The Price of Freedom

Chapter 14: Code Word

DINAH

After we found our seats, I couldn’t talk, I could barely breathe. It was like I was just watching myself from outside my body going through the movements. All that adrenaline I had coursing through my veins that allowed me to put Jacob in his place was long gone.

I saw myself smiling, I saw myself enjoying the rest of the ceremony, I even saw myself clapping and cheering when Serena’s name was called. She was smiling from ear to ear she was beautiful without even trying.

I knew graduations were supposed to be languid but this was standing in the DMV line all day and being told your missing paperwork when you get to the front dreary.

After three miserable hours of dull monotonous speeches, they were finally done. We were outside waiting for Serena to come out from the school’s stadium. I saw her exiting the double doors, and I wanted to run to her and tell her how proud I was of her.

Except as I was making my way to congratulate her, Sacha beat me to her crushing her in a hug. I think I’ve just been replaced… Liam just pats me on the back and pulls me into a side hug as we walk towards her.

“Congratulations ma belle!” I hear Sacha applaud her.

I clear my throat, but she is so lost in her little love fantasy she doesn’t even realize there are other people her. She is just smitten with this kid.

Once she manages to pull herself away from him, she envelops me in her thin arms squealing about how she’s done with school. I kind of want to mention how she said she still has to go to college, but I guess I’ll leave that for another day.

If Lily were here, she would already be on my ass for not forcing Serena to go straight to college, and how this is going to ruin her chances at a career. As we were all congratulated her the demon spawn decided to show his face once again.

“Serena,” Jacob smiles, “you’re looking,” he pauses as his eyes rake her body. “Ravishing as always.” Sacha steps in front of her blocking her from his view, I knew I liked him.

My hands curl into fists and I have to sink my fingernails into my palms just so I don’t gouge Jacob’s eyes out. I wonder how many people are around to witness me murder him.

“Jacob, I’m surprised you can talk, you know after the whole,” Serena motions to her neck with a smile, “incident.”

I have to stop myself from choking on my spit, I am cackling. The look on Jacob’s face when he notices that Serena and I aren’t afraid of him is priceless. His mouth is agape and his face is beat red.

Liam is just smiling on the sidelines and I really appreciate that he is giving me the space to be able to speak up for myself instead of just throwing down with Jacob. I have no doubt who would win in that fight.

“Dinah, can we go? Our flight leaves in a couple of hours.” Serena asks me.

Oh no, I don’t want Jacob to know that we’re leaving, he’ll just track us down. I wanted him to suffer while searching for me in a crowd. I wanted him to wonder when I would finally come for him. The impending doom that he would feel knowing that I had something planned for him but not knowing when it would happen would be enough to sustain me before I came back to end him.

“Where are you off to Dinah?” Jacob questions me and my whole world stops.

I look at Serena with pleading eyes, hoping that she understands my silent pleas to keep her mouth sealed, but she is having too much fun antagonizing him. Sometimes she is too much for her own good.

“Doesn’t matter Jacob, or what are you going to follow her there too? Take a hint, she doesn’t want you, and why would she when she has Liam.” Serena responds before I can.

“Serena enough,” I scold her. “Let’s just go.”

I grab Serena’s arm and lead her towards the car. I had to get her away from him before she gave him our address, knowing her she would do anything to tempt him. I definitely do not need him showing up in London to torment me. My revenge can wait once I come back.

******

“Pack your bags D, we’re leaving for London today!!!” Serena yelps happily.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” I ask her again, not because I’m not ready to leave, but because I want to make sure she wants this. It may seem like everything is coming together for her, but people from small towns travel to big cities to chase their dreams only to be crushed under the weight of false hope.

Serena does not need to be one of those people, I have no doubt in my mind she can be successful in anything she does, but she tends to be very impulsive when making decisions.

She rolls her eyes at me and I just want to poke them out, it annoys me to no end when she does that, “not this again Dinah.”

“Everything is just so easy for you Serena; I can’t just throw caution to the wind and hope for the best,” I tell her honestly.

My anxiety is beginning to flare up, I have to think things through at least twenty times just to make sure that there won’t be any missteps. Serena on the other hand just jumps in head first and floats every time. That level of blind faith in anything is uncharacteristically not me. I need a certain level of assurance that things will work out the way I intend them to, or else I’ll panic.

“We aren’t hoping for the best, we know this is for the best,” she argues back.

And just maybe she’s right, this does seem like a good decision, I just wish I had more time to plan for after our arrival. Everything was so last minute that we chose an apartment based on this availability, what if we don’t like it? What if it’s gross? But Liam helped her look for options, so I doubt he would send us into sketchy parts of London.

