17 Last Times

⤹18❁ The progress

Welcome back! This is the first of two updates that I'm posting today!

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𝓦𝓲𝓵𝓵

It's been a few long months. I've been constantly obsessing over Anaya and my devilish plan on how to expose her. On one hand, it took my mind off Davina and let me partially forget that we had almost existed as an item. On the other hand, I started to encounter sleeping problems. The stratagem required thinking ahead, a lot of thinking actually, and being the one who had come up with this brilliant but also very fragile idea, I had to make sure none mistakes were made along the way. And unfortunately, I have this massive tendency of fucking things up and annihilating everything I care about.

The door bell echoes in the imposing vastness that once used to be my family home. Now it's just a house, in which I begin to feel more and more forlorn. I never would have thought that I could feel so suffocated with so much air around me.

My hand swings the door open and lets Michael inside. Money might not be able to buy everything, but without it, I surely wouldn't have managed to hire him.

Michael is a man in his late twenties. A picture perfect individual with a ridiculously wide and bright smile, eyes green enough to make up for all the forests that have been unreasonably cut down. Endowed with a mass of curly and healthy brown hair, the ends of which always topple over his thick dark brows, he's a literal resemblance of Nathan, just slightly older and not so rebellious.

Fucking Nathan. I hate him so much for no longer being capable of hating him. Truth be told, he's never done me wrong. If anything, it was always the other way around. He deserves to be happy. Him and Davina deserve to reunite, if they already haven't, and work towards their happily ever after.

"Alright, mate?" Michael greets me with a nod. "Bad or good news first?"

"Go with bad," I order, tired.

"Well, I almost broke her. She was literally one sweet word away from blurting it all out."

"Why didn't you push it then?" I stare at him, perplexed.

"Because if I did, it would have automatically clicked in her head that I really want to find out the truth. You know that we can't afford such a big mistake."

I let out a prolonged breath. "No, of course not. I'm sorry. You're doing a fantastic job."

"I'm just a performer. If anything, it's your friend, Nicole, who's due all the adulation. Without her notes and guidance, we wouldn't be able to accomplish much at all."

"Once again, you're right." God, I hate that he's always correct and on top of it, so modest. I can't complain, though. There weren't many people with enough courage to take upon this task. Too many candidates deemed it illegal, but counseling can be provided by anyone, and depending on the situation, may be absolutely free.

The very beginning of our plan started the same night I rang Connor, with whom, effectively, Nicole and I had a conversation. She seemed downright pleased to have met Beverly's ex-boyfriend, yet bound by the law, she couldn't tell him the truth about the girl's therapy and medical treatment. I wasn't entirely sure whether he knew about it, so I shared this snippet with him when Nicole excused herself to use the bathroom. The information seemed to have ultimately lifted the weight of blame from upon his chest as he exhaled with great relief and somewhat teared up.

Later during the night, we explained to him why we needed his assistance. Nicole couldn't become Anaya's therapist for two reasons; one, Anaya would never disclose to Nicole that she pretty much murdered her daughter, and two, therapies aren't cheap. I doubted that Anaya had enough money to afford the sessions, and I couldn't offer to pay for them since there was no way she didn't conclude that Davina might have told me the whole story regarding her malevolent deed.

Therefore Connor, even though in a relationship with Rayna, was the ideal someone who could convince Anaya to go to the private meetings. He recommended her a counselor, who had allegedly helped him through the thick of healing after Beverly had killed herself.

What made Connor the perfect candidate for this task was the fact that he was close to Rayna and Davina, which meant that if Anaya refused to see the counselor, she would basically admit that Cassie's death didn't really affect her. The offer coming from Connor was also an indication that Davina or Rayna might have been onto something, which was supposed to make Anaya paranoid and make her believe that the girls might have gained some sort of evidence that would allow them to try to put her in jail.

Another reason why I asked Connor to speak to Anaya was because she knew that he had lost Beverly to a suicide, which made his offer and compassion unquestionable. It gave us the ideal pinch of trust awakening that we needed from her. It worked. She agreed to see Michael, who, since then, had been spending a lot of time with Nicole, learning her ways of making people open up and unfold their secrets.

I look at Michael as he places his hand on my shoulder. "Don't stress it, Will." A devilish smirk paints a crooked line across his mouth. "She's in love with me. It won't be long before she breaks and tells me everything."

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