"You okay?" I'm losing count of how many times I've said that in a span of 24 hours.
She's still looking at the glass of water in her hands; her face is still pale and her hands are still shaking, but it can't compare to ten minutes ago. She freaked me the fuck out ten minutes ago.
"Niall." Freya looks up at me, "The man that molested me, made me give up my baby for adoption and wiped the floor with me for years is sitting in the other room. Take a guess."
I leave my spot at a kitchen counter and walk over to her, crouching down in front of her. "You really scared me, you know that?" I take the glass from her hands and place it on the table, so I can take her hands, "Never have I seen you like that. And never do I want to see you like that again."
"Then let's get the fuck out of here, I don't know why we didn't run for the hills as soon as-"
"Freya, Freya," I grip her wrists, "He's here, seven months too early. There's an IV bag attached to him and a police officer watching over him. Come on, you're smart, you know something's going on."
She keeps looking at me, her tear-stained face saddening me but I can't give in to it; I for one, really want to know what's happening. 'Cause if the reason he'd been released from prison isn't good enough, at least there's a police officer I can complain to. And considering my feelings toward Craig, that's most likely what will be happening.
"Niall, what do you think is going on?" Freya sighs, shaking her head, "He-he probably got some sort of harmless infection and pulled strings to get out of jail because of it."
"I've not seen people look like that when they get an infe-"
"Whatever, it doesn't have to be an infection," She says in a hushed tone, getting a little aggressive again. "The point is that he got out, and if we don't leave while that make-believe officer is keeping him busy he's going to find us, and he might as well kill me this time. And you, if you're at the wrong place in the wrong time."
"Do you really think the whole thing is that corrupt?"
"Yes! You don't know him like I do, as a matter of fact, we're lucky if they're waiting for us with guns at the doorway!"
I widen my eyes, completely lost at this point. "How does that make us lucky?"
"Because they could've just come in here and killed us on the spot ten minutes ago!"
"Okay, you're fucking out of your mind, what the fuck did I give you?" I frown to myself, checking the name of the meds I gave her- yep, no mistake there, I'd definitely given her half of a Valium pill to calm her down. Maybe she's allergic to those.
"Just think about it for a little, don't you see they-"
"You think about it for a little, what do you think this is? A far fetched crime movie?" I shake my head at her when she stays quiet, "Freya, if you really are right and they're waiting for us with guns I'm fucking sorry you're gonna die because of me, okay? I'm apologizing in advance, I'm sorry you're about to die, but I want to know what the fuck is happening."
"Why do you even want t-"
"Because it's him!" This time it's me yelling in whispers, "He's someone who deserves life in prison yet there he is, comfortably sitting in this three hundred grand apartment, doing God knows what when he should be pushing a fucking rock up a hill in hell! Of course I want to know!"
Well, I succeeded in making her less scared; now she looks weirded out. "Niall, I'm telling you, for your- our safety-"
"Baby, if we leave now, we'll both have to live knowing he's free and out there and not knowing why. Do you want that? Hm? Do you wanna spend the rest of your life being scared of him finding you? Do you want both of us to live like that until it either drives us apart, or makes us move to some cave in Uzbekistan where he can't find us?"
This was not my ultimate goal, but it sure is fun to say something that makes her whole face go completely blank. I've said so many things that haven't even crossed her mind, that she can't properly react to them.
"I don't want to go to Uzbekistan," She says in a small voice, shaking her head fearfully, almost like a little girl. "They have the world's second highest rate of human slavery, if someone found us in a cave they would surely-"
"Shut up," I tell her, making her pull her lips between her teeth. "It's either my way or the highway... to Uzbekistan."
Freya sighs, and maintains eye contact with me for another minute. Giving me an almost begging look. "Okay."
She stands up and I copy her actions, frowning a little when I notice her gulp as she stands in front of me. "You okay?" I ask, not initially aware that I'd asked the same question from five minutes ago. My sudden hunger for justice blocked me from thinking about how she might be feeling; after all, he is the man that molested her, made her give up her baby for adoption and wiped the floor with her for years, as she'd told me. As I'd known before.