“Fine, fine, but when this goes sideways, just know that I told you so.” I told her as I grabbed my clothes. We’re leaving a lot of our things back at the house, I wonder if Lily has already burned them in a bonfire or if we’ll be able to send for them.

“Yeah whatever. They emailed me about the flat, and they said its ready for us, aren’t you excited?” She started jumping up and down like a child on a sugar high.

“As excited as I can be,” I reply nonchalantly.

As much as I have been fighting against this, there is a small part of me that is excited at this new change. London is an amazing city, I’ve only visited once, and I was drunk like eighty five percent of the time, but I had fun.

“Sacha’s coming with us,” she tells me wiggling her eyebrows. “He’s staying with Liam for a while.”

“So that’s serious?” I ask a bit skeptically, I know Serena gets over her boy crushes very easily, so I’m a bit surprised that she’s still hooked on Sacha.

She throws herself down on the bed and sighs dreamily, “I don’t know, it’s fun.”

I sit beside her and push her hair out of her face, “be careful, it’s all fun and games until it isn’t.”

I should definitely know, I made one too many mistakes with guys in college that still haunt me. I could have shown a bit more restraint in some cases, but no harm no foul.

“We’re just enjoying each other’s company,” she giggles, making me internally cringe thinking of what she actually meant.

“Is that like code word for having s*x?” I ask her hoping that she says no, but knowing her, she’s far more reckless than I am.

She lifts herself up on her elbows and tilts her head at me, “Dinah, do you really want to talk about this?”

My silence doesn’t deter her, and she just continues on, “don’t pretend like you didn’t get all up on Liam’s d**k”

“Oh my god stop talking.” I order her with as much authority as an older sister can have.

“No, you brought it up, so now we’re gonna talk,” she shoots back.

“Please don’t,” at this point I’m begging her to shut up.

“We had s*x and it was mmm,” she blushes and for a second I think she’s actually remembering what it was like.

Oh god, I might actually cry at how awkward and uncomfortable I am feeling right now. I was not imagining having to talk about my sister and her friend, boyfriend? About s*x.

“Serena please stop,” I implore, I may be understanding, but she is still my baby sister and I don’t want to talk about her having s*x with someone.

“Don’t worry we’re being safe,” Serena assures me.

Well at least there’s that. The last nail in our coffin right now would be her getting pregnant, then there goes her job working for Catarina, or going to law school. And she’s the one that will be working for at least a month, she’ll be the breadwinner in the house. We can’t lose our only source of income; we just spent a huge chunk of our inheritance on an apartment.

“Hispanics are extremely fertile, keep that in mind,” I advise her, knowing that our mom got pregnant twice while on birth control.

I hadn’t noticed Liam leaning by the door until I hear a light chuckle coming from his direction. He clears his throat and straightens himself out before speaking, “It’s time to go or we’ll miss our flight”

He must have heard at least part of that conversation and I am internally crying right now; my face is so flushed and my heartbeat sped up times three. I can’t even look at him, so I just keep my head down and tell him we’ll be right out.

When we’re done packing, he helps get our bags in the car and we head to the airport. The last time I was in an airport was with my dad when I was accompanying him to a business meeting. It’s a bitter sweet memory, except this time I’m leaving and I’m not sure when I’ll be back.

People at the airport were stopping Liam and Sacha asking for autographs, at one point this crazy fan girl pushed me out of the way almost knocking me down because I was too close to the love of her life. After that Liam refused to stop for selfies or autographs, and we went straight to check in.

I’m still not sure how to act when being surrounded by celebrities, people around the world know who these guys are and I’ve never had to deal with paparazzi or crazy fans. Getting pictures taken of me just because of who I’m near does not feel like my cup of tea, especially not in this state. I look like I was caught in bar brawl, and I wasn’t the one winning.

We finally make it through security and check our bags, just in time to board the plane. A few minutes later and I’m sure we would have missed the flight thanks to Serena and her inattentiveness and oversharing.

I take my seat next to Liam and I watch as Serena and Sacha go off to their seats. It is finally dawning on me that I am actually leaving. I’m leaving Lily behind, I’m thankfully leaving Jacob behind, at least for now, I’m leaving my career behind, and I’ll have to start fresh at a new job.

I really hope I am able to get a job soon; I don’t think sitting at home doing nothing is for me, props to housewives, but I could never. My bones haven’t healed yet, so I’ll probably have to wait until I’m fully healed to start working again.

Serena was right, maybe this will be good for me, I can start anew.

