Long Love Broken Pt. 04

Sofia came back Monday afternoon, and by the time I got home in the evening, she had cleaned everything up. We had sex, which helped my feelings, as well as my body. As we were drifting off to sleep, she told me that all of those 'girls' had been fucking stupid.

Days went by, then weeks, and before I knew it, classes were over. I came home to a wonderfully cooked meal and a Sofia with a frown on her face. Something was wrong, but she would tell me, she always did.

After dinner, Sofia set an envelope in front of me. She had been opening my mail for months now, and I didn't mind her separating the wheat from the chaff. She told me that she had almost thrown it away

Inside the envelope was an invitation to Katie's graduation. Sofia gave me another envelope with an invitation to Min's graduation. I tried not to burst into tears, but I did anyway. I hadn't heard from them in months, and then they do this to me?

Sofia comforted me, pulling my head to her chest. "You need to go," she said.

"I will, but I need to ask you something first," I said.

"Jackie, the answer is no, again. I'm sorry. We can live together, and as much as I love you, no," I felt tears fall on my head and her heart beating faster. She always said no, but not why.

"Then do me a favor and do the next best thing." I pulled away from her. "Be my fake fiance."

She cocked her head back and forth, weighing the options. I was sure that Sofia's constant presence at dinners with Jonathon and Amber had leaked back to Courtney. Jonathon and Amber had taken a liking to Sofia after a few months when they were sure she was going to stay with me.

There hadn't been any 'dogwood' sessions after the first time Sofia had came with me to dinner. Amber confessed that they didn't really need me on that front anymore, Jonathon was doing just fine in bed.

"Yes," she agreed. "I'll wear that monster you bought me on our trip. I'm sure Courtney is going to come back to Vegas to work for her father, no?"

"Probably," I nodded.

"Then I'll wear it a little bit longer." I put my head against her chest and listened to hear heart pick up the pace. She really wanted to marry me, but why was she saying 'no?'

The next morning, I asked Greta for vacation time. She gave me the weirdest look, but approved the PTO timesheet. Sofia and I went shopping for something special to wear to the graduation. It's not like we were lacking in the clothing department, but this was special.

We got to Lafayette two days early and set ourselves up in the best hotel we could find. We wandered about the campus, getting the low-down on where the graduation ceremony would be.

While we were wandering around, we saw Katie and Min chatting with Courtney. Evidently they had rekindled their friendship, and Sofia echoed my sentiment. We found ourselves a hidey-hole and took turns eavesdropping on their conversation by reading their lips. Courtney seemed really depressed that her mom wasn't coming, just Jonathon. I chalked it up to karma for Carmen and gave Amber a call.

Amber told me that she and Courtney had gotten in another argument about my continued presence in their lives. Courtney had demanded that they stop inviting me over for dinner, citing her continued anger toward me. Sofia had heard that and let me know that Courtney had just said the same thing.

When Amber asked me where I was, she told me that might not be a good idea to stay there. Katie and MIn had announced their engagement the last time they had visited Vegas. I commented that there were a lot of engagements, including my engagement to Sofia.

I heard a squealing on the other end of the line. I started to tell Amber that our engagement was fake, but Sofia took my free hand and gave it a squeeze. Carmen arrived and Katie and Min left Courtney with Carmen. Carmen half-tugged Courtney into a niche cut into the arbor stone and started kissing her.

Sofia pulled me away and around a corner. At first I thought she wanted to make out, but was merely pulling me out of the way because Katie and Min coming through the breezeway.

They were conversing about somebody, wondering if she was going to show up and that they had a big surprise for her. The last look I got was them holding hands, Katie sporting a huge engagement ring.

"Breathe, Jackie," Sofia said. "Remember what they did to you. They broke your heart and trashed your place. They lied to you and lied to Jonathon. You love Jonathon like your own father, remember?"

"Thank you, Sofia," I nodded. "I'm okay."

"There's a red-headed woman over there, giving us the strangest looks," Sofia pointed.

