7
Reflection
After neatly placing Edie in her room, Gabrielle and Carlos went to their room in absolute silence. They sat on the bed for about a minute before Carlos leaned in and kissed Gabrielle. She returned the kiss, only with more passion, more fire. She began to unbutton Carlos' jacket then stopped. She parted slightly. She said, "Sorry. I don't know what came over me. Let's continue."
The passionate kissing resumed. Carlos put one hand on Gabrielle's right shoulder and began to gently lower the strap on her dress—but he, too, stopped. They lay there for about a minute before Gabrielle said, "Carlos…you don't think Edie killed herself…because of us?"
"I don't know," said Carlos softly. "She did try to hang herself when I broke it off with her the first time. I guess having it happen a second time was too much for her."
"Yeah," said Gabrielle softly. She paused before saying, "I think we should just go to bed. No sex tonight. Somehow, it just doesn't feel right, us having sex while Edie's dead, knowing we may have caused her death."
"Same here," said Carlos. He paused before saying, "Edie has a son. Did you know that?"
"No," said Gabrielle. "When did that happen?"
"A couple years ago, when she was with her first husband before divorcing him," explained Carlos. "I met him when her ex-husband dropped him off while going to a Doctors Without Borders meeting in Africa. His name is Travers. He seemed to really love his mother. How do you think he's going to react when he finds out that his mommy, whom he loved very much and expected to see next year on his yearly visit, had killed herself and he never even got to say goodbye to her?"
Gabrielle shifted uncomfortably. "I never thought of that," said Gabrielle softly. "I remember my father died of cancer when I was five. It nearly destroyed me, but I was able to pretend to the world like nothing was wrong. Kind of like how we pretended nothing was wrong when we talked about the accusations against us."
"Or how everyone else pretended nothing was wrong," said Carlos. "You know, I have to wonder: How many of them were telling the truth? How can we take their word for it that they're saints who have never done anything wrong? After all, we lied about that little incident with Victor, right?"
"Right," said Gabrielle, nodding.
There was an awkward silence. "So," said Gabrielle, "Do you want to get changed for bed first?"
"Sure," said Carlos. He got up to get his pyjamas out of the wardrobe he put them in.
Gabrielle watched Carlos pityingly and thought, Oh, Carlos. If only you knew…
DHDHDHDHDH
Bree curled up underneath the warm blankets in the snug bed. It felt strange, being the only one besides Edie to come here without a husband (or lover, in Gabrielle's case) and now Edie was dead, so that left her.
What was she going to do at night without a husband? Without someone to talk to? Think? Well, if it was the only option available—
Memories of Bree's childhood began to drift back. Her first day of Kindergarten, losing her first tooth, encounters with a childhood bully, her mother's blood all over the street—
Bree got up to get a glass of water. As her feet descended across the wooden floor, she thought, Why would Edie want to kill herself? I've had moments where I just want to take my handgun and shoot myself with it, but instead of acting on this impulse, I ignored it and faced my problems head on. Why couldn't she do the same? Why couldn't Mary Alice Young have done the same for that matter?
Thinking up a reason for Edie's suicide proved to be hard, so Bree walked up to her door and, almost without conscious thought, locked it. No one would be alarmed if she didn't return tomorrow—or the day after—but they might get concerned by the fourth day, if not the one before. Until then…what to do until then? She didn't have much time until then, so she had to act now, or everything would fall to pieces…
DHDHDHDHDH
Mike sat on the cold bathroom floor, holding a bottle that contained Aspirin. It was so tempting to take just one pill—just one—and that would be it.
Ah yes, the classic cliché of drug addicts: "Just one more time and never again". Mike laughed softly. He knew that if he took one, all progress he had made over the past month would fall to pieces. All because of just one pill. Just one.
Mike slowly stood up and put the Aspirin back in the medicine cabinet and closed it. He took a good, long hard look at himself in the mirror. Although he had come a long way from being a drug addict, part of him felt as though he wasn't quite there just yet.
Mike walked back into the room he shared with Susan. He bent down and gently pulled some of her hair off her sleeping face. He sat on the bed, pausing for about two minutes, before pulling open the bed stand door. He had to check and see if it was still there. He softly lifted all the clothes and bras up—and sure enough, there it was. His gun. He had been advised by an acquaintance of his while packing up for Eden Lodge to take it in case any mountain lions came along and threatened to spoil everyone's good fun.
"What they don't know won't hurt them," muttered Mike softly. He turned to look at the clock.
Midnight.
But it wouldn't be a happy 2008 for everyone…
A/N: Wow, another update within twenty-four hours! It seems as though I do nothing but sit at my laptop all day and write! (Which is sort of true, lol!) A major factor that's helping me move the story along is that I planned out ahead of time what would happen in each chapter instead of making it up as I go along. I also write certain chapters I'm not due for just yet or at least the beginning of them so when I finally get there, I'm not stuck coming up with inspiration before it finally hits me six months later, unlike one of my 'Kim Possible' stories! I'm sure Agatha Christie used a similar method when writing her books (particularly 'And Then There Were None' because she went through, as she puts it in her autobiography, "a tremendous amount of planning" before finally writing the darn thing). Anyway, enough of my blabbing; I just thought you might be curious as to why I'm updating so quickly as some writers take a bit longer to update (not that you don't mind, of course!).
Thank you once again for your reviews!
