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Continued from previous page..
“Should you be worried about something?” Charlotte responded. “Yeah, I’d say you should be worried about something. You should be worried about an entire ounce of cocaine that Myles found under your couch. Maybe you should start with that.”
“That was not mine!” Belinda fumed. “Somebody put that there.. to incriminate me! I’ve told you that! Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because lying is all part of the sickness, baby. You’re sick and you need help,” explained Charlotte.
“Oh, fuck you, I’m not sick! And I don’t need help! Any problems I’ve ever had in the past, I’ve been able to take care of myself. I don’t need any fucking help,” snapped Belinda, demonstrating that all remnants from her medicinal grogginess had now disappeared. After taking a few moments to let her angry rant subside, she gathered her thoughts together and offered up a careful observation—
“You know, you seem awfully determined to keep me in here… And you don’t seem interested in finding out who put that shit under my couch… What’s goin’ on, Charlotte? You know somethin’ you’re not telling me?”
“We just think it’s the best thing for you to stay here for a while, that’s all,” Charlotte explained in a soothing manner.
“There you go with that “we” shit again,” said Belinda. “Please tell me you’re not referring to you and my husband… okay? Please tell me that… Because if you are.. I’m going to reach up and strangle you, Charlotte… I’ll choke the life out of you… And you know that I will,” warned Belinda, with a steely look in her eyes.
Charlotte backed up, out of arms reach, because she knew Belinda well enough to know that she was not kidding.
“As a matter of fact… I am referring to Myles and myself,” informed Charlotte. Then she dropped an earth shattering bomb. “You might as well know the truth about us.”
Belinda’s heart almost stopped as the electricity surged through her body. She swallowed nervously as she tried to figure out the correct thing to say. Before she could muster up something meaningful to say, her anger took the first step.
“Step closer to me, Charlotte,” she requested.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Charlotte told her with cold determination. “You’re going to stay right here for as long as I want… Until I get what’s rightfully mine.”
Belinda then came to an obvious conclusion.
“You … It was you who planted that bag under my couch.. Wasn’t it?… You were over at the house the night before… You did this to me… You put me in here… Why?” begged Belinda, as tears started to well up in her eyes. “Why are you doing this to me, Charlotte?”
“Because you needed to be taught a lesson, honey,” Charlotte explained to her in a calming, sadistic voice. “You can’t go around your whole life getting everything you want… You knew perfectly well that I was interested in Myles long before you got your greedy, little hands on him, didn’t you? But you couldn’t handle it, could you? No… you had to have what I wanted… You couldn’t let me be happy… You had to have things all your own way— just like you always do.”
“Myles was never in love with you and he never will be,” stated Belinda, crying as she spoke.
“He will be in time. He just doesn’t know it yet,” returned Charlotte. “But don’t you worry.. I’ll bring up Lorna and Michael in the proper fashion.”
“If you come near my children, I swear, I’ll…” Belinda could not finish the sentence. It was too much for her.
“What?” … “Are you gonna kill me?” asked Charlotte in a patronizing way. “That’s usually how that sentence ends… That’s going to be pretty hard for you to do while you’re in here… And I think you’ll be in here for a long, long time… Pretty soon, they’ll start upping the doses of those drugs they’re giving you… on my instructions… which will eventually leave you in a complete, catatonic state… Then I’d say, it’s a Federal Institution for you, Babe…Ten years from now, you won’t even be able to speak.”
“I’ll get out of here,” Belinda insisted. “Someone will come for me.”
“I don’t know who that’s going to be,” replied Charlotte. “It certainly won’t be any one of the girls. We took a vote… and you’re not in the band anymore.”
“What?! That can’t be… That’s impossible,” cried Belinda.
“We just couldn’t take it anymore, Belinda. The lying, the cheating.. your unpredictable behavior. It was just too much for everyone. The only one who was willing to give you another chance was Gina,” Charlotte told her. “I guess she still loves you.”
Belinda was now in pure agony. She was crying so hard, no sound was coming out of her mouth. She took a deep breath and screamed out, “WHY?!!”
After she cried herself silent, Belinda became characteristically resilient. Her survival instincts suddenly took over as she prepared herself for a different strategy. It was something that she had read about or heard about throughout the years. She raised her voice to mimic that of a young girl—
“Charlotte?” she said. “The bad people are coming to get me.. They’re trying to hurt me.”
The expression on Charlotte’s face instantly changed. She stared down at Belinda with a blank look.
“The bad people are going to hurt me,” Belinda continued. “I’m your baby sister. You have to protect me… Don’t let the bad people hurt me, Charlotte… Please don’t let the bad people hurt me. You have to save me.”
Charlotte looked up and then back down again. She continued to stare off with no expression on her face, yet she seemed to be absorbing what Belinda was saying.
“It’s working!” Belinda thought to herself. “Keep going!”
Charlotte continued on with her expressionless stares as Belinda continued with her childlike pleadings.
Then, unfortunately, Charlotte uttered —
“I have to go.”
Charlotte turned around and headed for the door as Belinda called for her to stay and protect her. Charlotte left the room and closed the door behind her.
Belinda was now left all to herself, knowing that she came tantalizingly close to executing a miraculous plan. She was paralyzed with emotional pain, feeling that no one in the world loved her. Feeling like her life was over.
Feeling like…
Belinda could hear the sound of the door opening up again.
“It’s Charlotte!” she thought to herself. “She’s back!”
Instead, she could hear the sound of the housekeeping cart come into the room. Understandably, Belinda felt instantly deflated.
“Please.. go away,” Belinda managed to eke out. “My room is fine.”
“Belinda?” a voice whispered.
Belinda looked up to see who it was. As the person entered more of the room, Belinda eventually saw a familiar face.
“Gina?” she called out.
Sure enough, it was Gina to the rescue.
“Shhhh!” she hushed. “Don’t say my name out loud.”
We now enter the comical phase of our story—
“Gina, what are you doing here?” whispered Belinda. “And why are you dressed in a housekeeping uniform?”
Gina was stunned. In her mind, leave it to Belinda not to figure things out.
“Uh, I figured I could use a little extra spending cash, so I decided to get a job as a janitor,” Gina responded, sarcastically. “What do you think I’m doing here?! I’m here to rescue you!”
“OHHHH, GINA!!!” gushed Belinda.
Belinda threw open her arms, grabbed Gina around the neck, and started kissing her repeatedly all over her face.
“Mm, mm, mm, mm, I knew you’d come for me. Mm, mm, I knew it,” said Belinda, ecstatically, in between kisses.
“Alright, alright, Fancy Pants, we don’t have time for a tearful reunion right now. We gotta’ get you outta’ here,” exclaimed Gina.