Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author, Della Aarohi. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note:
Good day all. I bring you all nothing but good wishes and love today. Please visit my profile page for an update on all of my works and I sincerely hope you enjoy the following.
Hugs, kisses and best wishes,
Della.
So Help Me God
Prologue
If there was one lesson that Angela had learnt in the last five years or so, it was that life had such a funny way of ripping you to shreds after you veered off the path that it had carved for you and to be honest, she deserved every bit of pain and misfortune that had befallen her.
Their love story was like that of a fairy tale.
They met when he was sixteen and she was fifteen. She was the quiet daughter of a pastor and he was the popular son of a doctor. She lived a simple life surrounded by strict rules and little privacy while he lived in luxury and extravagance. Where she was criticized and judged at every turn, his parents praised and celebrated his every accomplishment. Their interests were different. Their upbringings were polar opposites. No relationship between the two of them should work but the love they had for each other was strong.
It was on his nineteenth birthday that he got down on one knee and asked her to be his wife. She would never forget that night.
She had spent so much of her time that week making sure that the school paper was released on time that she forgot to purchase a gift for his birthday. When the weekend came around and the pair could finally spend a day together hiking through the trails as they always did, she asked him if there was anything in particular he wished to have for his birthday.
She saw the moment her always confident boyfriend became a ball of nervousness. His fingers started to tug relentlessly at his beautiful copper hair. Flashing her, his signature crooked smile that always left her a bit speechless, he kissed her knuckles gently before leading them to the top of the trail that led to a beautiful cliff overlooking the vast ocean below. The pair sat in silence sharing a simple meal of sandwiches and bottles of water until Edward finally answered the question she had asked some time ago.
"There is only one thing I want for my birthday this year and what I want is for you to be mine," he had whispered just as the sun was setting, his vivid green eyes shining with emotion while his trembling hands held the engagement ring that had been passed down from generation to generation in the Cullen family. "Become my one and only Mrs. Edward Anthony Cullen."
She had shrieked her acceptance to his proposal as she threw herself into his arms. Happy tears were shed by both as they sealed their engagement with the sweetest kiss.
It seemed fitting then, that they wed just months later on her eighteenth birthday.
It was everything she dreamt that her wedding would be. No expense was spared though it was money that was spent quite grudgingly. Edward's family, particularly his mother, was not in agreement with Edward marrying his high school sweetheart. They thought both of them needed to experience life a bit more before making such a commitment but neither Angela nor Edward listened to a word they had to say.
They honeymooned at a beautiful lake house owned by one of Edward's uncles. She did not particularly care for her wedding night. While Edward gained only pleasure from their coupling, she was left feeling sore and slightly in pain. After she recovered though, her new husband was nothing short of a very attentive lover and soon she found herself addicted to his touch.
The pair, soon after returning from their honeymoon, began attending the University of Seattle. Edward had gone into the field of engineering while Angela ventured into the field of education. As a belated wedding gift to Edward and Angela, Edward's grandparents bought a small condominium close to the university campus for them while his parents generously paid both of their tuitions.
Their class schedules were somewhat aligned and they were able to spend quite a bit of time together. She loved nothing more than to sit on the tiny balcony attached to their bedroom and study with Edward. Edward was still the same sweet man she knew; dropping her to classes and picking her up if his schedule would allow it. He was her protector who bundled up in a wrinkled sweater with a beanie on top of his head, waiting for her outside the library when she had stayed late some nights.
For the first time in her life, Angela was the 'it' girl. After all, she had to be something special to have landed a man as gorgeous and amazing as Edward.
As time passed, though, she noticed that her husband was not quite himself. He was quiet and a bit withdrawn. He did not seem to have the zeal for life that he had. She found herself constantly on edge, wondering if she had done or said something that caused the change she saw in him. Try as she might, though, she never could gather the courage to question him.
She found out what troubled him eventually when, after a lovely picnic at a lake, he confessed that he was considering joining the United States Marine Corps. Edward told her that one of the men in one of his classes had previously served as a Marine but was given a honourable discharge after he had been injured during combat.
He told her this man, James was his name, had awoken in him a passion and desire to belong to something much bigger than himself and if she gave him her approval, he would enlist immediately and James was willing to pull some strings to get Edward into training quickly.