******

Soon after, the plane took off and everyone was settled in their seats bored out of their minds. One ten-hour flight later and we would be starting a new life in London.

The idea of running made me so happy before, but now I feel like I have unfinished business, a tiny voice in my head will continue to hound me until it gets its fill.

After dinner was served, everyone seemed to be on the same page trying to sleep for the rest of the flight. I look over and Liam is leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed. Would it be weird if I wake him up just so he can be awake with me? We wouldn’t even have to talk.

Liam looked so peaceful sleeping, in a position that most people look horrendous in, he still managed to look gorgeous, it was utterly unfair. Now I just wanted to wake him up so that he wouldn’t look so damn good. However, I talked myself out of it, that would just be selfish of me to deprive him of sleep just because sleep doesn’t come to me so easily.

Ever since the incident, I haven’t been able to sleep so well, I wake up throughout the night just to check my surroundings, or I’ll sleep maybe a total of two hours. Sleep deprivation will catch up to me eventually, until then, I’ll just roll with it.

A few seats away, I make out Serena standing up and quietly tip toeing to the bathroom, if it weren’t for the faint light coming from the flight attendants corner, I wouldn’t have been able to see her. Minutes later someone else grabs my attention as they make their way to the same bathroom, Sacha.

Oh, for f***s sake.

Could she be anymore audacious, I don’t know where she keeps it.

If I’ve noticed that means that others must have as well. What if they get caught, I don’t want my first act in London to be bailing them out of jail for indecent exposure.

I gently shake Liam’s arm hoping he can calm me down before I go and grab her by the ear like a child. He wakes up and groggily asks me what’s wrong, because apparently by the look on my face someone must be dying.

Maybe I’m overreacting.

Covering my mouth, I whisper into his ear what I just saw and his eyes almost bulge out of his skull, but that is soon replaced with his lips twitching into half a sleepy smile. Men.

“She’s being reckless and disgusting, other people have to use that bathroom,” I told him when he just shrugs his shoulders.

This coming from the one who had s*x in a pool house and in her office my inner voice tells me.

“You don’t want to cause a scene,” Liam whispers in my ear sending cool tingles down my spine.

He’s right, I don’t want to cause a scene, if anything it’ll just attract more attention. If I would have been fully healed, I would have probably dragged Liam in there myself. I’m such a hypocrite. To be fair she’s my baby sister, I should be allowed to be worried.

I’ll just go to sleep and pretend I never saw anything, that sounds like a plan, denial is a much better place to live in. I’m already living in it, so maybe adding one more thing to the list won’t be so bad.

We eventually arrive at Heathrow and one awkward hour of waiting in line to collect our bags and go through customs later and we’re on our way out.

The entire time we’re waiting in line, Serena is just all smiley and has that after s*x glow, her hair is a total mess, it looks like she didn’t even bother fixing it. I didn’t mention that I knew what they had done, that would just make the whole situation unbearable.

I’m stopped in my tracks when I hear a familiar voice call out my name, “Dinah?”

Looking over my shoulder, I am taken aback when I see baby faced Henri all grown up into one very sexy man.

“Henri?”

He rushes over, wrapping his arms around my waist and picks me up in a crushing hug. My arms naturally find their way around his neck and the only thing that brings me back to my senses is the overwhelming pain of my ribs screaming for help.

I tap on his neck asking him to put me down and this is when he notices the bruise under my sunglasses. Henri holds my face in his hands as he’s inspecting the damage and if looks could kill, he’d be on the most wanted list.

“Dinah what happened to you?” He asks me looking from me to Serena to Liam and then Sacha.

“I had an accident,” I respond with a half-hearted smile, I don’t think I’m ready to tell people what really happened, especially not someone I just reconnected with.

Before he could ask any more questions, I take a few steps away from him and introduce him to everyone. Henri is apparently a fan and seems to get along well with everyone. I could feel how tense Liam was though, he just eyed Henri suspiciously the entire time.

“What are you doing here, I thought you were in Singapore?” I ask him while everyone starts loading our bags in a car Liam sent for. Perks of being rich and famous.

“I started a new branch in London, and I’m here to oversee it. What are you doing here?”

“I just moved here, today actually,” I smile up at him.

“Well if you’re interested, I’m sure I can find you a job at the company,” he offers. Well there goes my job problem, I can just work for Henri, he was always so kind. I have no doubt he treats his employees with the utmost respect.

“Yes, that would be great!” I beam.

He kisses my cheek and hands me his card, “call me whenever you’re ready,” he tells me, but there’s a hint of something else in his voice. Like he wasn’t just referring to the job.

I’m probably just imagining things. Right?