Something Wicked This Way Comes

I would say I’m a good girl.

I’ve always been a good girl.

They accused me of poisoning my husband to be with my lover. I don’t think they’re telling the story right. Let me tell you how it actually happened.

3 Days Prior

           “Honey are you awake? I’ve got breakfast ready.”

           I flipped the pancakes to the other side, smiling at the golden-brown reveal. Scooping the eggs and bacon between two plates, I plopped on the pancakes and covered them with Ben’s favorite syrup. He said they were sweet, just like his Maple. It had always made me laugh.

           At least, it used to.

           Ben came out fussing with his tie and I batted his hands away to fix the knotted mess. He leaned in to kiss my cheek, muttering a quick, “Thanks,” before sitting down and digging in. His nose became stuck in the newspaper, as always.

           I stood in the middle of the kitchen, nursing my coffee, stuck in place. I could still smell that whore’s perfume underneath his cologne. It’s like he didn’t even bother to wash it off. Like this game of him pretending he’s not fucking his secretary, and me pretending I don’t know, has all of a sudden been forgotten.

           My fingers tightened on my mug. It was cherry red, a Christmas gift from Ben after one of his ‘work trips.’

           “You OK hun,” Ben said. He hadn’t looked up from his daily word, but my absence at the table signaled a crack in our everyday façade.

           “Mm,” I said. If we were silently done pretending, I might as well get on with my day. “I’m going to run some errands. I’ll be back later.”

           Orange juice dripped and drooled from Ben’s shocked mouth as I grabbed my purse and headed out, breakfast untouched.

           I pulled my Benz to a halt in front of an upscale high-rise apartment building. It sat across from a bakery that I loved going to in the late mornings. They had buttery almond croissants that I devoured, and the best chai lattes ever made. It was on one of those latte loving, buttery croissant eating days that I met Evan.

           I checked my floral pink lipstick in the rearview mirror, reapplying with gentle dabs, and I fluffed my hair. The iron forced curls refused to stay and barely gave me a lick of volume. I sighed and stared at my light blue eyes and even lighter blonde hair. Once, I would’ve compared my features to Ben’s dark hair and soil-tilled eyes. His earthen complexion to my ice-kissed skin. Night and day. Summer and Winter.

           Now the differences reminded me of just that. Our differences.

           As I made my way out of my silver car and to Evan’s place on the tenth floor, a grin began to form on my face. It grew until I could feel myself looking like a fool, about to knock on this man’s door with such a feeling of giddiness rushing over me.

           The door opened before I could put a fist to the surface, a wreath of Autumn colored leaves and a sign that said “Welcome” decorating the middle. A megawatt smile graced a familiar face.

           “I heard you coming. Your heels.” Evan said, by way of greeting. He was tall, taller than Ben. Brown hair framed his face down to his shoulders, accompanied by golden strands woven throughout his locks. His eyes were brown as well, but where Ben’s reminded me of mud, Evan’s shone with a hint of the sun.

           “Are you gonna let me in, big guy,” I said, still cheesing.

           He pulled me in for a kiss, and as our lips touched, I felt like I was home.

           It’s almost dinner time by the time I got back to the house. I opened the door and took off my shoes, groaning in relief as I brought the five-inch heels back to the bedroom. I changed into sweatpants and a band T-shirt before treading into the kitchen, only to find Ben sitting in the same chair as when I had left.

           “Have you moved at all?” I asked jokingly. I put the groceries I bought after Evan’s on the table and began sorting them.

           Ben slowly sipped his coffee before putting it down.

           “Where have you been,” he said.

           “Out, doing errands, like I said,” I answered. I looked at the bell pepper in my hand, wondering why I had gotten the green ones. I hated those.

           “It doesn’t take five hours to get groceries Maple,” Ben said. He twisted like he was about to get out of the chair, but stayed seated.

           “And I can’t go any place else? I can’t go to the bakery, the bookstore…” I trailed off and turned to raise an eyebrow at him.

           “Dammit Maple! Where the fuck have you been?”

           Both of my eyebrows raised as I stared at my husband. I always knew he had a temper, and it looked like that temper was going to come out again.

           “The grocery store, the bakery, I browsed some books…why? What are you so mad for?” I turned back to putting the groceries away, also noting the vegan pasta I’d bought. Damn, I really hadn’t thought this through.

           Ben also noticed the pasta.

           “Who the fuck buys vegan pasta? We don’t even eat vegan pasta.”

           “Ben—”

           Before I could respond, Ben was up from his chair and moving. A hand wrapped around to squeeze my jaw, the other moved to grip the front of my shirt.

           “I know where you’ve been Maple. I know you’re fucking somebody else,” He seethed. This close I could see the darkness in his eyes, and the pinks of his gums as he gritted his displeasure in my face.

           “Let go of my face Ben.” I tried to get out, but his hands were too tightly gripped on my face, and the words came out mangled.

           Ben let go after a minute of drilling holes into my eyes. None of us said anything, we just stared at each other. Ben finally eased back to the other side of the kitchen counter.

           “You want to talk about cheating, Ben? Let’s talk about cheating,” I said, crossing my arms. My jaw hurt something fierce. I was sure his handprint was on my cheeks.