She knew Edward wanted her immediate agreement but she was very hesitant. She begged him to give her a few days to think things through. He understood her reluctance and said nothing more about the subject. However, she saw the desire and drive to enlist burning in his eyes and just two days after the picnic, she gave Edward her blessing.
If she had known then what she knew now, she would never have let him enlist. Maybe, she thought, if she would have been willing to confess to him how much she needed him and asked him to stay; just maybe all of this could have been avoided.
How could she shatter his dreams though?
How could she ask him to give up this one thing when he already gave her so much?
Instead, she bit her tongue and hoped to God she would be able to cope with him joining the military.
They had one more month together before Edward left to go to San Diego for his military training. She heard very little from him for the next thirteen weeks as he was heavily involved in his drilling. She struggled greatly during that time. She missed Edward terribly. Many nights she found herself silently weeping into one of his hoodies while curled up in bed. Both his and her parents visited her frequently but it was never enough to chase away the loneliness she felt.
His graduation day soon came and all she could remember of that day was the overwhelming pride at seeing her husband dressed in his military attire. He was no longer the lanky man that she knew. Instead, he was six feet of pure muscle and carried himself with a sense of confidence and restrained power. Angela would admit to being very turned on by her husband's new physique and she spent the greater part of the following week relearning every bit of him.
Exactly one month after Edward completed his training, he was deployed on his first tour to Iraq. She threw herself into her studies in an attempt to forget that her husband was thousands of miles away from her in a warzone. He called her when he could and every time he sported a goofy grin, his handsome face covered in dust and grime and the tell tale gleam of a content man in his eyes. He made sure that she used his salary to pay for whatever she needed while he was able to continue his own studies during his tour as he shot through the ranks at every possible opportunity.
None of it mattered to her though. All she wanted was for him to return to her and he did just that. Every time without fail h returned; maybe a little more haunted and a little more bruised but he came back to her after each tour overseas. She never felt his love for her wane. She was treated like a queen and he made sure that the world knew how deeply he loved and cherished her.
Edward waited until she graduated with a degree in early childhood education and had found a well paying job closer to both his and her families in Forks before asking her to have a child with him. She agreed even if she had some hesitations about bringing a child into the world when her husband and child's father would be so far away from her. With a child, she would have a piece of Edward with her and if she was lucky, maybe having a child would be the encouragement Edward needed to leave the Marine Corps behind.
When he returned from his second tour, he surprised her by getting stationed on a base close to home. She got pregnant very quickly since she struggled to keep her hands to herself because her husband looked like a Greek god. She loved the raw passion he seemed to ooze. He treated her as sweetly as he always did, showering her with soft kisses filled with love and warm embraces that always seemed to calm. Then there were times when he would slam her against a wall and have his way with her. She craved those times the most.
As soon as they confirmed her pregnancy, Edward was there with her at every doctor's appointment, for every midnight craving and four a.m. contraction. When their son,Jonael Edward Cullen was born, Angela looked on as her husband and son formed an unbreakable bond. He gave everything to and for his son and by the time her husband left for his third tour in Afghanistan, just days after their son's first birthday, she knew without a doubt that she had no hope of being her son's favourite parent.
Her husband's departure marked the beginning of the end of their marriage, in her eyes.
Both her parents and in-laws were so smitten with their grandchild that they jumped at any chance to babysit. As a result of having a never ending supply of babysitters, she was left with a lot of free time to reconnect with friends; friends who liked to spend their days trying to preserve their dwindling youth.
She could attempt to blame her stupidity on a number of things, from alcohol to her own immaturity. Maybe she had become too spoilt by having a man who was solely devoted to her and had decided to test her boundaries? Or maybe she just wanted to be touched again and the dark haired stranger across the bar looked like too good of an opportunity to pass up?
The reality was that she was the problem. She was the one whose love had waned after little to no contact with her husband over a period of six months after he returned to Afghanistan. She was the one who had crawled into another man's as a way to give her husband the finger after a fifteen minutes video call between him and his son and she was never once acknowledged.
In that one moment of anger driven idiocy, she became the textbook definition of the woman who had everything but chose to seek comfort in the bed of another man.
