Jason

The Truth Can't Kill You

Jason

I'm back in an interrogation room in the police station. Last time I was here I was being accused of Meghan's attack. Now, I have no idea why I am being dragged in here like I'm some sort of criminal. Harassment, breaking and entering? What the actual fuck? This is game over for me because after my arrest the last time and my now criminal record for bugging Meghan's apartment, any little form of evidence they find I guarantee they will try to pin it on me. I can't sit still, I'm so anxious and desperate to get out of here and back home to Meghan. What does she think of me? Is she mad, is our relationship over? All these questions are swimming around in my head, I feel like a goldfish stuck in a bowl desperate to smash my way through the glass.
"Mr Roberts, I hope you're comfortable. Would you like some water before we start? This is going to take a while," Detective Burke smirks at me. I can tell he is enjoying every single second of watching me squirm. I'm dying inside, I can feel bile rising up in my throat and I have to find all the strength that I have to force it back down. I can't look like a wimp in front of this guy, I only just managed to get out of here by the skin of my teeth the last time, God knows what "evidence" they believe they've got to detain me now, but judging by the thick folder in front of me it sure looks like a lot.
"I'm fine, I just want to know why you've arrested me. I haven't done anything wrong," I say starting to shake, I've never been so frightened before in all my life. Everything is at stake here my relationship, my career and ultimately my freedom.
Detective Burke sniggers as he takes the seat opposite me and opens up the file. "Can you explain this then?" He says as he slides over a document, from what I can see it's an invoice for flowers from Flordel, a florist company in the East Village. I only ever buy Meghan flowers from Flower Delivery NYC, The Broadway Bouquet is her favourite with its massive sunflowers, deep red carnations and yellow roses. I look further into the details of the invoice and see the credit card details are in my name, I pick it up to make sure that I've read it right and it's clear as day, that's my name in black and white. "No, I didn't send those. Someone must've hacked into my account, they were not from me," I say confidently as I hand the paperwork back to Burke.
"Hmm, well that is your name and is that not your MasterCard details?" He sniffs looking bemused. "Like I said, someone must have hacked into my account. You know how it is these days, people everywhere are getting caught up in credit card fraud. I should know, I work in IT for Christ's sake," I say running my hand through my hair. "I believe that was fifty-two orders from that account for six months solid, talk about trying to impress a girl," Burke chuckles to himself. "Like I said a thousand times I never ordered anything from that store and that is not my card details anyway. Check my wallet and you'll see all the cards I have," I reply biting my lip trying to remain as calm as possible. "Even if I did order her all these flowers which I can assure you I did not, what has this got to do with my arrest?" I continue.
"Jason, your fiancé was allegedly stalked for months," he says shifting in his seat. I shrug, "Tell me something I don't know. The guy stalked her relentlessly and then committed suicide as a way of punishing her." Burke frowns at me, "So, according to Meghan you didn't contact the police in regards to any of this? I mean, if this guy has committed suicide then don't you think your are involved in some way?" Baffled and bewildered I spit back, "She and I had no way of getting in contact with him! I don't even know his last name." Burke continues shaking his head and smiles, "There's no last name because you didn't come up with one yet." My patience is wearing very thin now. "Ricky is the twenty something guy who had a one night stand with Meghan over six months ago and then started a stalking campaign on her," I respond, feeling terrible that I've had to admit this on Meghan's behalf, she never wanted this and now the police are going to have to bring her in and question her over this dickhead. Raising his eyes up to the ceiling Burke responds, "This Ricky doesn't exist does he, Jason?" Baffled I spit back, "Well, according to Meghan he does! I highly doubt that she imagined a one night stand or all those months of harassment. This guy broke into her car, apartment, as you can see he sent her endless amounts of flowers, he followed her from work and he was there on the night of what should have been our engagement. How much more evidence do you want?" He gets up from his seat and opens the file, "Meghan's medication was tampered with, we did a test and it shows that the medication in her cabinet, or should I say your cabinet are placebo's. No wonder she thought she was going insane, the med's she was using to calm her anxiety and depression were non-existent because of you," he says pointing at me. My world is crumbling around me, Meghan's medication was tampered with? "That bastard must have broken in and messed around with it, how could you even think I could be capable of doing this especially to a woman I love and care for so much?" Burke goes quiet for a second and flicks through the paperwork, eventually settling on one document. "This here is a statement from Meghan, do you want me to read it to you it's very interesting stuff? I'm just going to go right ahead."

Ever since I had that one night stand with a man called Ricky my life has snowballed out of control. I was followed and harassed for months on end until I met my now fiancé Jason Roberts. One night while we were having dinner at Le Beradin I was almost certain that I saw him pass us by and that's when Jason went after him. A few weeks later I received a message from him threatening to commit  suicide, I never thought he would actually follow through with it. I had no way of contacting him, nor did I know where he lived. He went quiet and I thought that was the end of it all. This has turned out to not be the case, myself and Jason spent sometime at his sisters house in New Jersey where his sister encouraged us to play with a Ouija Board. Which we did and I thought it was joke at the time, but after that I noticed strange occurrences in our apartment, objects being moved whilst myself and Jason were out at work, flowers were still being sent to me from the same shop that Ricky was sending his from, my medication was failing me and I felt even more vulnerable than I had felt in months, and on a holiday trip to Florida I received a message from the concierge team advising me that a Ricky had left word for me to call him back. I don't know what to do anymore, I've reached the end of my long tether. I went to see Gareth Brewerton, my counsellor who helped me come to terms with the sexual assault that occurred last year, and he has advised for me to come in and speak to you so that we can maybe get to the bottom of this. I love Jason with all my heart and would never want to believe that he could do something like this to hurt me, but maybe this is my punishment for lying to him about my miscarriage when I had an abortion as I knew the baby I was carrying was Ricky's and not his.

My heart is slowly shattering into a million tiny insignificant pieces, the baby I thought was mine was actually Ricky's? I wanted that baby more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I have so many questions, I desperately need to speak to Meghan. My eyes fill and I start to cry, I don't give a shit about what Burke thinks of me I know the truth. "I need to speak to my fiancé and I want to speak to her now!" I demand wiping my tears away. "'No, that's not possible. We will be interviewing you some more tomorrow as there's a few more things we need to discuss with you. Seeing as you're obviously very distraught and emotional at being caught out we will give you a break. The way I see it is you met a very drunk Meghan at a bar in a disguise, you duped her into believing that you were some other guy to get into her pants that night. Then you created this fantasy that she was being stalked and then you plotted for her to run into you, the Jason version of you, and wormed your way into her life making out that you were her protector. When in fact you've been behind this thing right from the very start. We are not as stupid as you think, son. You've been rumbled and we have all the evidence to prove it. Come on, be honest the truth can't kill you. Anyway, get some sleep and we will talk more tomorrow," he says nonchalantly as he turns off the tape. They haven't got any real evidence to prove that I've done any of this and once they let me out of here I'm going to go looking for this whack job, I promise myself. I can't deny it, part of me likes that Meghan has been so dependent on me these last couple of months. It's been nice just having her all to myself without anyone else getting in the way, but I would never do anything to hurt her.
I get taken to a cell, it's bleak, lifeless and cold. The ceilings paint work needs a good touch up, there's cracks all along the skirting. This is my ultimate nightmare, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would end up here. The door closes and I'm trapped in here alone and afraid as to what will become of me. It reminds me of when my dad used to lock me in the basement for days when I was little.