Her Silence

Chapter Thirty Five

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light." George Washington

A Letter

I'm going to start from the very beginning, because there is no right way to write this.

When I hired Rosie nearly ten months ago, I was almost certain about who she was. Or rather, who she was to me. She had been visiting Tidy on and off for just about a year, and the resemblance between her and her Mother was undoubtable. For a very long time, and even still to this day, Rosie believes that she is totally alone; that her family was of three with no extensions. In another life, Rosie would have called me Uncle Jacob. It's not totally true, but it's close enough: I'm her Mother's cousin, making me related to the girl. How she will take this information I do not know. It surprised me that none of you figured that it would likely be a family member that was causing her all this grief – and not just her Mother. She could not have done this alone.

When it comes to Rosie and her suffering, I'm not stupid: it takes a lot of trust to share what she has been through, and when she willingly told me her story the day that her co-worker was blabbering about an overdose I was more surprised than she most likely was. But, of course, I already knew everything. I'm not ignorant towards how she feels about the world: if I was her, I would hate it too. Though it was her imploring attitude that just kept niggling away at me: she wanted to do something right in her life, which she thought was working at Tidy, but her Mother wouldn't ever allow it. I let her believe she was safe and hidden for as long as I could before I had to act – I was under strict instructions. The coordination and finding the right people was simple enough. Amy was perfect, and though she wouldn't dare say boo to a goose, she is one hell of a liar. Amy's family is as troublesome as you could get, and from what she suggested I'm sure she wanted to release some of the anger she held against the them on someone who she deemed as not having it that bad. With this in mind, you can imagine that she was very obliging. Amy and her sister's boyfriend were having something along the lines of an affair – a horrid ordeal, really. Getting Mark, who posed as Matt, to also go along with my plan was easy enough and I have to give it to them, asides from Amy reappearing from the kitchen looking like a mad woman, they carried out the plan of the evening nearly perfectly. However, too many mistakes were made: Amy stupidly left her phone on the table, face up, and Rosie saw her starting the fire. I'm certain that James and Rosie had an inkling that I was in on it, but Amy basically handed herself in, and the shame she now feels is tremendous. It's as if she's snapped out of a possessed stance - I guess its one way of defining my cousin's skills of manipulation.

The accumulation of events before the fire can indeed be deemed as singular acts of defiance, but I must make it clear that no money was ever stolen, though it set the ball rolling didn't it? The knives were only given to Rosie's Mother in an attempt to scare her, and it worked successfully – the look on her face when I told her could have been framed. What threw me, however, was the arrival of James. Holes started forming in the plot. Sure, I asked him to witness the insertion of the camera, but that was only to make everything seem legitimate. I didn't think he'd actually stick around. Seeing him dealing with Rosie the day I called her into my office was enough to tell me that he was going to be on her side throughout the whole tribulation – her vulnerability had that effect on people, more often than not. That was the only way she ever outdid her Mother whenever she attempted to ruin things for her before – no one can possibly fake a panic attack on Rosie's level, not even the best actor in the world. Rosie will always tell the truth, and if she can't say it, her body will express it. I did not expect Rosie and James to actually start dating – he is pretty much destined to go above and beyond for her, and there was never a feasible way to get him out of the way. Though it was only Rosie who was supposed to be silenced, if the stars had been properly aligned, they would have both died in the fire that night. I honestly left the bar thinking that was going to be the outcome.

Now you know how everything happened, I'll briefly explain why. For starters, Rosie was an accident and quite frankly not wanted – her Mother fell pregnant with her by mistake, and she felt inclined to marry Andrew, Rosie's father. Andrew made out that he had simply become redundant through his job going bust, but it actually all came to an end when his manager found him shooting up in the staff toilets. After that, no job wanted him – who would? Rosie's Mother took this as the perfect chance to leave everything behind. I'm nearly certain that had Rosie not existed she would have stayed with Andrew – she really was in love with him. You can imagine how she felt when she found out he had died; the overdose was completely brushed over and she was convinced that Rosie had caused his death, claiming she was an added stress on top of him battling a drug addiction. From that day onwards she vowed she would do everything she could to 'dispose' of Rosie – whether it be ruining her life or actually killing her. I was only in on it because a past family incident held me forever in her debt, and I was well aware that she could ruin my life and my business just as well as she could ruin Rosie.

Sitting here writing this, I realise how far I went, and I cannot take advantage of her silence anymore. After all, Rosie never actually did anything to me. I've been staying with her Mother, my cousin,  for about three weeks now and am sure that she is off her head. She lives in the only grey building on the council estate outside of town - she doesn't know I'm writing this, but she deserves everything that she's got coming for her. Living with her has made me realise that I no longer want anything to do with of either of the women, nor the world.

My sincerest apologies, Jacob.

*****

I hope everything now makes sense - it will certainly make sense to James and Rosie! Did you guess it? And would you forgive Jacob?

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