She scrubbed her skin raw after she returned home from the man's apartment. She cried herself to sleep that night and every so often, she would jump in her sleep as if haunted by the man's touch.
Everything her husband had done had been for her and their son. Every moment he put himself in danger was for them. She knew this but she could not stop. Her one night stand turned into an affair even though she knew that should anyone find out about her affair, whatever she had been craving, she would have sacrificed her greatest love for nothing.
It was her own brother, Elijah, who informed her husband and family about her crimes after he had discovered her affair.
Angela would eventually learn that Elijah happened to overhear an absurdly intoxicated man telling his friends about the woman he was screwing while her husband was overseas in the war. For more than an hour, her brother listened, with growing disgust, as this man spat out increasingly scandalous details of the affair to the great amusing and pleasure of the man's cohorts. Her brother was about to call it a night, no longer able to stomach the conversation occurring next to him when he heard the words that made his blood boil.
"Cullen was such a hotshot in high school. So busy saving the world, he doesn't know that I'm the one fucking his wife."
Those words were like a red flag being waved in front of a bull. Without any conscious thought of his actions, Elijah lunged towards the man and grabbed hold of him. Quickly, he delivered some sharp, bruising punches upon the piece of scum before throwing him from the bar with some parting words, "You could thank Cullen for teaching me how to throw a punch."
The next time Angela dropped her son at her parents' home for the night, her brother followed her. He had sat for hours in the car, watching her adulterous behaviour at a restaurant in Seattle. He saw every touch, embrace and kiss that the pair shared and it once again ignited a white hot rage within him.
His need to know how deeply his sister's affair went, propelled him into following the pair to the hotel where they always spent their nights. As the seconds ticked by, his rage grew to the point where he began to draw attention to himself.
The moment Elijah saw Angela step out of the elevator, he erupted. He yelled until he was hoarse and called her every slur he could think of. He shamed her so deeply and he even drew the ire of the crowd that had gathered by telling them that her husband was currently overseas serving in the army and she was cheating on him with a complete moron.
"What are you doing, Angela? Your husband, the husband who loves you is fighting a war and you get bored and start fucking that jackass. You have a son. A son. And this is where you are? On your back? You are nothing more than a slut."
Those words are words she would never forget. She felt as if she had been branded with them by her brother's blazing fury.
As much as she pleaded with her brother to keep her secret, he would hear none of it. He was not willing to allow her to embarrass her husband any further and by the time she arrived at her parents' home later that morning to collect her son, it was very apparent that her brother had already blown the whistle.
She could bear the shame in her parents' eyes and the coldness from her husband's family but her heart shattered when she met her husband's gaze during a video call several days later as he begged her to tell him that it was all untrue.
Knowing that she could not lie anymore, she confessed everything. She saw the looks of absolute hate and repugnance that were thrown her way by the soldiers who overheard the conversation she was having with her husband. Edward said nothing to her no matter how much she pleaded with him to speak to her. His heartbreak was etched into every line on his face. His tears fell silently from his eyes and onto his uniform. In that singular moment when he learnt about her infidelity, Edward experienced such a shift in his emotions and thoughts that he struggled to string a coherent sentence together. He opted to simply end the call without saying a word to her.
She sent countless emails, endless voice messages and attempted to have several video calls with her husband but he would have none of it.
He continued to speak with their son and if nothing else, the bond between father and son only strengthened. Jonael, at the tender age of three and who was blessed with his father's intelligence, could sense that something was terribly wrong and began lashing out at his mother. His tantrums were so horrendous that Edward's father and mother had to take their grandson into their home.
Her once perfect life was thrown into complete chaos. She compared her life to a pendulum. Her husband was the pivot and now that he had severed their bond, her life had been left to free fall into an abyss.
Could she blame her husband for how destroyed all of her relationships were? Her parents were greatly ashamed of her so much so that they spoke very little too her. Her brother treated her as if she was a stranger. He never acknowledged her and forbade his wife and children from visiting Angela. He childishly partook in all of the gossip surrounding her and he made it his point to tell her that he stood with Edward.
When Edward returned from what would be his last tour, he returned to Forks with a Bronze Star Medal, an honourable discharge and a near fatal injury that cost him a leg.
