Page 93 of Battle Scars

“No!”

“Yes!” She laughs. Candy is clearly enjoying my pain. “And then, after a respectable amount of time, Bobby and I will find solace in each other and get married. We will be the new face of DHR.”

“Classy,” I mutter. “I thought we were friends, Bobby.”

“You never gave up the goods.” She laughs. “I did. Poor Bobby was in love with Adrienne, and she never noticed him. Boohoo.”

“Were you always this mean?” I ask, no longer caring if she shoots me or not.

“Pretty much.”

“Yikes.”

Then the room explodes.

Manny comes in through a side door and shoots Bobby, who falls to the ground. Candy turns and points her gun at Manny.

And I scream. “No!”

Eli stands behind her with his gun raised. But I can’t let him kill her, can I?

“She’s pregnant.”

Candy spins to see what’s behind her, but Eli is faster. He raises his gun high overhead, and brings it down on her temple. She crumples to the ground.

“I told you we’d make it in time,” Eli says with a smile.

Someone starts cutting the tape away that’s binding me to the chair, and I know without seeing him or hearing his voice that it’s Gabe.

“I love you too,” he whispers in my ear, but it’s too much, and everything goes black.

THIRTY-FIVE

JUST THE BEGINNING

Adrienne

Six months later

The sun is high over the ocean as my dad walks me down the aisle. Gabe is handsome as ever in his gray suit with Manny and Eli standing at his side. He drew the line at a tux, claiming it was complete bullshit with nowhere to put a gun.

I tried to insist that guns were not needed on our wedding day, but he disagreed.

When I woke up in the hospital the night he said he loved me, I had a nasty concussion from the bump on the head courtesy of Bobby, but I was all right. Gabe had declared his love for me in front of everyone in the hospital room, and I do mean everyone—my parents, Manny, and Eli.

It also turned out that our argument about birth control was moot, because I was already pregnant. It’s a girl, and I’ve already told Gabe that I want to name her Macy.

Dad divorced Candy in the weeks following after her arrest. He had already been planning to but needed to get all of his ducks in a row. He did feel bad, because he never suspected that she was homicidal. Like me, Dad thought she was too dumb to be murderous. We were all wrong.

Bobby died that day. Manny fired a fatal shot, and he told me he sleeps just fine at night. Those aren’t the ghosts that will keep him awake. He went back to Texas to be with his family. Marisol is overjoyed that there will be a new baby, particularly one that she doesn’t have to nurse or get up with at night.

Candy is serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. She gave birth in a women’s correctional facility in northern California two weeks ago; the baby was adopted privately with a closed record. I hope he lives his life freely, unencumbered by the monsters who sired him.

After the ER doctor proclaimed that Gabe and I had an announcement of our own, Dad declared openly that he was done serving his sentence for cheating on Mom twenty years ago and it was time to stop fucking around. That she needed to let him come home. Then Gabe, not to be outdone, announced that I had six months to plan a wedding, no more. And no tuxedos. He’s really a party pooper.

Mom declined.

Dad, true to his word, did not give up, and two weeks later, she let him come home. He spoils Hugo rotten; he spoils Mom more. He says he’s making up for lost time. Two months after that, he put his monstrosity of a house on the market and flew us all to Hawaii to witness him re-marry Mom on the beach. They only waited that long because his divorce had to be finalized. Mom and Dad were done with the drama. They were ready for life of walks on the beach with Hugo and days spent with their grandbaby, who should make her grand entrance to the world in approximately three months.