She takes my hand, her fingers barely poking out of the bandage I bought her before we left Manchester, and she looks at them for a moment before looking up at me. "I have you. I'll be fine."
"Okay." I'm trying to keep up my tough demeanor, but it's not really working. Not when she's started agreeing with me and is looking at me so sweetly I might just- "Let's go then."
I smile while we walk out of the kitchen and at first she follows me out, but I feel her hand slip out of mine when I turn around the corner to enter the living room; I look over at her, and she replies with a quick shake of her head, not saying anything, a panicked look on her face.
I sigh and, surprisingly, decide to leave her there. I figured, there are two possible things that could happen: one, she could build up the courage and join me when she's ready, and two, she could run out of the apartment, her initial solution. Either way, I'm gonna be there to try and find out what's going on.
Stepping inside the living room I spot the police officer and Craig, sitting side by side on the sofa. I nod at the officer and force a smile at him as I sit in an armchair opposite of them, and just glance at Craig. It's been months, but I still can't forget the image of him flinging his furious, psychotic self at me in the club he owned, the club he forced Freya to work at.
"Uh, she... will be right here, um, she's just-"
"Yeah, I know what she is," The officer interrupts me, nodding at first, then giving Craig a concerned look. To which he keeps looking at his feet. "He told me all about it."
"He... told you?"
"Well not me, the therapist he started seeing at the beginning of his sentence. I know those things are supposed to be confidential, but the doctor had to tell someone because these were serious crimes. He was facing at least ten years in prison."
"What happened?" What the hell happened that he's sitting here right now?!
"Well, he actually-" The officer stops in the middle of his sentence, raising his brows at the doorway. As Craig lifts his head in the same direction and starts showing a million mixed emotions, I know what's happened – she decided to join us.
I look that way myself, noticing Freya fumbling with her hands, also showing mixed emotions as she stands there. She glances at me and I give her a reassuring nod, at which she gulps and walks into the room slowly, like she's walking on thin ice, and eventually sits in the armchair next to me.
"You were saying, officer?" I urge on the man sitting opposite of me, and he shakes his head, continuing with a sigh.
"Well... Mr. Gaston was, as I said, facing a sentence of so much as ten years in ja-"
"What for?" Freya cuts him off- dammit, my heart had already started pounding for that part and she had to interrupt him.
"He admitted everything."
"Everything?" She turns to me for a second, afterwards turning to Craig, actually wincing when she looks at him properly. "...Everything?"
"Everything," He nods at her, his voice sending chills down my spine. Even if he was normal, I could never like him. He just looks creepy. Maybe it's because of whatever sickness he got our of prison with.
"So," The police officer starts again, starting to look a little bored and frustrated, "Chicago PD was getting ready to take him to court with, of course, the presence of Ms. Styles here and witnesses, such as yourself, Mr. Horan, and days before the court hearing, he'd started passing out. For absolutely no reason as we saw it but it was in some ways normal, the majority of people who had gone through the same thing tended to react that way."
He sighs, somewhat heavily, before continuing, "Those people did not, however, lose half of their weight in less than eight weeks and felt too tired to get up after spending 48 hours in bed. Especially not people Mr. Gaston's size and stamina, he used to work out for up to six hours a day when he first came in."
"What happened to him?" I ask in a low tone, almost breathless.
The officer turns his head to Craig, who looks as if he's on the verge of tears, "You wanna tell them or should I?"
With a deep breath, he looks up at Freya, "Can you guess?"
Unlike his calm face, she's looking at him in horror, her eyes wide and her hands gripping the armchair for life. "I can tell you're thinking it," He nods, "Go on, say it."
"N-no, it can't be-"
"But it is."
Okay, I'm no med student, but the answer is pretty obvious to me too. Only not even I can bring myself to believe it.
"...Metastatic cancer?" Freya suggests, closing her eyes, quickly wiping her cheek when a tear escapes her eye. Craig is smiling, both sadly and proudly, nodding as he looks at her.
"Stage four melanoma."