Seeing him struggle to piece his life together was excruciating. He moved in with his parents and their son and Angela used any excuse she could think of to visit Edward and Jonael. During her visits, Edward treated her with a cool indifference. He was no longer her kind and attentive husband. Instead, he made it clear that she was simply the mother of his child; a point he made very clear when he filed for divorce.
She tried to prolong their divorce, begging her husband through the courts to attend couples counseling but Edward was not forgiving. Injured in a war and hardened by betrayal, Edward had a very different perspective to life and she was forced to admit that they would never be a family again. There was no forgiveness for her to get but the respect that he had shown her, crippled her greatly. She had expected a ruthless fight especially when it came to their son but there was no fight to be had. He had given her everything: the house, the cars and more than half of their money. He had been awarded custody of their son though. As the judge had said to her quite bluntly, "Your son simply does not want to live with you."
"Mrs. Cullen?" The waitress called softly, pulling Angela away from her painful thoughts. "Are you sure you don't want to order something while you wait? You've been waiting for over thirty minutes now."
"It's Weber. I have not been Cullen in about two years and no, thank you," Angela said with a sad smile as she gathered her purse and coat. "If he hasn't showed up by now, he won't be coming."
With a heavy heart, she walked out of the singular diner in Forks, ignoring the whispers that followed her, and headed to her car only to be stopped in her tracks by her ex-husband.
"Angela," he said in a toneless voice. "I just spied you in the window of the diner. Were you waiting for someone?"
"Yes, but they were called away at the last minute and we had to cancel," Angela lied with a bright smile plastered on her face.
"You were always a poor liar Angela. If you were waiting on Ben, he was at The Cliffs not too long ago with Lauren as his companion," her husband said bluntly.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Angela whispered in a broken voice, lowering her head in an attempt to hide her tears. "What goes around comes around. Isn't that what you said?"
"Angela, as much you have hurt me and caused me pain, I cannot and will not ever wish pain on you," he said, broadening his stance and holding his hands behind his back, a posture characteristic of his time in the military. "I just wanted to remind you about Jonael's birthday party this weekend."
His eyes had always been an open book to her. She could always tell what he felt by just looking at those emerald coloured eyes. Not too long ago, his eyes held only love and adoration for her. She fought against the shiver that threatened to surge through her body as she thought about how his eyes had burned with his lust and desire for her, but now when he looked at her, all she saw was a chilling emptiness that froze her to her core.
"I remember," she sighed, still looking at his eyes. "I'll bring some pizza and fried chicken."
"That's not necessary. It's all being handled," Edward said with clear disinterest, taking time to check the Rolex in his wrist.
"Can you act like you don't hate me," Angela snapped.
"I don't hate you. In fact, I think very little of you. I have much better things to occupy my time," he confessed, his eyes flaring with what Angela could only describe as passion.
Before their conversation could go any further, one of the men who worked for Edward appeared at his side.
"Mr. Cullen, we're ready to leave. She is in the car," the man said, completely ignoring Angela.
"Thank you, Benjamin," Edward said as he turned to face the man as one of Edward's heavily tinted Range Rovers pulled alongside them.
"Who is she?" Angela pulled back, stunned.
"Who she is, is not any of your concern, Angela," Edward shrugged in indifference.
"Do you have a girlfriend? Do you love her?" Angela rattled out, a burst of unexplainable jealousy surging through her.
"No, Angela. I do not love her. You showed me not too long ago that a woman cannot love a man hardened or damaged by war like I was so I will not love again. My children will gain it all. I will do everything for my children. They are my only loves," he responded.
"Children? Edward, what children? You only have a son," Angela reeled back, unable to comprehend what Edward was saying only to be stopped by the sadistic smirk that flitted across Edward's face. "What have you done, Edward?" Angela whispered hoarsely after a few seconds, panic rushing through her.
"I simply saw an opportunity and took it. Consequences be damned. To the victor goes the spoils."
The chilling, monotone manner that her ex-husband used confirmed one thing in her mind. She had destroyed the heart of a good man and in his place, a beast had surfaced and if her gut was to be trusted, that beast had already set its sight on a beauty.