Wrong Choice

Alex hated the rain. She hated having to avoid puddles of dirty water, so her expensive shoes wouldn't get ruined. That night, though, as she was making her way to the 24-hour store, she couldn't care less about getting her shoes wet. She could have taken the car, but in her current state of mind, it wouldn't feel safe. To say she was distressed would be an understatement. Her mind was racing, ten thousand different thoughts fighting for her attention at the same time. And then she entered the store, and it all stopped in an instant, because of who was inside in between produce aisles.

Barb looked up at her and their eyes met. She looked stressed, and paler than Alex remembered her, and yet the sight of her still made Alex's heart beat faster for a moment, even after all these years. She noticed Barb was rubbing the ring on her middle finger. She always did that when she was nervous, Alex remembered. It was Barb who spoke first.

“Hi,”, she said. “Guess you got the message too.”

“Yeah,” Alex replied. “Any idea who it's from?”

“No, the phone number is private and no one is picking up,” Barb hesitated for a moment before continuing, “You do realise what it's about, don't you?”

She was looking Alex deep in the eyes, just like she used to when they were together. Alex felt like she was melting under her gaze.

“We don't know that for sure,” Alex said with fake confidence, “It could be anything.”

She could have been right, technically, though neither of them believed that for a single moment, no matter how much they wanted to. The text they got this morning from a private number pretty much left no doubt. It said: “I know what you did 7 years ago. Come to the 24-hour store on Baker street tonight at 1 AM, or I will tell.” That was all. These two sentences were enough to send them both spiraling. And now the moment of truth was here. And they were not ready for it at all.

The store doors opened once again. A tall 16 year old boy entered. He took a quick look around, glanced at the cashier falling asleep behind the register, and then slowly approached the two women.

“You're both here,” he stated, getting their full attention. “My name is Benjamin.”

“What the hell do you want, Benjamin?” It was Alex who spoke first, regaining her confidence having realised their blackmailer was just a teenager. Benjamin didn't answer. Instead, he slowly reached into his backpack, took a bright folder out of it, and handed it to Barb. She opened it as Alex moved closer to her, so they could both see.

Inside the folder were pictures of a cracked side-view mirror. It clearly fell off a car upon impact. Alex and Barb both immediately knew what they were looking at. It was from the car they had 7 years ago.

“I see it's all starting to sink in,” Benjamin said looking at their pale faces.

“Who are you? How did you find us?” Barb inquired quietly.

“I'm Cassie's brother. You probably didn't even know her name until now. Neither did you know that she was 11 years old, loved fantasy novels, and wanted to become an electrician. And I suppose you also didn't know that she was with me that night. I was 9, and I my shoelaces came loose, so I kneeled to tie them, but she kept walking. It was dark where I was, but there were streetlights by the pedestrian crossing she approached. Any sober driver would have noticed her. But you weren't sober, were you? And you didn't notice her.”

He was looking directly at Barb now, who was still looking at the pictures, covering her mouth with her hand, tears dripping to the ground. She was shaking, speechless. Benjamin kept talking, and switched his gaze to Alex.

“You weren't sober either. And you had your window rolled down. I could hear the two of you talking, panicking. And then she drove out of there, hitting a tree with the side mirror. I'm not sure why I picked it up, because I didn't remember it the next day when the police questioned me, but I must have taken and hidden it deep amongst my things. Children sometimes do weird things because of trauma. Anyway, I ran to the nearest house, knocked on the door and begged the man who opened it to help, because I didn't own a phone to call 911. If you hadn't ran away, maybe they could have saved her. I found this mirror again in my old things 6 months ago, and did some digging. I know a mechanic, and a cop, they helped me identify who in the area owned the car this mirror matches 7 years ago, which led me to you two. After that, finding your phone numbers wasn't hard.”

Everyone was silent for a few moments, after which Alex finally spoke.

“What do you want, then? If you were just going to go to the cops with this, you would have just done it without meeting us here.”

