Dead To Me

Twenty Five

TWENTY FIVE

The comfort of being out cold, versus, waking up to a harsh reality: Gray found himself being presented with two options and right away, he knew the more sensible route to take.

He blinked back the stars and groggily sat up, realizing that he was drenched through in murky water, for he had been lying a creek for who knew how long. He choked on the taste of sand from the back of his throat and felt a throbbing pain where a baseball bat had struck him earlier, at the back of his head.

“Where are we?” Gray asked, whilst Charlotte walked over, dragging a shovel slowly across the ground. “Isla Tagaan’s body was found not too far off from where we’re at now, and her makeshift grave’s empty now” she began speaking cryptically. “But I guess…not for long” Charlotte smiled as she dropped the shovel down, merely missing Gray’s feet.

Gray took a moment to compose his thoughts and then he said “I know what you did, Charlotte… Myles is still alive and you’ve been hiding a lie all this while!” Responding to this, Charlotte only gave off a wicked laugh, clapping as she replied “Three points for you, Gray Asher. You’ve figured it out!”

“Why are you doing this?” Gray asked, visibly upset at Charlotte’s peculiar, erratic behavior. Yet pacing the ground, Charlotte refused to hand the kid the answers. She refused to believe that another 17 year old – besides her own – could possibly step right in and foil her faultless plans. She couldn’t possibly let them win.

“You know a whole lot about something you should know nothing about” Charlotte said bitterly, pulling out a gun she had hid underneath her dark coat. Gray blinked back the tears as he shook his head, realizing that Charlotte would stop at nothing to have things go her way. He gulped, agreeing that, “A dead man can’t speak” to which Charlotte laughed at. “I knew you were a smart one all along, Gray.”

“Well…You’re gonna kill me anyway. You might as well tell me the truth. I’ll take it to the grave anyway” Gray tried prodding, hoping she would relay to him all that had happened in the past couple of months. Charlotte continued pacing the ground, and then with a sigh, she finally relented.

“The night Ben died in that plane crash, Myles was involved in a hit and run, resulting in Isla’s death. I couldn’t possibly let the cops take my son away from me. So I lied and tipped off the reporter covering the news. I told them Myles had been on the yacht and he was dead, so they went along with the lie.”

Gray stood in silence, taken aback by how Charlotte could be so nonchalant about everything that she’s done, but he realized that there was far more to come. “Myles and I, we buried Isla’s body in the woods and sold off our old home” Charlotte laughed, and Gray felt the chills rise from the back of his neck, coursing through his body, making him gain goosebumps from the words he was hearing.

“Axl was the easiest part of the lie. He’s so messed up that half the time, he hardly realizes anything. His brother living in the basement, me switching up his meds – and still, he’s oblivious to it all” Charlotte could no longer control her laughter, for somehow she found it hilarious how everything had been smooth sailing.

“And then the cops found Isla’s body and messed up your plans…” Gray guessed. Charlotte nodded, and all at once she ceased rejoicing. “I couldn’t let them take my one and only son away from me. I couldn’t let them take Myles away from me” she admitted, tears of regret in her eyes, a deep remorse born from her heart, for having had Axl; for having had a child she never wanted in the first place.

“I had to make sure it looked like Axl was to blame, so I placed evidence where there need be. Axl would be in prison for murder and Myles and I, we’d start afresh in Venice. We have a vacation home there, and the best part is: nobody would know who we are or what we’ve done”, she stated. “It’d be perfect.”

Having said this, Charlotte raised her gun and aimed it at Gray’s forehead. “Did you even think that you could just run along and ruin everything I’ve worked so hard for?” she smirked, and her finger landed on the trigger.

A single gunshot filled the air and there was complete silence for the longest of seconds.