Chenford Story ✔️

29

Angela's POV

I walked up to the apartment. It seemed nice. Good neighbourhood, well kept, at least from the exterior. The type of place Lucy might like. It felt like years of scrambling around inside before I finally heard the key in the door. Then the door opened.

It was her. It was Lucy. She was alive. She was Infront of me. She was.... Heavily pregnant?

I stuck my foot into the gap in the door, predicting the inevitable that Lucy would try to shut me out, which she did moments later.
"Lucy I have been searching for you for months, you will let me in"
The door hesitantly opened wider,revealing the interior of the apartment. It was well kept, nicely decorated and very 'Lucy'. That was good, she hadn't been living in complete squalor for months.
"So?" I gestured to Lucy's obviously very pregnant baby bump.
She looked down at the floor.
"Yeah, due next week"
I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or a mixture of both. I was so happy to find Lucy, to find out she was pregnant, that she was happy with her life. Sad that she had left in the first place, that I had to spend months finding her, that she was happy  without us.

The last one hit me the hardest. Lucy was happy. Without us. I just started sobbing. Somehow Lucy managed to guide me onto her sofa so we could have a talk.

"First off how's jack? I haven't seen him in almost a year now. He must be what-"
"Yeah he's 4 already, time flew by"
Lucy started seeming saddened.
We made some more polite small talk, like two strangers talking for the first time while waiting for a bus. I hated it. I wanted to know Lucy so much more than this, like I had before. I wanted it to go back to how it was before.

"So..." I approached the topic cautiously.
Lucy just stared at her lap, twiddling her thumbs. I had already assumed she would answer.
"Why did you leave Lucy?" Those five words were all it took for Lucy to start full on bawling. Clearly it didn't bring up the best memories.

Lucy shook her head, trying to hold back tears. "I-i can't tell you"
I saw the fear in her eyes.
"Lucy if it's the baby, no once cares, you can come home"
Lucy shook her head and started backing away slowly.

I softly grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving and she just collapsed on the floor in strangled sobs.

Lucy's POV

"I-i" I inhaled "i-im s-s-sorry" I could barely get the words out through my tears. I wanted to go home, more than anything I wanted to be back in Tim's arms. But I couldn't be. He had a girlfriend and a baby on the way. That was selfish of me.

After about an hour of crying tears I didn't know I could still cry, Angela finally calmed me down and I just curled up on the sofa.

"So, start from the beginning. What happened?"
"Angela...."
She looked over to me, "yeah Luce?"
"I don't want to go to jail."
Angela seemed confused, "your not going to jail, it's not like you killed someone"

I looked away. That was just completely incorrect.
"You haven't..... Killed anyone..... Right?" Angela's voice grew more tentative, almost scared.

I wiped my eyes once more and began. Knowing I would probably go to prison for this.

"I was abused, as a child, by my parents. They would invite over their friends and force me to give the older men handjobs and strip for them. It went in for years, until one day when I was 14, Thomas Foxly came over."
I saw the recognition in Angela's face.
"He tried to rape me, said my parents didn't have to know."
Angela put her hands over her mouth, she looked horrified.
"I shoved him away...... Clearly I pushed him to hard. He fell and hit his head in the kitchen counter. I saw the blood pouring out of his skull and I watched as he died. My parents buried him under the cherry tree in our garden. So far as I know his bones are still there."

Angela just sat in silence.
I held out my hands, not knowing if she even had handcuffs to arrest me.
"That's why I left. My parents were blackmailing me to go back and live with them. I-i just couldn't to it. There wasn't any other way out"

I started crying again reliving that nightmare.
I looked up at Angela
"Please say something......"

Angela's POV

Wow. Shit. Clearly that was the wrong thing to say. That 'its not like you killed someone', Lucy has. Lucy killed a man. Fuck.

What do I do? I can't arrest her? Anyway it's outside my jurisdiction, I have no power. That's good. I can't arrest Lucy.
I wasn't sure I would have even if we were in LA. I remembered that case. I was just about to go into my senior year old high school when it happened.

By that point I already decided I wanted to be a cop. No suspects, no body, no evidence at all. A seemingly nice husband and father just... gone.
Now I knew where, and why, and how.
And Lucy has to live with that guilt for 15 years.
"Please say something....."
I heard Lucy speak again. Her hands were out in front of her, waiting for me to put on handcuffs.
I just pulled her into a hug.
"I'm so so so so sorry Lucy. If we get your parents arrested, can you come home?"
By this point I had completely forgotten about the pregnancy.

"No Angela. I'm sorry but I won't come back."
I let go briefly, "What? Why not?"
Lucy gestured to her baby bump.
"Oh, yeah I forgot about that. Um..... Who's the father?"
Lucy whispered something inaudible.
"Lucy speak up I can't hear you"
Again Lucy mumbles and looked away towards the floor.
I just glared at her.
"Tim"
What?!!?!?!?!??!?!!
"Wait what?! Tim is the father?! When, what, how?! I want to know everything!"

Lucy chuckled despite the situation. Oh my god, chenford finally happened and then Lucy's parents had to blackmail her.

"Um, Tim and I started dating about three months before I left. We decided to keep it hidden until I graduated from being his rookie. Then just after that car accident, a month later, I found out I was pregnant. Tim doesn't know."

"Wow"
"Yeah wow. I was going to give Tim the baby in about three months. I can't be a mother Angela."

Oh. So Tim was about to have a second entire child he didn't even know about. And Lucy was the mother. How had I missed this? That Lucy and Tim were dating?! It seems so obvious in hindsight, the looks over the lunch table, the staying behind after shift to do 'paperwork' in Tim's office. Now I'm questioning how much paperwork was completed.

"Are you mad at me Angela?"
Lucy looked so concerned, so vulnerable.
"No Lucy. I understand why you did what you did. I'm just sad we missed out on so much time together."

Lucy hugged me tightly.
"Thanks Ange"
"Anytime Lucy"