The Suicide Princess (19 page)

“What does any of this have to do with me?”
asked Stephanie.

Karen's response began
arriving on Stephanie's phone,
“One day, about a week before you met him, he was picking me up from work. He saw me walking out with you, and he told me he wanted to have sex with you. He forced me to make it happen.”
Karen continued to explain,
“The day you met him, I told him where you were going to be, and that’s why I didn’t go to lunch with you.”

“You knew what he was doing to you, and you just unleashed him on me?”

“I tried to stop it, I really did. After you first met him, I told you it was a bad idea. I figured if I did my part, by setting him up with you, and you just weren't interested, he'd leave it alone, but he didn't. After you broke up with him, he told me he would ruin me if I didn't convince you to go back to him.”

Stephanie fell into shock as she read each word of Karen's explanation.
While she was having a hard time wrapping her head around the whole thing, one aspect was utterly confusing to Stephanie, and she asked,
“If he only wanted to have sex with me, why didn't he just let it go after he did?”

“Because he's sick, Stephanie.
He was going to be done and break it off with you after he got what he wanted, but you broke it off with him first. You beat him to it, and he was furious that you broke up with him. He told me he was going to make you pay for doing that.”

“Make me pay?
For breaking up with him? Pay how?”
asked Stephanie.

“By ruining your life,”
said Karen.
“I told you, he's sick. He wanted you to leave Jacob for him, and the minute you did, he was going to drop you. He just wanted to ruin your life.”

“You knew all this, and you let him do it? You were supposed to be my fucking friend, you cunt.”
replied Stephanie, with her head swirling in the disbelief that her best friend had led her into such an atrocious trap.
“You destroyed my life, Karen. Not Derrick, you!”

“I'm so sorry, Stephanie, but you don’t understand. I'm afraid of him. I’m so afraid of him. He owns me, he uses me, and I know he's going to just throw me away when he's done. You have no idea what he does, what kind of things he makes me do.”

“So, you set me up to fall into the same shit? God damn, Karen!”
Stephanie said.

“Please, Stephanie, please let me say I'm sorry to your face. After that, if you never want to look at me again, I'll completely understand. I'll give anything to say I'm sorry to you.”

Stephanie wanted to hate Karen with every ounce of her being, but she just couldn't. As angry, betrayed, and hurt as she was by Karen, she just couldn't bring herself to hate her. Stephanie replied,
“I'm tired, I'm confused, I'm scared, and I'm hurt. I'm going home, so you can meet me there if you want.”

“I just need to go home and change clothes, and I’ll meet you there,”
replied Karen.

Stephanie drove home in
a cloud of complete shock. She not only contemplated what she would say to Karen when she saw her, but also what she was going to do with her now shredded life. Her world was a house of cards which had just collapsed, and she lost her husband, her boyfriend, her best friend, her job, and she even faced the prospect of going to jail. The one person in the world who Stephanie could always turn to for help with anything was gone, and she had no idea how to face this on her own. She was falling deeper and deeper into the abyss.

***

Expecting Karen to arrive at any moment, Stephanie began cleaning up some of the clutter laying around her house. She picked up the ball of clothing which had come from her car, and she placed all but the brown leather belt in a nearby laundry basket. Stephanie stared at the belt, remembering the first time she saw Derrick wearing it, and although she had regained her composure, she was still unable to fathom the depth of the lies in which she had become entangled. She was instantly pulled from her deep thought by the sound of a knock on her front door.

She
held the belt in her hand as she answered the door. She opened the door to find Karen outside, and she invited her in. Stephanie handed the belt to Karen, and greeted her with, “Here, give this to Derrick next time you see him.”

Karen and Stephanie began talking, and
the two women just rehashed the same issues which they had already battled through in their earlier conversation of text messages. It was obvious to Stephanie that Karen was coming apart at the seams, and she saw how devastated Karen was. Stephanie tried her best to console Karen, but it was just too difficult for her to be fake.

Stephanie said, “Karen, I understand where you’re coming from, or at least I’m trying to understand. I get that you’re scared, and for that part, I guess I understand. But I want
you
to understand something, too -- I will never forgive you for this. No matter what you say or what you do, I will never accept you as my friend again, and I will never forgive you.”

Karen showed Stephanie a string of text messages she had been receiving from Derrick
since Stephanie confronted him. In the messages, Derrick was blaming Karen for Stephanie catching them, and he called Karen the most horrific names. The most terrifying messages, though, were the multiple texts threatening to ruin her life. The final message from Derrick to Karen read,

“I'm going to destroy you, you stupid bitch. You and your little fucking friend,”
and it mortified both of them.

Stephanie convinced Karen that
it was time to end Derrick's grip over her life. Karen decided she would call his bluff, let Derrick do as he wanted with the photos of her, and she would ultimately deal with the aftermath as it came. She wasn't going to be his slave any longer.

The two women talked
well into the night, with Karen realizing that very much like Stephanie’s, her life as she knew it was about to end.

Stephanie
ended the conversation by announcing, “I'm exhausted, Karen. I need to go take a shower and go bed.”

“Can I stay just a little long
er?” asked Karen. “I can’t let my husband find out about this from Derrick -- I need to tell him everything when I get home tonight, myself. I need to come completely clean, and I’m just not ready to go yet.”

“
Stay as long as you want. Just lock the door when you leave,” said Stephanie as she started to walk up the stairs to the master bathroom.

“Stephanie,” Karen called out.

Stephanie stopped, and without looking at Karen she replied, “Yes?”

“Please tell me you might forgive me someday. I’m about to lose everything, and I can’t lose you, too.”

