I Became Her

Chapter 17 -The Demise-

“What?” I ask like I am a little slow and can’t follow a normal conversation.

“You needed money to start over, right?” she asks, but I doubt she is looking for me to answer her. “Here is your new beginning.” After digging in her bag, she throws a yellow envelope at me. “Use it wisely.”

My stare flickers between the package in my hand and her, who is standing tall and fierce in front of me. “What’s that?”

“Open it!” She says excitedly.

I am curious, too curious to be suspicious about all of this. I weigh the package in my hand and it’s somewhat heavy, but not too bad. I look at her once again and she nods confidently, urging me to look inside.

And I do.

“Where did you get this?” My eyes almost fly out of my head when I see the brick of money that is inside. “How?” I utter under my breath, unable to comprehend why she is giving me that.

“It’s yours. And that’s not it, the rest is in the bank. I rented a safe deposit box for you.” She gives me another big smile full of satisfaction and pride. “It’s your new beginning. It’s the beginning of Lex,” she says and winks at me.

“How?” I sputter the word that is spinning in my head. I am speechless. “I can’t take this.” My head is starting to shake from side to side. “Where did you get this? Is this yours? I can’t take this.” She needs it just as much as I do and there is no way I am accepting this much money from someone I know nothing about. Someone who I cannot wholly trust.

She starts to laugh at my confused and disoriented state. “It’s yours.” She takes my hand and pulls me towards the couch and motions me to sit down. “Okay, I will tell you,” she says prior to breathing out loud and getting ready for another story time. “The suitcase you wanted me to get rid of, I took it to my friend who works at the free clinic in the hospital, they accept all kinds of clothes and donations. So, three days ago she called me and said that while going through your things they found your cellphone and credit cards.”

“I don’t have credit cards,” I interrupt her.

“I know, cause when I went to pick them up, I noticed that the cards were on his name.” She gave me a Grinch-like mischievous smile before continuing. “They were Duncan’s.”

“He let me use his cards because I didn’t have any income. But there were hard limits. No cash withdrawal was allowed and 200$ limit per week.” So, they would be pretty useless, especially because I have to pretend I am dead. How could I shop around town if I am supposed to be six feet under right now?

“That’s why I was out of town for a few days. After years of giving women who he sold another chance in life, they will help you screw the bastard who hurt them. That’s why I set up a meeting with one of the women who now works at the Nebraska branch of the bank that issued the cards.” I am listening to her explain everything, yet I still can’t understand much. “With her help we accessed the accounts and withdrew the money that was on them.” Her smile that belongs to an evil mastermind accelerates to new heights when she added loud laughter to it.

“What if he-,”

“What if he finds out?” She finishes the question I was trying to ask. “He won’t. We made it look like his assets were frozen by the law enforcement, so I doubt he will go and complain. He is going to run and hide, thinking the police is after him.” She shrugs her shoulders, “Maybe he would be safer if the police were after him, instead of us.” She made us sound strong and capable, when in fact, we are not.

But she has a point. With his connections and powerful people surrounding him, he would not be punished enough to offer solace to the victims. They would say there is no real evidence, just our word against his, just accusations and slandering to diminish his reputation. We will be painted as vindictive ex-girlfriends who can’t accept that they were left behind. That’s the unfortunate world we live in, where money and power rule over truth and dignity.

“How much?” I finally ask when I hear her explanation of how she got the money.

“Two million,” she says nonchalantly, like there’s nothing to it. Like I am holding ten bucks she found on the street. But it’s a fortune. Fortune he will be wanting back.

“I can’t take it. He will be after us. He will find me.” There is no way he will let this one go.

She takes the envelope from my hands. “I’ll hold it until you are ready to do what you are supposed to do,” and with these words she walks out of my apartment, slamming the door shut after her.

I lean back on the sofa and shut my eyes, everything she just said is making my head spin like a roulette wheel. Two million dollars of dirty money, two million reasons for him to come after me. Well, if he knew I was alive. But what if he was sure I wasn’t, what if he knew I was dead for sure, and the money was actually being seized by the police?

I jump up from the sofa and almost sprint out the door, forgetting about the dragons and my fears, and knock like a lunatic on Shai’s door.

As soon as I can see her, I start delivering my genius idea to her. “Kill me. You have to kill me. He has to be a hundred percent sure I am dead!” She furrows her brows, but before she manages to get one word out, I keep going. “I need to be dead to him.”

“Okay, I hear ya,” she says, and I can already see her mind going a hundred miles per hour to think of ways to make that happen. “We need a forged death certificate and a journalist to make it public.” She talks, but not to me directly, seems like she is just thinking out loud cause her eyes are flicking from here to there trying to put all the puzzle pieces together.

“And we need to make it look like there is an investigation,” I add to her already overwhelmed thinking capacity.

“Yes,” She says slowly, dragging on the letter ‘e’. And then she comes back to reality and looks at me with all seriousness. “Give me a day and you’ll be dead tomorrow.” Door slams to my face and that is it. Our conversation ended as abruptly as it started.

I walk back to my place, but I am stopped by the sound of her door opening across the hall.

“Catch!” She shouts and throws the already familiar envelope at me.

I catch it and her door is closed again when I look up. She is crazy and I am not sure her crazy is the good kind.

Back on the couch, I take the money out and count it. Actually, I count it three times to make myself believe it. There is twenty thousand dollars in my hand. Some of it may be the payment for me if I think about it, so basically, it is the money I earned and technically, I deserve it. Well, earned is not the correct word to use here, but that is all I got. No actual word for it is coming to mind at the moment.

I placed the money back in the envelope and hid the whole thing in the almost empty box of cereal. If some hungry burglar came here, then they would hit the jackpot, otherwise I am good.

All this excitement and confusion has got my nerves all tangled up and I feel how I need to release some of the tension. I need to unload and get rid of this anxiety.

So, half an hour later, I am running like there is a hungry bear at my heels. But there is no bear, just me and the treadmill that is taking a beating from my feet, trying to escape from the stress. Even though there is no genuine escape, one can try, right?

I am not even looking at the screen to see the time or distance, I will run until there is no more strength left to keep my feet stumping against the machine. Time, speed and distance are just words to me, they don’t represent their true meaning since I know I am not as strong as I used to be, so why get myself down trying to compare with someone who does not exist anymore?

After some time, the feeling like you don’t control your feet any longer comes and it seems like they are moving with inert, not muscle power. That is when I know to stop. I want to be in control, I want to be in control of everything I do, everything I don’t do.

Power of attorney over my life is owned by me.

Only me.