Broken Trust ☇ Jerome Valeska (#Wattys2016)

17.

After the whole incident, Jerome was acting up. He refused to let me out of the house just to walk around the corridor, worse than how Theo did. I was confused, but the love he was showering me with blinded me. But still, the thought was floating around in my mind. He even refused to let me to switch on the tv, saying that the murders he did for Theo will flash through the news and he didn't want me to witness it. When I told him I just wanted some cartoons, he snatched the tv remote and threw it out of the window.

"Jerome, please tell me what is happening. You're scaring me at this point" I begged him.

"Scaring? Babe, what are you talking about?" He acted dumb, but I knew he was hiding something.

"You just threw a tv remote out of the window. Are you alright? And you do know that you don't need a remote to turn on the tv right?" I tried again.

"You didn't listen to me, so I did that. No more questions, sit here and just wait for me" he said, slamming the room door shut. Leaving me all alone in the room, with no way to entertain myself. I groaned and landed on the bed.

That was when I saw the bedside table and it had a newspaper peeking out from the drawers. 'At least I have some reading material' I thought to myself.

I grabbed the newspaper out from the stand and started reading it. Murder, Robbery, Rape, Kidnapping - this was Gotham, and I was not surprised, but upset that shit like this was happening around here. When I was turning and flipping the pages, something caught my attention. Arden was on the newspaper section and I started reading the article. My body was trembling and shaking, causing me to have troubles reading the article further. But, I still tried. She was convicted of the murder of her ex-boyfriend and is sentenced to jail for 40 years. 'Currently looking for Aspen Richardson, who was wrongly accused for the murder of Matt Anderson. If found, please contact the GCPD immediately for assistance'.

"What the hell?" I cried.

That was when I heard an argument coming from outside. From the voices, I knew that Theo and Jerome were both arguing with each other. I quickly hid the newspaper and ran out of the room, trying to stop whatever that was happening and was going to happen. When I reached the common gathering places, I was right. I saw an argument happening right in front of me.

"Oh look, the star of the show is here" Tabitha said in that annoying little voice of hers. Jerome turned and was now facing Tabitha and I.

"You. You stay away from her" Jerome pointed at her.

"Stop speaking to my sister like that" Theo retaliated.

"Then tell her to stop speaking to my girlfriend in that manner. She deserves the respect and if I recall, she never did anything to hurt or annoy Tabitha or Barbara, then why are you bothe-"

"STOP. THE BOTH OF YOU, STOP. NOW!" I screamed, causing the both of them turning to look at me and in fact, everyone in this room to turn and look at me.

"Whatever both of you are fighting about, stop it. Now. If I hear a single word after this, coming out from both of your mouth, I swear to god I'll punch someone in the face. So shut both of your mouth and say sorry now" I started talking at the top of my voice, shocking everyone around me. 'Wait, she talks?' I heard people whispering around me.

"Say. Sorry. Now" I said through gritted teeth.

Both of them mumbled sorry to each other. "Now hug" I demanded and both of them looked up at me, thinking if something was definitely wrong with me.

"Hug, I said hug. Do you know what a hug is?" I rolled my eyes at how dumb this two were looking at this point.

"I know what a hug is" Theo replied, he was annoyed and shock at the same time.

"Then go on, hug it out and we're done here. No more hard feelings with each other" I urged. They listened to me and went in for a hug.

"This is weird Aspen" I heard Jerome mumble, but I didn't care.

"Alright. Now we're done fighting. I repeat, one more time I hear the both of you fighting, I'm punching someone in here" I said, looking straight into Tabitha's eyes. I heard her scoff, but I didn't care. I dragged Jerome behind me and went straight into the room. I shut the room door close and wanted him to talk to me, I needed to know what he said to Arden to cause her to in that current situation.

I sat Jerome down on the bed and sat the opposite side, so that I was facing him. "Tell me everything" I said, starting off the whole conversation.

"Everything? What everything?" He asked, confused.

"Jerome, you're hiding something and I can see it through you. There is no point hiding, I know what is happening"

"Doll, I'm hiding nothing. Really?"

"Then why did Arden surrender herself? What did you say to her to make her do this. Cause I know my sister damn well, and trying to get her to do things, it's never in her dictionary. She did what she wants and goodness is never in her. In fact, she'd never ever wants to see me happy. So I know that it has to be something you said and to make matters even worse, the entire GCPD is looking for me"

"How did you know about that? I threw all the the tv remote and everything that could give you information about that" he asked.

"Newspaper dummie, it was in the bedside drawer. You're really not good at hiding things Jerome" I showed him the newspaper from the bedside drawer and heard him groan. "Was it you?" I continued.

Jerome stayed silent for a while. "Please Jerome, I need to know something at least" I pleaded.

"Yes" he sighed. "It was me and I need you to stay hush about it. The argument earlier was about you, so I want you to speak nothing of it, alright?"

"Why?" I asked.

"You don't deserve the world I'm living in. I know I tell everyone to let loose and be yourself, but somehow I could never see you get hurt. I just, I uhm, I don't want to loose you"

"You won't" I held his hands in mine. "But now, I don't want to go anywhere out in the open. You want me to stay in the room, I will. But I just want you to tell me everything, I need you to be brutally honest with me" I continued.

"I will" he promised.
_

Days went by and the havoc in Gotham increased. I didn't step out of the house like what Jerome told me and was confined in that four walls which the both of us shared. Thank god, this time Jerome gave me a new remote so that I can continue watching the tv. But what he didn't know was that I don't actually need the remote cause most of the buttons was already on the tv, silly boy. Both Tabitha and Barbara were constantly shooting dirty looks at me, but I simply brushed it off, not wanting to cause any argument to happen.

Well, Barbara wasn't happy with me ever since the the incident happen. I accidentally walked in while Barbara and Theo were getting close, as soon as I walked into them getting intimate, I cringed and walked away. Mentally scolding myself for not knocking in and going into Theo's work room. Well I couldn't blame myself entirely, he was the one who told me I didn't need to knock or get permission if I ever needed a book to read or something. I told Jerome about it and he just laughed straight into my face. Idiot.

News channels were flashing my photo all around, informing the citizen to call GCPD if they ever saw me around. I was now in some kind of a hostage situation, but more of a complicated one.

It's just a mess.
__