Black Contract

by Charlotte Byrd

  Tears start streaming down my face. Aiden stops reading, but I nudge him to continue.

  “I love you, Ellie, and now I have to ask a favor. The biggest favor of my life. Please don’t tell my parents about this letter. Please don’t tell anyone, except maybe Aiden. For all I know, he’s probably there with you anyway.”

  Aiden laughs. “She knows us too well,” he says. I nod and wipe my eyes, but more tears come to replace those that have just been wiped away.

  “I did my best to make it look like an accidental overdose and that’s what I want them to think. It’s better this way. Less painful. I love you, Ellie. Forever and ever. I’m sorry I won’t be able to share the rest of your life with you, but I just want you to know that you made my life bearable. And for that, I will be forever grateful. I’ll see you again on this side or the other. Caroline.”

  Aiden takes me into his arms and I bury my face in his chest. Everything turns to black.

  The following morning, I wake up thinking that everything that just happened is a dream. Maybe I was just asleep for a very long time and none of it is real. When I climb out of bed, I see her letter on my desk. I run my fingers over it. No, unfortunately, this is not a dream. Not even a nightmare. Shit.

  Suddenly, I hate her. What she did was beyond unfair. Who the hell does she think she is? Who gave her the right to do any of that? She kills herself and then covers it up? So, why tell me? Why do I have to be the only asshole out there who knows the truth? Why can’t I just go on thinking that she had an accidental overdose just like her parents? Why do I have to have this burden to carry around with me?

  I feel sick to my stomach. I barely make it to the toilet in time.

  “Ellie? Are you okay?” Aiden yells from the other room. I hear him come into my bathroom and knock on the bathroom door.

  “I’m fine,” I mumble into the toilet bowl and throw up what’s left of last night’s meal. When I finally lift myself off the floor and brush my teeth, anger courses through my veins. I wash my face, but it doesn’t make the fire that’s building within me go away.

  “Do you want me to make some breakfast?” Aiden asks.

  “No thanks. I’m just going to have some tea.”

  I grab a seat at the island and stare into space.

  “She planned this,” I say. “She planned to kill herself.”

  “Yes.”

  “That letter was hand-delivered,” I say, trying to understand her plan of action. I don’t know why I feel the need to get to the bottom of what happened, but I do. “It wasn’t mailed. Then it would’ve come too soon.”

  “Ellie—“

  “If she would’ve mailed it, then it might’ve come without her being dead. No, she couldn’t risk that. She had to have that letter be delivered after the funeral. The courier had to know for sure that she was dead.”

  “Ellie—“

  Aiden keeps interrupting me, but I don’t want to hear anything that he has to say.

  “But I doubt that she told him what she was going to do. Maybe he just had to look for the announcement in the paper and then deliver the letter after he saw it.”

  “Ellie—“

  “What?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m a masochist, Aiden. I don’t know.”

  Neither of us says anything for a while. My thoughts continue to swirl around what Ellie might have done to orchestrate this whole thing, but eventually they just settle on that little point in my chest where all the pain is focused.

  “I just really miss her,” I say, wiping the tears streaming down my cheeks.

  “I know,” Aiden says, putting his arm around me.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With this letter? I feel like her family deserves to know the truth. But then again, I want to abide by her wishes.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Why the hell did she have to put all of this on me? I mean, what the hell did I ever do to her?”

  “You were her best friend, Ellie. She loved you. And she knew that you loved her, too. That’s why she left you the letter.”

  “Nice way of thanking me, huh?”

  “She just wanted someone to know what really happened. Maybe she didn’t want her last true act to be a lie.”

  Aiden is right. Of course, he’s right. Caroline just wanted me to know that this wasn’t an accident. That she went into that good night once and for all because she wanted to. Yet, the thought of that hurts even more than if it were an accident. I mean, the idea that my friend was in so much pain that she couldn’t handle being alive anymore…how did I not realize this? Why didn’t I see any of the signs? Oh, yes, of course. I was too busy with my own life. I was too obsessed with the idea of going on a wonderful vacation with the man of my dreams to pay any attention to those around me. I’m a terrible, horrible friend. Caroline deserved so much more than me.

  “I don’t think I’m going to tell anyone about this,” I finally say, wiping my tears and pulling away from Aiden. “That’s what Caroline would’ve wanted so that’s what I’m going to do. I was a bad friend to her in life so I will try to be a better friend to her now that she’s… gone.”

  Gone. This word is somehow more comforting than the alternative. Dead. My friend is dead. No, I’m not ready to say that out loud. Not yet. Perhaps never.

  “You are a wonderful friend,” Aiden says.

  I shake my head. “Thank you, but no, I wasn’t. I was a pretty bad friend.”

  “What’s going to happen with the trial?”

  “What?”

  “The trial, in Maine? What’s going to happen with that now?”

  Oh my god. I completely forgot. All the blood drains from my face. Shit.

  “Ellie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up,” Aiden says. It’s too late for that. Yes, of course. Caroline was the main witness against Tom. And now…what’s going to happen now? Are they just going to let him go?

