Ms. Tilly

Chapter 16

Sometimes I wonder if alternate universes exist. Like what would happen if my mom and my dad didn't die? Or if Helen and Gary never broke up? Or if we never met Petra? Or if Helen never won custody of the kids? What would it be like for everything to go right? For an enemy not to die, and close friends to not to hate guts. If alternate universes did in fact exist, what would I be like? What would I think? Or alternate universe me, would I ever think about me?

I'll never know though. I'll just be here, suffering through the time, floating in space.

***

Crying and crying and crying and crying and crying and crying and crying and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. Anger rising and rising and rising and rising, disbelief overfilling our minds, it was practically killing them.

Ivan didn't understand what was going on, but he cried too. I cried too. I didn't even understand what was going on, what it felt like anyway. How do I respond to this? How am I supposed to take it? I'm crying with them now, but what's going to happen in the future? I know Gary lost custody, but did he lose full custody? And why did he lose custody? There's nothing wrong with him. He isn't satan like Helen is.

"I don't know, Brandon, it seems risky," Helen whispered to her cellphone in her bedroom, "what about Gary and the girls?"

A lower voice answered through the phone, "They'll be fine, just tell them you have to go on a business trip to Chicago."

"That sounds believable," she said sarcastically, "I've worked at this dead-end job for six years, I've never had to travel ever for the company. It wouldn't make sense."

"Well, god, Helen, I'm not you. Make up some excuse."

"Okay,"

The man over the phone sighed, "I wish you could stay longer."

"I know," Helen replied, "me too."

The man fell silent, spiraling some ideas. "Wait, how about you do stay longer?"

"Brandon, how long are you talking about? I could barely buy me a weekend with you on letting them believe that I am doing something work-related," Helen paced around the bedroom, "Gary will be suspicious once I come back anyway."

"Then don't come back," he responded sharply.

Helen hung her head low, taking a deep breath. "I don't know..." she said unsurely.

"Helen, imagine it. It'll just be the two of us, without any others to get in the way between us. Just us and the bedroom, do it, Helen," the man said, trying to make her consider.

She sat on the foot of the bed, staring at the old wooden dresser across from her, thinking, "when the girls leave for school, I'll tell everybody that I'm going to go grocery shopping."

"That's my girl, Helen."

Helen smiled at the compliment. "Love you,"

"I love you too, baby girl."

I remember hearing Helen's conversation with her love affair. My feelings towards her drastically changed. The neutrality I felt for her took off in a direction for the worse. She had it coming. She fooled us all. She played us like chess. We were only her pawns to be sacrificed.

"Hi honey, how was work?" Helen said sweetly as she pulled the covers down and climbed into bed.

Gary pulled his pajama pants up to his waist and joined her in bed. "Same old same old. Stephanie, my co-worker is a complete idiot. She shipped these electronics to Australia because she thought the request said Australia instead of what it originally was, Austria." Gary grumbled over his work issues to his wife.

Helen nodded her head impatiently, staring at the ceiling, as she turned the side of the lamp out.

Gary rolled over to his side, facing Helen's back, "something the matter, dear? Am I complaining too much?"

"Nothing is the matter," she answered.

Gary sighed stressfully and then kissed the back of her head. "Well, see you in the morning, dear. Good night, I love you."

"Yeah, night."

She never did say I love you back. I think the sad thing was that Gary noticed she stopped saying I love you recently. Not surprisingly, she stopped saying I love you when she met Brandon online. On a dating site.

What kind of married woman that his three beautiful children would build trust and foundation with her family and destroy it in seconds? How could someone be so heartless? So untrusting? That answer is short and obvious, her name's Helen. Hm, how odd. Hell's in her name. The foreshadowing is strong in that name, you shouldn't have married her, Gary.

I wished I would have warned Gary about this. He didn't deserve to have his heart broken. However, Helen didn't deserve him. After all, diamonds never blend well will plastic rubies.

"Daddy, I'm scared, mommy hasn't been home in a couple of hours. She said she had gone grocery shopping, but she's never taken this long," Mackenzie squeaked with her high pitch voice.

Taylor slumped on the couch, leaning of the arm of the sofa. She didn't say a word, but she was crying a million in her mind.

Gary stood in the hallway, holding a crumpled sticky note in his hand. Tears running down his cheeks, staring at the floor.

She was an awful person. An awful, awful person.

Taylor snuggled with me on the sofa, wordless, like before. She acted the same way when she found out that her mother had abandoned them. "Ms. Tilly," she murmured gloomily. I turned my head in response.

"I love you," Taylor said as she fell asleep.

***A/N***

Aww, you guys, I was nearly in tears when I wrote this chapter. Also, I apologize for not posting last week, I was out of town. That is why I posted a little bit early today since I might not have time tomorrow.

Including, three more chapters until the finale...I think. I can't do the math. To clarify, the book's finale is chapter 20.