Married To A Stranger

Finalizing the Divorce

Pippa's POV

The house is dead silent, which makes me feel terribly alone. Though, I know everyone is upstairs asleep in their rooms. It's 2AM. The entire house is hushed and pitch dark. I'm so scared, I was too worried to chance turning on the lights in case I get caught, even ducking down behind Mother's desk for good measure.

If I get caught doing this, my Mother will move me out of my bedroom and probably relocate me to the basement or something. Sure it's finished, but it's next to barring the windows. But this is too important not too.

The glow of the computer gives me enough light to see what I'm doing. Going as fast as I can, I type what I think is Jackson's student email. I had to guess which email was his out of the hundreds of Jacksons attending Penn State. What makes it even more of a challenge is how I don't actually know Jackson's last name, and he hasn't officially changed his name despite taking my last name. I just had to choose what numbers I think could be his birthday.

Jane did guess he's a Taurus.

I'm tempted to send it to every Jackson with a registered email just in case, but I've already been downstairs for too long. Someone will get up to the bathroom or go to check that I'm still grounded in my room, like how they've been doing every night, twice a night.

Instead, I get rid of all evidence I was down here. I clear the history, empty out the computer's trash can after deleting my original sent email. I purge as much as I can. Even taking a moment to tidy up the desk just in case my Mother's eagle eyes notice a pen out of place. The tight knot in my stomach never eases up, and I can't shake the impending doom of my Mother somehow finding out.

The last of riddance of evidence will absolutely give me away. This will surely be missed.

I hover over the paper shredder in my Mother's office, daring myself to have the guts to shred the divorce papers. The documents weigh a ton in my hands, my fingers barely able to reach around the entirety of the stack. When my mother had these papers drawn up it's as if she's attempting to go after anything that Jackson doesn't have nailed down.

She wants to disrespect him. Crucify him, flog him. Blackball his name.

I can't believe she wants him charged then filed as a child predator. I never knew my Mother was capable of that degree of spite, of sheer malice. It makes me sick. With trembling fingers I force down as many sections down the teeth of shredder as it can fit. I pray the tearing doesn't echo through the house. Just in case, I start with the page with alleged charges first.

Jackson's POV

Something is gonna have to give.

We thought we could just wait out Pippa's mom, but the woman is relentless. Her fury won't let up. She's hellbent on keeping Pippa like a hostage, Pippa hasn't left her house in nearly a month.

Keeping us apart is not enough anymore. Now the lady is charging like a bull.

An email labeled as SOS from a long and overdone email address had a fifty page document that nearly crashed the old computer when downloading. I don't know what means Pippa had to do to get this to me, but message received.

At first I didn't know what I was looking at, but the official town hall emblem gave it away. Pippa's Mother is filing for divorce. She's taking matters into her own hands by having these drawn up. She'll break Pippa into signing sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later. I'm not even sure Pippa will hold out as long as she can, her mom is hellbent.