  “They can still prosecute him without her, right?”

  Aiden shrugs.

  “Please tell me they can,” I plead.

  “I think so,” he finally says. “But we are really going to have to talk to the district attorney.”

  I take a deep breath. My whole body starts to shake. Why the hell did you do this, Caroline? Why? You took your own life, but you had no right to. You are a selfish, narcissistic little girl. And I need you back. I can’t live without you. How can the world continue existing without you in it? How can I?

  Chapter 17 - Aiden

  When I tell her something I should’ve told her a long time ago…

  I hang around Ellie’s apartment and I try to make her better. I try, and I try, and I try and nothing works. I offer to make her food and I clean up, but it’s all futile. There’s nothing I can do to take the pain away. After a while I bury myself in work. I turn on my laptop and do what I do best.

  It’s not official yet, but I have my job back. It happened sometime during the fog of the last few weeks. The report that Ellie made against Blake became public knowledge and that was what pushed the Board of Directors to make the decision to ax him. Well, as soon as they did that, my attorneys reached out to them and made a suggestion. Since they didn’t have any good options for Blake’s replacement, why not go on the offensive and blame my firing on him. This isn’t entirely untrue. In fact, it’s probably ninety-nine percent true, so that’s what they went with. Saving themselves some paper and effort, Owl’s public relations team only had to put out one statement: firing him for allegations of sexual misconduct and hiring me back on a temporary basis.

  But all of my good news is impossible to share at a time like this. Ellie is lost to the world. She’s here, but not really here. Her body is present, but what about the rest of her? Where is she? I look at her staring out of the window. Her best friend is dead. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I can�
��t bring her back. I can’t even say anything that would make it alright. And now, there’s this damn letter. Why did Caroline have to leave that stupid letter? Why couldn’t she just let Ellie go on believing that this whole thing was an accident? Why does Ellie have to be the only one who knows the truth?

  When things get really tough, when I can’t bear to watch her suffer all day and all night, I go into the office. I lie to her about where I’m going, even though she doesn’t really ask, and I leave. The world outside continues to spin around the sun as if nothing has happened. It doesn’t know anything about the sorrow that Ellie’s experiencing inside her apartment, and maybe it’s better for it.

  After work, I wander the streets of New York to kill time. I stop by the library, check out a couple of books, and look through the romance section. I don’t see any of Ellie’s books there. Maybe they should be. She has so many people reading and buying her eBooks, why shouldn’t she be stocked in the library as well? Unfortunately, this isn’t a rhetorical question. I know the answer. Self-published books, no matter how good they are, don’t get sold to libraries. At least, not very often. Libraries are mainly interested in buying traditionally published books because there’s still a stigma against Indies. Ellie mentioned this earlier and I found out a lot more about this ever since. I would really like to give Ellie the gift of seeing her books in a real bookstore or library. Perhaps that can take her out of her funk.

  I come back to Ellie’s apartment with a heavy heart. This place is dreary and dark and full of bad memories. There are also good ones, but the black ones dominate right now. I want to go back to my place, but she refuses to come with me. She says she wants to be at home right now. Of course, I could go home by myself. But can I really do that? Should I? What if Ellie gets so sad that she also does something…irreversible? Until Caroline, I did not think this was possible. But now? Ellie is not herself. She’s lost somewhere and until I get her back, I don’t trust her on her own. I need to make sure that she’s going to be okay.

  “I picked up some Thai food,” I say, placing all the takeout bags on the kitchen island.

  “Okay,” she yells from the bedroom. I wait for her to come out, but she doesn’t.

  “What are you doing?” I walk over. I find her sitting at her desk, staring out of the window.

  “Nothing really. Just trying to write.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Not well. It’s all…blank. It just doesn’t seem worth it anymore.”

  It’s statements like these that really make me worry. Her writing has always been an escape for her. It has always been something that she absolutely had to do. Even before she wrote romance. I remember her telling me about writing her short stories and going over each word, sentence and paragraph with a fine-tooth comb. Her writing is the most definitive thing about her; it’s the way that she relates to and understands the world.

  “Maybe you should just take some time off, to clear your head,” I suggest, but what the hell do I know about writing? Is time off even a good thing? Or does it just entrench you further in this pit of writer’s block? The latter is typically the case when it comes to writing code - something I do know a thing or two about.

  “Hey, come out and have some food,” I say after she doesn’t reply. “I want to tell you something.”

  Ellie grabs a seat across from me and picks up a spring roll. She stares at for a while and plays with it but doesn’t take a bite.

  “I should’ve told you this sooner, I know,” I start. “But with everything that has been going on, I wasn’t sure where to start.”

  “Okay.”

  “I sort of got my job back.”

  I watch her as she processes this statement. After a moment, her eyes light up.

  “What do you mean?”

  I give her the overview of what has been happening over the last few weeks. She puts the spring roll down as she listens. At the end, she gets out of her seat and wraps her arms tightly around my neck.