“I already told you, Karen. I’ll never forgive you for this, never. Oh, and welcome to my world,” said Stephanie before she continued up the stairs.

Karen sat alone on the living room floor, and she started to imagine what was about to become of her life.
Her mind raced with fear. She knew her co-workers and her husband would soon learn of her affair with Derrick, and she was certain Derrick would be sending them photos of her engaging in the most humiliating and degrading sex acts. She, too, would likely be losing her marriage and her career to Derrick, and facing that prospect was too much for her to handle.

The most painful prospect for Karen, however, was the thought of looking her loving husband in the eye and telling him her dark secret
. Describing the things she had done with Derrick would devastate her husband, and Karen began to lose her grip on any rational thought as she realized she just couldn’t do it.

Karen tightly gripped Derrick's belt in her right hand with enough force to turn her knuckles white, and she climbed the stairs to Stephanie's bedroom. She heard the shower running in the adjacent bathroom
as she walked through the room, and she walked into Stephanie’s closet. She used both hands to push Stephanie’s hanging clothes to the side, revealing the garment rod at the top of the closet

Karen reached up and
looped the belt through the garment rod and buckled the ends of the belt together. She stood on a storage bin and placed her head through the belt, forming a noose around her neck. She collapsed her knees, dropping her weight downward, and she hung herself in the closet. Stephanie was washing herself in the steam drenched shower, less than twenty feet away, as the spark of life quickly faded from Karen’s body.

Ten minutes later, Stephanie walked into the bedroom from her shower, and she was drying her hair with a towel when she suddenly saw Karen's lifeless body hanging in her closet.

“No, Karen, no! Shit! Shit! Don’t do this, Karen,” shouted Stephanie as she worked to pull Karen free from the belt.

Karen
, in her gray sweatpants and pink T-shirt, fell to the ground, and Stephanie rolled her to her back. She raced for her phone to call nine-one-one, but as she dialed nine-one, without pressing one a second time, she looked at Karen and knew she was gone. Stephanie looked at her phone, with her finger hovering over the digit to complete the call, but instead, she hung up the phone. Stephanie dropped to her knees, cradled Karen in her arms, and held her as she cried hysterically.

Stephanie continued to hold Karen as she thought back to the relationship the two once shared. The deep friendship she shared with Karen was something she
thoroughly  enjoyed, and Stephanie refused to allow Derrick to also steal the fond memories she had of Karen. She thought of the talks she had with Karen over lunch, she remembered the secrets they shared, and she remembered Karen always making her day a little brighter.

She saw the overly apparent death in Karen’s face
, and she gently stroked her soft blonde hair while saying, “I forgive you, Karen. Where ever you are right now, I forgive you with all my heart. You're still my best friend.” She continued, “I hope God forgives me for what I'm about to do, but I'm going to make this bastard suffer for what he did. With everything I have, I'm going to make him suffer.”

Stephanie’s hatred for Derrick grew greater and greater the longer she held Karen’s body. A boiling thirst for revenge grew inside of her until her until it manifested itself into a calculated plot within Stephanie’s head.

She picked up the phone to call Jacob, and much to her surprise, he actually answered. Through her tears, she explained, “You need to listen to me, Jacob. I know you're leaving, and I do hate that, but I have to accept it. That's not why I'm calling, though.”

“So why are you calling, Stephanie?”

She said, “I can't explain over the phone, but I know a lot more now than I did this morning. I need to tell you what I know, and I also need to make this son of a bitch pay for what he’s done. I just need your help to do it -- I can’t do it without you, Jacob. If there's any part of you that has ever loved me, please help me with this.”

Stephanie waited for a response from Jacob, and she asked, “
Will you help me?”

“
Stephanie, don’t start this. All I’m asking is for you to let me go, and please don’t start playing games.”

“Jacob, I’m not playing games. I need your help.”

“I’m sure you do, Stephanie.”

Stephanie pleaded with Jacob, “I know you’re gone, and I know you’re not coming back, but I just want to ask you this: how do you feel about the man I cheated with?”

“Give me a fucking break! You’re seriously going to call me and start doing this?” Jacob asked as he started to become angry with Stephanie.

“God damn it, Jacob, answer me. For once in your fucking life, just one time, show some emotion about
something. Show me that you’re a human being for Christ’s sake.”

“Okay, you want to know how I feel about him?” yelled Jacob. “I want to cut his heart out of his chest, and I want to watch him die. But I can’t do that, so you know what? I deal with it; I just deal with it, Stephanie.”

“Jacob, I have a better idea, but you just have to trust me. There is a way for us to hurt him, and we can ruin his life the same way he ruined ours,” Stephanie calmly explained. “You just have to trust me.”

“What’s your motivation for all of this? What did he do to
ruin
your life?”

“Jacob, I’m begging you. I need you more than anyone has ever needed another person before. Please come to the house and hear me out. If you want to get up and leave, I’ll never bother you again, and I’ll walk away for good. Please.”

Jacob heard an intense pain in Stephanie’s voice, and he ignored every sensible thought in his brain when he made the decision to go back to the house. Almost immediately upon his arrival, he learned of Karen’s death, and he shifted his attention to consoling Stephanie.

He took Stephanie out of the house to get her away from what had happened, and they drove to the empty parking lot of a nearby shopping center. The two talked for hours, first about Karen and what had happened until Stephanie told Jacob the truth behind Derrick. Eventually the conversation shifted to Stephanie’s plan for vengeance, and she walked Jacob through her idea.

Together, they fine-tuned the details of Stephanie’s plan until Jacob said, “Do you really think this could work?”