"Ohmygod that's Lilith! What's she doing here?" I took Sofia's hand and half-pulled her down the hallway. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Keeping up with Courtney's little friend, Carmen. Do you have someplace we can chat?"

"Sure, follow us back to the hotel."

On the drive back to the hotel, Sofia was quiet. She knew that Lilith had played a big part in my life and that we had children together. Was Sophie afraid of Lilith? "What's up, Sofie?" I asked.

"It's just Lilith. It's weird that she would be here, with nobody to invite her to the graduation," Sofia answered.

"Please don't worry," I said. "Lilith is just a good friend."

"A Medic Bailey friend?" Sofia asked.

"Not even that," I promised. Medic Bailey really liked Sofia, and I liked having threesomes with her and Sofia, but that was it.

Coincidentally, Lilith was staying at the same hotel that Sofia and I were. We went to her room and Lilith laid out who Carmen really was. It was time for a holy shit exclamation, which I gave.

Carmen wasn't from Minnesota, she was from Chicago. Up until the point she had started at Perdue, she had worked at Polly's law firm as a file clerk.

Further documents revealed that Rachel had been paying Carmen a continuous stream of money, to the tune of eight thousand dollars a month. Phone records said that Carmen called Rachel a lot, and often went to Chicago where she met with Rachel. There were even some times where they had shared a hotel room. Rachel could get away with that now that Polly was tied up with the children

One photo showed Rachel giving Carmen a small tray of bottles, drug bottles. Lilith had further researched drugs missing from Rachel's inventory and found that the drugs that came up missing were sedatives and sedative hypnotics and small amounts of medical grade psychedelic drugs.

"That's fucked up," Sofia said. "All this time, she's been programming Courtney? For what?"

"I'm afraid it is not that simple," Lilith said. "Blood screens show those drugs also present in Katie and Min. I'm sorry, Jackie."

"Don't be sorry," I said. "Sofia has taken good care of me."

"Sofia, could you excuse us for a moment?" Lilith asked.

"Sofia has already told me that she was hired by Herman Woodsworth. He stopped paying her the moment we slept together," I said.

"Whew. I was hoping I didn't have to break your heart, Jackie," Lilith said. "So why are you gals here?"

"To watch the graduation, of course," I said.

"That's really dangerous. Rachel is going to be here, and if she finds Jackie mucking up her plans, she'll try to do the same thing to her as she did to Tori," Lilith warned.

"That won't happen," Sofia promised.

"Sofia know kung-fu," I joked.

"All right," LIlith shrugged. "I'm headed out to Chicago tonight. You have a card, Jackie?"

I fished in my pocket and gave her one of my business cards. "That title will be changing soon," I warned. I'm graduating in ten months."

Lilith smiled. "I know, I'll be there."

Sofia and I left Liliths room and went back to our own. She gave me a really long massage to work the kinks out of my body, and I gave her a back massage with a happy ending. The next day we didn't leave the room except for food. When we weren't having sex, we planned our assault on the graduation.

Amber gave us the scoop as to where Jonathon was sitting, so I added that to my plan. In the evening, I got an email from Lilith on my phone, it only had three words and a caption: 'Use at your own discretion.'

The light came on over my head. If Courtney, Katie and Min had been programmed, these were obviously the deprogramming words. There was no indication as to what word went to whom, and I was depressed that there was no fourth word. Polly had been willing.

"Why the long face?" Sofia asked.

"There's no fourth word. I had a thought at the beginning that Polly might have been brainwashed, but it doesn't matter now."

"Are you sure?" Sofia asked.

I set the phone down and pulled her into a hug. "I'm very sure."

The graduation went about as boring as they could go. I saw a spark of recognition in both Katie's and Min's eyes when they looked out across the crowd. I was wearing a bright yellow dress and Sofia was wearing a dark blue dress. I couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't changed their names back. It didn't cost all that much, and I was sure that Courtney would have helped anyway.