           “What do you mean,” he managed innocently. Fucking bastard.

           “How about we talk about you and your ‘work trips.’ Let’s talk about how you’ve been fucking your secretary for the past two years, acting like I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

           Ben’s face became a deeper pink with each word I said. He opened his mouth to defend, I don’t know what, before I held up my hand.

           “So, let’s not accuse me of cheating when you’re over here wearing your prostitute’s perfume like the next greatest air freshener,” I said, a sneer marring my lips.

           “Don’t call her that,” Ben said quietly, head bowed.

           “Excuse me?”

           “Don’t call her that.”

           The laugh built slowly, working its way up from my gut and catching in my throat, before bubbling there and exploding.

           “You can’t be fucking serious,” I said between gasps. He couldn’t be serious.

           Ben’s face turned a shade of mottle red as he glared at me.

           “She’s a whore,” I said as my laughter dyed. “She’s a whore who fucked my husband, but what’s worse is that my husband was stupid enough to keep fucking her.”

           One second Ben was across the kitchen, the next he was in my space, and my face was smashed against the cabinets. Gripping my shirt, he pulled back and his fist lunged for my gut. I keeled over, gasping, the pain in my abdomen shocking all thought from my mind. I was hauled up again and the last thing I glimpsed was Ben’s fist beelining for my face before everything went dark.

           “I’m going to fucking kill him,” Evan spat, livid as he paced back and forth across his apartment floor.

           He’d been in shock, and then enraged, when he beheld the black eye and bruises covering several areas of my body. It was still hard to move but it’d been two days since the incident. I had come to stay at Evan’s in the meantime, despite the several missed calls and text messages left by Ben. I had listened to one voicemail and been disgusted by the pathetic apologies before I deleted it. I hadn’t opened the rest.

           “Killing him isn’t going to help anything Evan,” I said, rubbing my bruised wrists. “And besides, it’s a felony.”

           “Not if you don’t get caught, it isn’t,” Evan said. He stopped in the middle of the room and faced me, where I was sitting on his faux leather couch. “That’s it. We just won’t get caught.”

           “Wait, Evan, we?” He must’ve been crazy, wasn’t he?

           “It’s your husband, but I’m your man. I want to help. He shouldn’t have touched you.” Evan went to sit down by me and placed his arm on the back of the couch. He stroked my hair, now lifeless without their curls.

           “We can’t kill him! That’s ridiculous,” I said and stood. It was my turn to pace.

“Maple,” Evan said, determined. “It’ll be simple. We could just do poison. It’s easy and some of them won’t even show up on a test. It’ll be like he had a heart attack.”

           “I don’t know Evan,” I said, my fingers twisting nervously, and started to sweat.

           “Do it for us Maple,” Evan pleaded.

           I sighed and rubbed his knee before my hand made its way to caress his face.

           An hour later, after some needed, tender care, I made my way to my car. I headed home with a bottle and the ingredients for a cherry pie in the backseat.

           The house was empty when I went in. Knowing Ben, he’d be at work for another four hours. I looked up a quick recipe and set to making the filling, careful to mix in the contents of the bottle.

I added extra sugar for taste.

By the time Ben came home and noticed the pie on the table with the note, I was long gone. I sat in the bakery I loved and watched on our security cameras as he read the note and tasted the pie. I watched as the first bite went down, then the second and the third. It was after the fourth bite that I saw him pause and look at the pie. The veins stood out in his neck and his eye bulged. I almost thought they were going to pop out of his head. Ben covered his throat with his hands and started to cough.

I sipped my chai latte as I watched the ongoing poisoning of my husband. The pie seemed to be doing its work as froth started pouring from Ben’s mouth. Trembling hands touched his lips and his eyes registered, finally, what it was before he toppled over and fell to the floor.

Present Day

           “So, you see, it wasn’t my fault. I am a good girl. Sometimes bad things happen to bad people, yes. But I was forced to poison him. I didn’t want to, but Evan said I had to, or the beatings wouldn’t stop.”

           “You traitorous bitch!” A voice shouted among the people in the courtroom.

           Evan stood with a finger pointed in outrage toward the woman on the stand.

           Me.

           “Silence,” the judge said, banging his gavel. “Someone detain him!”

           Four court officers grabbed Evan and hauled him to the judge. I maintained my composure as he spat and cursed, brown eyes blazing with hate.

           “Is this him?” the judge asked.

           I swallowed and took a deep breath, then released it slowly. “Yes, that’s Evan Peters.”

           The judge nodded and gestured to the cops, “Get him outta here.”

           “Are you fucking kid—”

           Evan was dragged through the doors I had come out of, and I breathed out a sigh of relief.

           “After that event,” the judge looked at me, “I hearby find Maple Sommers not guilty of 1^st degree murder.”

           Murmurs rose in the court room as I was led back to those double doors to pick up my stuff and be released. I glanced to my left, to where Evan’s family and friends were. They looked at me with menace, his mother going as far as giving me the bird.

           I turned my head back to the front, but not before I let them see the smirk on my face. Ben was just a side quest, and he fucking deserved it. There was still the rest of Evan’s family.

           One down. Four to go.