but eventually they just settle on that little point in my chest where all the pain is focused.

  “I just really miss her,” I say, wiping the tears streaming down my cheeks.

  “I know,” Aiden says, putting his arm around me.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With this letter? I feel like her family deserves to know the truth. But then again, I want to abide by her wishes.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Why the hell did she have to put all of this on me? I mean, what the hell did I ever do to her?”

  “You were her best friend, Ellie. She loved you. And she knew that you loved her, too. That’s why she left you the letter.”

  “Nice way of thanking me, huh?”

  “She just wanted someone to know what really happened. Maybe she didn’t want her last true act to be a lie.”

  Aiden is right. Of course, he’s right. Caroline just wanted me to know that this wasn’t an accident. That she went into that good night once and for all because she wanted to. Yet, the thought of that hurts even more than if it were an accident. I mean, the idea that my friend was in so much pain that she couldn’t handle being alive anymore…how did I not realize this? Why didn’t I see any of the signs? Oh, yes, of course. I was too busy with my own life. I was too obsessed with the idea of going on a wonderful vacation with the man of my dreams to pay any attention to those around me. I’m a terrible, horrible friend. Caroline deserved so much more than me.

  “I don’t think I’m going to tell anyone about this,” I finally say, wiping my tears and pulling away from Aiden. “That’s what Caroline would’ve wanted so that’s what I’m going to do. I was a bad friend to her in life so I will try to be a better friend to her now that she’s… gone.”

  Gone. This word is somehow more comforting than the alternative. Dead. My friend is dead. No, I’m not ready to say that out loud. Not yet. Perhaps never.

  “You are a wonderful friend,” Aiden says.

  I shake my head. “Thank you, but no, I wasn’t. I was a pretty bad friend.”

  “What’s going to happen with the trial?”

  “What?”

  “The trial, in Maine? What’s going to happen with that now?”

  Oh my god. I completely forgot. All the blood drains from my face. Shit.

  “Ellie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up,” Aiden says. It’s too late for that. Yes, of course. Caroline was the main witness against Tom. And now…what’s going to happen now? Are they just going to let him go?

  “They can still prosecute him without her, right?”

  Aiden shrugs.

  “Please tell me they can,” I plead.

  “I think so,” he finally says. “But we are really going to have to talk to the district attorney.”

  I take a deep breath. My whole body starts to shake. Why the hell did you do this, Caroline? Why? You took your own life, but you had no right to. You are a selfish, narcissistic little girl. And I need you back. I can’t live without you. How can the world continue existing without you in it? How can I?

  Chapter 15 - Aiden

  When I tell her something I should’ve told her a long time ago…

  I hang around Ellie’s apartment and I try to make her better. I try, and I try, and I try and nothing works. I offer to make her food and I clean up, but it’s all futile. There’s nothing I can do to take the pain away. After a while I bury myself in work. I turn on my laptop and do what I do best.

  It’s not official yet, but I have my job back. It happened sometime during the fog of the last few weeks. The report that Ellie made against Blake became public knowledge and that was what pushed the Board of Directors to make the decision to ax him. Well, as soon as they did that, my attorneys reached out to them and made a suggestion. Since they didn’t have any good options for Blake’s replacement, why not go on the offensive and blame my firing on him. This isn’t entirely untrue. In fact, it’s probably ninety-nine percent true, so that’s what they went with. Saving themselves some paper and effort, Owl’s public relations team only had to put out one statement: firing him for allegations of sexual misconduct and hiring me back on a temporary basis.

  But all of my good news is impossible to share at a time like this. Ellie is lost to the world. She’s here, but not really here. Her body is present, but what about the rest of her? Where is she? I look at her staring out of the window. Her best friend is dead. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I can’t bring her back. I can’t even say anything that would make it alright. And now, there’s this damn letter. Why did Caroline have to leave that stupid letter? Why couldn’t she just let Ellie go on believing that this whole thing was an accident? Why does Ellie have to be the only one who knows the truth?

  When things get really tough, when I can’t bear to watch her suffer all day and all night, I go into the office. I lie to her about where I’m going, even though she doesn’t really ask, and I leave. The world outside continues to spin around the sun as if nothing has happened. It doesn’t know anything about the sorrow that Ellie’s experiencing inside her apartment, and maybe it’s better for it.

  After work, I wander the streets of New York to kill time. I stop by the library, check out a couple of books, and look through the romance section. I don’t see any of Ellie’s books there. Maybe they should be. She has so many people reading and buying her eBooks, why shouldn’t she be stocked in the library as well? Unfortunately, this isn’t a rhetorical question. I know the answer. Self-published books, no matter how good they are, don’t get sold to libraries. At least, not very often. Libraries are mainly interested in buying traditionally published books because there’s still a stigma against Indies. Ellie mentioned this earlier and I found out a lot more about this ever since. I would really like to give Ellie the gift of seeing her books in a real bookstore or library. Perhaps that can take her out of her funk.

  I come back to Ellie’s apartment with a heavy heart. This place is dreary and dark and full of bad memories. There are also
good ones, but the black ones dominate right now. I want to go back to my place, but she refuses to come with me. She says she wants to be at home right now. Of course, I could go home by myself. But can I really do that? Should I? What if Ellie gets so sad that she also does something…irreversible? Until Caroline, I did not think this was possible. But now? Ellie is not herself. She’s lost somewhere and until I get her back, I don’t trust her on her own. I need to make sure that she’s going to be okay.

  “I picked up some Thai food,” I say, placing all the takeout bags on the kitchen island.

  “Okay,” she yells from the bedroom. I wait for her to come out, but she doesn’t.

  “What are you doing?” I walk over. I find her sitting at her desk, staring out of the window.

  “Nothing really. Just trying to write.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Not well. It’s all…blank. It just doesn’t seem worth it anymore.”

  It’s statements like these that really make me worry. Her writing has always been an escape for her. It has always been something that she absolutely had to do. Even before she wrote romance. I remember her telling me about writing her short stories and going over each word, sentence and paragraph with a fine-tooth comb. Her writing is the most definitive thing about her; it’s the way that she relates to and understands the world.

  “Maybe you should just take some time off, to clear your head,” I suggest, but what the hell do I know about writing? Is time off even a good thing? Or does it just entrench you further in this pit of writer’s block? The latter is typically the case when it comes to writing code - something I do know a thing or two about.

  “Hey, come out and have some food,” I say after she doesn’t reply. “I want to tell you something.”

  Ellie grabs a seat across from me and picks up a spring roll. She stares at for a while and plays with it but doesn’t take a bite.

  “I should’ve told you this sooner, I know,” I start. “But with everything that has been going on, I wasn’t sure where to start.”