Divorce Papers II

SHAWN

It was Cassius’s dry chuckle that finally broke the heavy silence in the room.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered, the words thick with cynical amusement. Another of those grating laughs escaped his lips before he finally met my gaze—one that darted pointedly from my face to the torn divorce papers littered across the ground.

“There is more from where that came from, Shawn,” he said, his voice lowering. “Finally, you get to lie on the bed you have made for yourself. You, and your entire family. I don’t think Silas Viking will be particularly happy when Elara tells him what she has gone through at both your hands and your family's. Neither would her brothers.”

My mother paled even further as a small, pathetic squeak left her lips, her body still numb with the sheer force of the astonishing news.

Cassius turned on his heel to leave the room, and suddenly my tongue was loosened by the rising tide of panic.

“Why are you on her side?” I demanded. “Why will you prepare divorce papers for her? Do you like her, Cass?”

“Who wouldn’t like Elara once they got to know her?” Cassius asked, turning aside just enough to fix a cold, pitying gaze on me. “You are the one that didn’t know you had a diamond, and rather traded it for a mere, ugly stone...”

I heard Miranda’s sharp intake of breath, the tiny whimper that followed immediately after, but I couldn't be bothered about her theatrics now. Instead, I closed the distance between my best friend and me, and grabbed his collar.

“Are you sleeping with my wife?”

“Are you deaf now, too?” Cassius’s expression didn't even change in the slightest. “Either way, if it will soothe your queries, this is not the first time she asked for a divorce from you. She actually asked in the first year of your marriage...”

My hands fell off his collar limply, my arms coming to rest at my sides as the strength drained out of me. “What?”

“She mentioned you physically abused her?” Cassius shook his head, a look of profound disbelief crossing his features. “It was hard to believe that you would raise your hand on a woman, but knowing that you weren’t pleased with the union, I was ready to save you both the stress... but she backed out the next day...”

When I brought her flowers.

I cussed mentally as I remembered that day with a sudden clarity. I looked at the screen again, and the dull ache in my chest increased until it was a physical weight.

How she had remained so docile, so quiet, while my family mistreated her for years eluded me. She was her father’s jewel, for Christ’s sake, and I had made a pathetic joke of her devotion… of her love.

Heavens, help me.

“Where is she!” I asked Cassius, my voice cracking with an urgency I hadn't felt in years.

He scoffed, the sound biting. “You want to know now? After you both threw her in the swimming pool and left her there to drown?”

How did he know that? My heart stuttered.

“There is no one foolish enough to antagonize your grandfather but you both, so I made the connection...” He paused, his jaw tightening as he gritted his teeth. “You are evil, Shawn. Knowing she has a phobia for water... you are evil.”

“She pushed Miranda into the water knowing she couldn’t swim!” I roared back. Frustration boiled in my heart like acid, my fists clenching by my sides so hard my knuckles turned white.

Cassius looked gobsmacked. He darted a look of pure bewilderment between me and Miranda’s trembling form. “Miranda can’t swim? Is that a joke, or what?”

My mother frowned. “She can’t swim, Cassius. Truly.”

Cassius looked at her with a loaded disgust that my mother—who wasn't used to such a glance from the boy she had always called her second son—staggered back a little.

“Cassius...”

“Are you stupid, or what? Is Miranda’s pussy that sweet?”

I opened my mouth to rebuke the vulgarity, but I shut it instantly when I saw the genuine, mocking bewilderment in his eyes.

He pointed a rigid finger at Miranda. “She won third place in the swimming meet back in high school. Or did you forget?”

I shook my head slowly, trying to push past the disorientation, trying to shove aside the terrifying possibility that Cassius was telling the truth. “That’s... not...”

“True?” Cassius completed for me, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Ask her then. She is right behind you.”

I turned slowly toward Miranda. She was already crying, her fists bunched together against her chest as if in a desperate plea.

“Can you swim?”

I hadn’t cared much for swimming meets back in high school—I hadn’t cared much for anything but myself, to be honest—so I hadn’t known if she was a swimmer or not.

I only knew that when I had seen her drowning last night, I had acted on a mindless impulse. I had saved her and felt justified—satisfied, even—when I pushed Elara into the pool. I had felt like the righteous wielder of karma.

But now…

“Miranda, can’t you speak?” my mother asked, her tone wavering. “Tell him the truth... there is nothing to fear.”

“True,” Cassius agreed with a lethal coldness. “Knowing I can dig into our records back in high school in a heartbeat.”

That statement seemed to push Miranda over the edge. She dissolved into large, heaving sobs, but unlike before, where I would have hurried over and tried to make her feel better, where I would have cursed out whatever was making her sad—I remained standing. I waited for her to speak.

“Miranda, answer the question...” I demanded, my voice turning harsh as her whimpering continued.

She looked at me with wide, wet eyes, like she couldn’t believe I was turning against her, but she gave a frantic nod regardless.

“The push was sudden...” she rattled on, the words tumbling out fast and desperate. “So I couldn’t... I just...”

She started crying again, but the sound was hollow now.

Cassius scoffed. “If I should take a guess, I would say you pushed yourself into that water, knowing that my foolish friend would come and save you, and then you blamed Elara.”

He scoffed again, moving toward the door. “I’m out of here. This place disgusts me.”

It hurt to watch him leave. We have been friends since high school, and because of Elara, he believed I was a creature of disgust.

Yet, could his guess be right? I wondered, the memory of Elara’s final words before I pushed her flashing in my mind. She had called me a pawn. Miranda’s pawn.

I looked at Miranda. She was still weeping, but I felt no need to touch her or offer a shred of comfort.

“Shawn, you have to believe me, I didn’t do it...”

I looked away from her, looked at my mother instead. She looked somewhat confused, regretful even, but I knew her better than that; it was only because Elara wasn't the peasant we all thought she was.

I knew my mother was far too materialistic to ignore the Viking name.

I ruffled my hair in a fit of agitation. I needed to see Elara. She still loved me—wasn't that why she hadn't divorced me that first year? I needed to get her to stop this madness of divorcing me. I immediately pulled out my phone and called the florist.

“Get me ten dozen of your best roses. Deep red. The Gracefilled Hospital.”

I knew she was there; my grandfather had mentioned his visit. Before I could call the old man, his name flashed across the screen in an aggressive pulse. Oh well. He must have seen the news.

“You brat! Have you seen the news?” his voice thundered.

Words wouldn't leave my tongue.

“Now, I’m sure that your foolish mistress pushed herself into that water, then blamed it on Elara... that fool! You better hope she forgives you for not visiting her in the hospital... you better hope, or else... and I don’t want to see that Miranda around you again!”

The call ended, and I shut my eyes tight, the darkness doing nothing to soothe the ache in my chest. What would he do if he knew that I was the one who had pushed my wife into that pool?

I inhaled deeply, trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart. She had to forgive me, at least this once. I needed a way into the Viking empire. I called back my father, my voice sounding like a stranger’s.

“What’s her room number?”

“Room B17,” he answered, then hung up immediately.

I knew he was angry, too. I didn’t blame him. I had messed up, badly.

“Shawny, where are you going? Are you going to leave me here?”

“I will be back soon,” I said, walking out without a single glance at Miranda.

I needed to go get my wife back.