“I want the two of you to go to the cops yourself and confess. Look,” he said, seeing their confusion, “I have evidence and my own statement as a witness. Either way you're both going down for this. But if we do go to trial, it'll become a public spectacle, not to mention it'll probably take months. My family has already lived through this tragedy once, they don't need their wounds reopened and poked at after 7 years. We all just want justice for Cassie, even if it is a reduced sentence because you confess.”

Silence took hold of the three of them again. This time, it was Benjamin who broke it.

“No matter what you do, neither of you is getting away with this. If you have any decency at all, you'll spare my family more pain. You have one day to decide. If you don't make the right choice by then, I'll make it for you.”

With that, he turned and left the store. Barb and Alex stood still for a while, not looking at each other. Then they left as well.

“We have to confess,” Barb said while they were walking in no clear direction, “We have no choice.”

“We are not doing anything of the sort” Alex said firmly. “We'll find a way out of this, I promise.”

“I think we need to get some rest. I live nearby. You can stay with me if you want.”

The suggestion took Alex by surprise. They hadn't stayed together since their breakup. In fact, they haven't spoken to each other since then.

“Maybe you're right, it's been a long night. And thank you, I live a little farther and there are no buses this late. Besides… I don't think I want to be alone tonight.”

“I know,” of course she did, “neither do I.”

Alex didn't sleep well. She woke up at 6.30 AM and got up, careful not to wake Barb. She took her own phone and looked up a news article from seven years ago about an 11 year old girl who died in a hit and run. From there, she searched for information about the victim's family. She was able to find quite a lot; the story got a lot of interest for a couple of weeks. After some searching, she finally found something useful: the family was poor. Now that she looked back at last night's memories with a clearer head, she could remember Benjamin was clearly wearing hand-me-downs. Alex herself came from a pretty rich family and had substantial shares in her mother's company. It was clear what needed to be done. She left Barb's apartment 10 minutes later and called the number that sent her the threatening message yesterday. No one picked up then, but now Benjamin did. She asked to meet him in 2 hours, and he agreed. Alex then made her way to the bank.

They met in an underground parking lot. Alex was waiting for Benjamin by her car. When he approached, she said,

“Hello, Benjamin. I'm glad you came.”

“If you want to try and intimidate me, don't bother. I have nothing to lose, and the evidence is in a secure place that only one other person knows about. If I don't check in with them every hour, they'll send it to the police. There's nothing you can do.”

“I wasn't going to intimidate you. I was actually going to try and help you.”

“Seeing the two of you in prison will help me. I don't need anything else from you.”

“Are you sure about that? Tell me, what good will seeing us punished actually do? I'm sorry, but it won't bring your sister back. Nor will it erase your family's pain. Just like you said, it would only reopen old wounds. But I have something that would actually help you.”

“And what might that be?” Benjamin asked, clearly not expecting much. Alex pointed at the trunk of her car.

“There is a suitcase in there. Inside, you'll find 250 thousand dollars.”

Benjamin's expression was a mixture of shock and disgust.

“That's… do you actually think you can buy your way out of this?”

“Think about it, Benjamin. I looked up you and your family. This money will change your lives. You could all move to a better place. You could afford a higher education. Every aspect of your lives would improve. Isn't that what you want? To take care of your family? Isn't this better than dragging all of us through trial, just so you can relive your loss? With this money, you could actually help them. And yourself.”

Benjamin stared at the trunk for a few moments, deep in thought. When he spoke, he sounded lost.

“What about justice?” he said.

“Benjamin, be realistic. This will not bring you the closure you think it will. It'll just create all the more suffering. You're clearly smart, having found us after all these years like this. Deep down you must know I'm right.”

He had already made up his mind, she could see that. Now he just needed to realise and accept it.

“I guess…” he started slowly, as if he himself wasn't yet sure what words would end up coming out of his mouth, “I guess having that kind of money, you probably would never see justice anyway. You'd use it for bribes.”

Alex didn't answer. She didn't need to say anything more.

A few moments later, having been handed the suitcase and key to it, Benjamin looked Alex deep in the eyes and asked with a helpless expression:

“Tell me something. Did you ever feel bad about what happened? At all?”