At his words she leans forward, her elbows on her knees as she holds her face while I'm sitting here, cemented to my seat, looking at him in fright. If I had stage four skin cancer that's metastasized to God knows where, I'd either be scared to tears or have already gone to Vermont and asked for assisted suicide. How the fuck he's sitting there, smiling at his ex girlfriend, is beyond me.
"And I'm actually glad you're here, because I can give you my will myself," He gets up slowly, blinking a few times as he walks over to one of the bookshelves in the room. Freya has raised her head at his words, both of us looking at him wide eyed.
"Here you go," He hands her a total of three papers, "I haven't made it official yet, but now that you've seen it..."
"What the fuck is this?" Freya frowns, switching the papers over and over again, apparently not believing what she's seeing. "You can't- you can't just do it like this, you-"
"Who else do I have?"
We both look up at him while he's looking at her – I can tell by his expression that he knows he'd lost Freya a long time ago too, and I can't help feeling that he's trying to make up for causing that by leaving her something after he dies.
"Everything?" Or perhaps everything he owned after he dies. "To me? Craig, you have a fucking Ph.D, where'd your brain disappear while you were writing this?"
"It disappeared a long time ago, when you were nineteen and holding a stick with two red lines on it," He tells her in one breath, nearly coughing up his lungs afterwards. "This is... take it as an apology. I know it doesn't make up for even 5% of what I put you through, but it'll make death easier for me."
A long silence follows, during which I try to take a peek at the papers Freya is holding; one of the only few words I catch is 'Maserati', and it's enough to make my head spin. "How long do you have left?" She breaks the silence.
"With treatment, about three or four months. Without, I should already be planning my funeral."
"Jesus Christ," She breathes out, lowering her head in her hands again, but he keeps talking.
"And, um... since I'm assuming you didn't just come to take a look at the apartment..." Craig glances over at me before going on, "I'm-I'm gonna ask to be moved to hospice care. So you can stay here. I'm currently on house arrest, even though I couldn't escape even if I wanted to, but I'll go to the judge and-"
"No, you know what?" Freya gets up all of a sudden, sniffling and wiping her face hurriedly, "You stay here. I don't want you to spend your last days in hospice care. We have elsewhere to stay. Call your parents, call everyone you know, have them with you, and think about your will one more time."
"Wait, Freya-" He calls her as he stands up, but gives up and sighs as she determinedly walks out of the room. And returns seconds later, just as determinedly, with a frown and a hard look on her face- and goes straight into Craig's arms, wrapping hers around his waist almost forcefully. This has to be the most shocking thing I've ever seen her do; and we just found out she'll be getting around half a million dollars worth of estate after he dies.
"You son of a bitch," She shakes her head as she pulls away from him, smacking him on the chest, "I still hate your guts, I hope you know that."
"I know."
After looking at each other for a minute, she pulls him in another angry hug- this is going to become painful for me if it continues. "You son of a bitch," She whispers again, making a grimace, and finally pulling away when she feels she's getting close to tears again. "Let's go, Ni."
Ironically, I've been waiting for her to say that for a while now. "Good day, officer," I nod at the man, who nods back at me, and again just glance at Craig, who's looking at Freya as she gathers our stuff. It feels weird knowing this is likely the last time I'll be seeing him alive.
A few minutes later I'm hurrying to catch up to her as she walks down the street, and I can't tell if she's angry, sad, or whatever third feeling would make her act like this. "Freya?" I call, "Can you tell me-"
"The apartment, the car, the money he got from selling his half of the club," She tells me, not letting me finish my question. That wasn't even what I'd wanted to ask, but I realize I wasn't wrong; all that really is worth between five hundred thousand and one million dollars. Holy shit. "And forty five thousand dollars for his biological child's college fund."
She sobs through the last three words, stopping in the middle of the street and crouching down to cry; that's why she hugged him. Not because he was sick or leaving her everything he owned, but the fact that he'd remembered.
I crouch down next to her, pulling her in a hug so she's crying on my shoulder. We stay like that for about a minute and I can't help thinking about Craig and how he turned out in the end – I didn't think there was anything he could do to make me hate him less. He proved me wrong.
*******
i have mixed feelings about craig rn