Jonathon made a point to talk to us before Courtney and Rachel could make their way over to him. He gave me a peck on the cheek as I said good-bye, and I saw Courtney's face turn red. Katie and MIn caught up to us as we made our way out of the crowd. They announced their engagement as I knew they would, and I made the crack about how they wouldn't have to go and change all of their identification documents after the marriage.

I then announced that Sofia and I were getting married, and both of them looked Sofie up and down before congratulating us. Then they said how nice it was that I was marrying somebody for certain.

Sofia asked Katie and Min why they had invited Jackie to their graduation. It took them a minute to come up with the lame excuse that the cards were already printed up and that they had forgotten about me. That stung a little, but Sofia squeezed my hand to reassure me that she was there to help me out.

Conversation turned to finding work in this economy. I told them there were probably some openings at Woodsworth International for accountants. Sofia gave a snort, and said that school exams were nothing compared to the tests that Woodsworth gave prospective employees. Katie asked if that was a challenge and Sofia nodded.

I saw Carmen in the distance, talking to Rachel. I couldn't see what Carmen was saying, but Rachel's lips were perfectly clear. "You'll get your bonus when you leave Courtney at the altar."

That was all I saw before Courtney blocked my line of sight. "Hello, Jackie. What are you doing here?"

"Katie and MIn invited me by mistake. Apparently the cards were all ready to be sent out before they called me a whore and stomped out of my life. They also had something against my clothing, which baffled me. They took every stitch of my clothes and spread them all around the apartment."

"That sounds like a music video," Courtney mused.

"It sounds like a bunch of damn children," I countered. 'Let's go, Sofia. I have nothing else to say here."

"Who's the child now?" Courtney asked my back.

I just chuckled to myself and walked on, Sofia on my arm.

We got back to the apartment Sunday evening. Jonathon called and gave me the low-down on some of the family matters that had taken place after I left. Everybody had gotten together for family dinner, and there had been some heated discussion about me. All of that rage was directed at Jonathon mostly because Amber wasn't there. The argument had gotten so loud that the owner of the restaurant had demanded they leave.

I didn't know how or what to tell Jonathon about Courtney being brainwashed, Katie and Min possibly being brainwashed, and Carmen planning to leave Courtney at the altar, and Rachel behind it all.

My next call went to Lilith, asking her to upload all the documents to my personal dropbox account and I would figure what to do with them later. Sofia fell right asleep, but I slept in fits. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was good with numbers and lines, but not people.

Since I didn't have class for two months, I dedicated my time to Herman's company. He stopped by often to commend me for my work and to ask how my project was going. I showed him some of the preliminary sketches and floor plans, and he seemed impressed. I took that as a reason to cut work and celebrate. When I went to sign off my computer, I saw that there were two dropbox links in there. The first one was the documentation that Lilith had showed me. I still would have to figure out a way to give that to Jonathon.

The second dropbox link had a note attached to it:

Dearest Jackie,

I have debated long and hard about showing you this file. You have been hurt enough and I didn't want to add to it. It could be that you know about this already, but I don't think that you do.

My Deepest Regrets,

Lilith

The entire collection was pictures of Medic Bailey and Sofia. They were taken outside of private hotels, in some cases through windows. They had sex in my Explorer multiple times on multiple days. The timestamps on the photographs told me that all of the times they were fucking Sofia was supposedly at accounting conferences, or working late, or I was at school. Hundreds of photographs over the last few months, all after the time I had introduced Sofia to Medic Bailey.

Fuck.

Why couldn't any woman really want me for me? Sure, Courtney might have been brainwashed, but what about Melanie? I had loved Sofia, and she had told me many times that she loved me too. But she had never told me first. Damnit I had loved her! She had always said no when I proposed to her, now I knew why. Medic Bailey, unraveling the stitches of my relationship with Sofia.

I printed out as many pictures as I could before my printer ran out of ink. Waiting for them to dry, I tried to figure out how I would break up with Sofia. It wouldn't be easy, that was for sure. When the computer had finished shutting down, I put the pictures in the folder.