“Of course,” she replied. “Every single day for the last seven years. But what's done is done. Let's try not to cause more harm to anyone.”

With that, they parted ways.

Filled with relief, Alex called Barb and asked where she was.

“I'm… on my way to the police station” Barb admitted.

“What? No, don't! I took care of it. Look, I'm nearby, just wait for me outside, I'll be there in 10 minutes and I'll tell you everything, just don't go in!”

Alex made her way to the station hurriedly. It was a historic building with a huge staircase leading up to it, and even a creepy old gargoyle on the roof. Alex could see Barb sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting for her. Having climbed all the way up, she took a second to catch her breath, and then spoke to Barb.

“Were you going to turn us in without even talking to me about it?”

“I was about to call you, but you beat me to it” Barb responded defensively. “So what exactly did you mean when you said you took care of it?”

“Well, I met with Benjamin and offered him something he could actually use to make his life better, instead of going after us.”

“You bought him off? I can't believe that worked.” Barb said skeptically.

“I simply made him see reason. All that matters is that we don't have to worry about him anymore. Our secret is safe. We're both safe.”

While saying that, Alex sat next to Barb and touched her hand. She didn't pull it away, which was a good sign.

“Listen, I have to tell you something.” Barb said. Alex could hear she was nervous. She squeezed her hand lightly to encourage her. Barb took a deep breath and continued.

“I'm still going to confess.”

“Sorry, what?” Alex was in shock. “What do you mean you're going to confess? It's okay, no one will find out. We're safe.”

“I know. And I appreciate you trying to take care of us, really. But the truth is, this has been eating away at me for a long time. Long before Benjamin reached out to us. Pretty much since we ran away, actually.”

“You mean you ran away,” Alex pulled her hand away. She could feel her blood starting to boil with anger, confusion, guilt. “I wanted to stay there. I told you we had to help her! It was you who didn't listen. You drove off. You made the choice for us, and NOW you want to confess? If you do, we'll both go down for it, not just you.”

“I don't have to say anything about you. I can just say I was alone that night.”

“The car was registered in my name. And it was damaged in the accident. Besides, people at the party we were driving back from knew we lived together. If the cops start digging that stuff up, they'll figure out sooner or later that I either had to have been in that car with you, or I saw the car hit something, and I did nothing about it. Everyone was talking about that accident, everyone was looking for who did it! They'll start asking why I didn't report that my car clearly hit something that same night! If you confess, then you'll take me down with you!”

Barb was silent for a moment, but she still looked more determined than ever.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you that night, and I'm sorry for what I'm about to do now. But I have to. I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror again. I know I shouldn't have made the decision for both of us that night, but you did stick by it, and that one was your decision. I am grateful for it, but it was still wrong. We both messed up and it's time to take responsibility for that. I can only ask that we do this together.”

Alex's mind was racing. She was about to lose everything she had because Barb had finally grown a conscience after seven years. She couldn't believe this was happening. Barb stood up and turned toward the entrance to the station. Alex stood up as well and blocked her way.

“Don't do this, Barb,” she warned her.

“I have to. We can't keep running from this, Al. It's killing me. Doesn't it bother you?”

“Of course it does! But I won't throw my life away because of a mistake that was made years ago!”

“Well, this isn't living. Not for me, anyway. Now step aside, please.”

Alex grabbed her by the shoulder.

“No! You had your chance to take responsibility, and you didn't take it! I'm not going to prison because you've had a change of heart!”

Barb tried to free herself from Alex's grasp and the two started fighting. Without thinking, Alex pushed Barb, who lost her balance and fell tumbling down the staircase, hitting her head repeatedly against the steps. When she reached the bottom, a large puddle of blood started forming around her. She wasn't moving.

Alex made her way down the stairs clumsily. People were already gathering around the body, some policemen were running over to see what had happened. In the confusion, Alex slipped past them and kept walking. She was mumbling under her nose.

“I'm sorry. But you really had your chance.”