  “Oh my God, are you serious?”

  I nod. She kisses me on the lips. Tears run down her cheeks and she starts shaking uncontrollably. I pull her close to me and hold her until she stops.

  “Are you okay?” I ask after a moment.

  “Yes, of course! I’m more than okay,” she says, wiping her tears. “I’m just so happy for you. So, is this for good?”

  “I don’t know yet. They fired Blake for good. And the board asked me to come back for a brief period of time as an interim CEO. Probably to keep the peace so to speak, to make sure that the investors don’t start scrambling and the stock price doesn’t continue to fall.”

  “That’s great,” she whispers, giving me another kiss.

  “They say that they like my ideas, the ones that Blake rejected when he took over. And at least, they never really made it clear to the public why I left, they’re now blaming it all on Blake to save some face.”

  “Well, it was pretty much his fault.”

  “Very true.”

  I’m honestly shocked by how well Ellie takes the news. I mean, I knew that she would be happy for me, but not this happy. I didn’t think she would have much of a reaction.

  “I’m actually sort of surprised by your reaction,” I say as we both dig into the Thai food. “You have been in such a funk lately—“

  “Yes, I know,” Ellie says, finishing her spring roll and reaching for another. “And this news…I’m just so happy for you. Everything was just going to shit, you know. This really makes me feel better.”

  We enjoy the rest of our dinner over a few episodes of Friends on Netflix. I’ve only seen a few of them, but Ellie finds that unacceptable. According to her, Friends is the type of show that will always improve your mood no matter how down in the dumps you are. A few hours later, right before we are about to turn in, Ellie’s phone rings.

  “I’m not going to answer it,” she says. “I just want to get into bed and snuggle.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  She brushes her teeth and her hair and climbs into bed next to me. I’m about to turn off the light when she reaches over me and looks at her phone.

  “This is the DA from Maine,” she says. “What could he have to say?”

  I shrug and look at the time. It’s after nine in the evening. Probably nothing good.

  “It looks like he left a voice mail.”

  She puts it on speaker phone.

  “Hi, Ellie, I’m sorry to call you so late. But I’m afraid I don’t have very good news. I am going to have to drop the case against Tom Lackey since we no longer have Caroline’s testimony. There may be a way to move forward if you are willing to be the star witness and your friend, Aiden Black, is also willing to testify, but I’m not sure. It’s a long shot. Can you please give me a call back at your earliest convenience?”

  “He’s going to drop the case?” Ellie asks with tears welling up in her eyes. I shake my head.

  “Not necessarily. Not if you and I testify on her behalf.”

  Ellie starts shaking and buries her head in her knees.

  “He still said it was a long shot.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her close to me.

  Chapter 18 - Ellie

  When I can’t handle all the darkness…

  People say that time makes all pain duller and easier to deal with. I feel like it fills your life with so much darkness that at some point you just don’t have space for any more of it. A week later, after I couldn’t possibly cry anymore, I decide that I need to feel something else. I simply do not have the energy to mourn anymore. It wasn’t that I was over anything. Not at all. I just have to feel another emotion if for no other reason than I have to see whether I am still capable of feeling other emotions.

  I invite myself over to Aiden’s for dinner. I open a bottle of wine and I ask him about his work. I’m so happy for him that he was able to get his job back. It’s not official yet. It’s just an interim position and there are no guar
antees. Blake was the interim CEO before Aiden and look what happened to him. But it’s better than nothing. It’s a shot. And that’s all Aiden needs right now. Owl is his baby. It was something he grew, cultivated, and cared for his whole adult life. Losing it had made a hole in his heart that would’ve taken years to fill. And now? Well, things are looking up.

  “So, what do you want to do tonight? Binge on some Netflix?” Aiden asks me, helping me clear the table.

  “Something like that,” I say with a wink.

  Aiden raises his eyebrows in surprise.

  “I was thinking more like Netflix and chill.”

  “Oh, really?” he asks, nearly dropping one of the plates.

  “Don’t act so shocked.”

  “I’m not.”

  I walk over to him and take his hand. I lead him to the bedroom. After sitting him down on the bed, I pull out the piece of paper that I found in his office.

  “This is the contract that you asked me to sign,” I say, handing it to him. “I’ve signed it.”

  Aiden looks at the contract, at me, and back at the contract.

  “Tonight, I’m yours to do with as you please.”

  “Ellie, I don’t want you to feel like you owe me something. I totally understand what you’re going through.”

  “No, it’s not about that.”

  “So what? What is this about?”

  “I’m just really tired of feeling so shitty. And I need to feel something else. Will you make me feel something else…Mr. Black?”

  Mr. Black gets a coy smile on his face. He walks over to the nightstand and gets out a pair of handcuffs. Wow, that was quick. He leads me to the desk. I’m wearing a thin dress with spaghetti straps and he slowly pushes the straps off my shoulders. My whole body shudders. My nipples get hard and a familiar warm sensation starts to build within my body. I press my legs together, but he pushes them apart with his knees.