On the way out, I heard Mark call out how I must be sleeping with Herman to cut out of work so early. I let it pass, I had to focus my bad attitude on somebody else. The penthouse elevator smelled like fucking. Since Sofia was the only other person who had access, that pretty much guaranteed she was having sex in there.

Sofia was waiting outside the elevator with some cleaning cloths and a bottle of spray cleaner. "Jackie, you're home a little early."

"So are you." I tried to kiss her, but she backed away from me. I had smelled enough, she had pussy on her breath. "Let's go into the dining room, I have to show you something."

Sofia dropped what was in her hands and followed me to the dining room. I started laying out the pictures of her and Medic Bailey fucking in various places at various times. There was even a long lens shot of them having sex on the couch in the living room.

"I don't know what to say," Sofia said. She was stunned, but not crying. "You had somebody following me?"

"Your first reaction is to turn this back on me, Sofia? No, I didn't have anybody following you, Lilith did. She's always been very protective of me, and I'm glad she is. Wasn't I good enough for you?"

"Jackie, you were very good to me. That wasn't enough."

"Why? Wasn't there a single thing that you wanted I did not give you? I loved you Sofia! Please leave. Get out of my life."

"All right."

Not one tear, not one shred of emotion. Sofia showered first, and then I watched her pack her bags. Still, no tears. I heard the elevator ding, and went to investigate. I heard the voice of Medic Bailey call out, "Sofia? I left my wallet here."

"It's on the counter," Sofia said.

Medic Bailey came around the corner and almost ran into me. She also had pussy on her breath. "Hi Bailey," I said. "Do you want to help Sofie pack?"

"You're such a bitch," she snapped.

"Thank you," I smiled. "Are you using Sofia's code, or a first responder code?"

"Sofia's code." She went into the bedroom to help Sofia pack.

Sofia left for a moment and came back with another suitcase. She held it up to me, and I nodded. I didn't want her to have to come back to get more of her things. "You can keep the kitchen stuff, I don't want it," she said.

"I'll donate it to charity, along with all the furniture you two had sex on," I sighed. "Just go."

Bailey turned around before she got into the elevator. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why did you do it?" I asked. "And another thing, if you get a medic call to this residence, don't respond. I would rather die than to have you treat me."

They got into the elevator, and Bailey turned around, visibly shaken. I called the front desk and asked them to revoke Medic Bailey's first responder access to the apartment and to not let Sofia anywhere near my elevator.

When the elevator came back up, Sofia's ring was on the floor. I picked it up and threw it into the foyer. I cleaned the elevator out with the spray and used a lot of air freshener, and revoked Sofia's code.

Shit.

The next day at work I had to get new cartridges for my printer. I ran into Mark in the elevator and he decided to try and feel me up. I stomped on his foot so hard I broke my heel, but I felt good. Greta was there when the doors opened, obviously alerted by security. She pulled Mark out and told me that Herman wanted to see me.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't break the heel off the other shoe. I just left them off and went to herman's office.

"Hiya, Herman," I said as I plopped into one of the chairs. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. It's been a bad month, I didn't mean to seem so familiar with you here."

Herman chuckled. He fixed two glasses of whiskey and came over to sit with me. "I do know why part of your month has been bad."

"You still protecting me, Herman?" I took a sip of my glass. It was the good stuff.

"Of course. I can't protect you from heartbreak, but I can have you protected from the physical world," He took my hand. "I didn't mean to spy on your computer, but IT flagged a large data transfer and thought you might be stealing secrets. Then I saw the pictures. I'm sorry, Jackie. I didn't think she would hurt you like that."

"I didn't either. I can't think of why nobody wants to stay with me. I can't even get married anymore."

"I'll marry you," Herman said.

"Huh?"

"Jackie Chambers, will you marry me?" Herman pulled a ring out of his pocket, it wasn't huge, but it was wonderfully elegant. He probably designed it himself.

"Ohmygod." I fainted.