"You are furiously consenting, which erases all legal grounds to sue," Aurora whispered.
They were standing in front of a monitor, in the security room of Gloria Chapel. It was playing a grainy video of Drew prancing around a tall man, holding the hem of her little white dress and gleefully admitting, "I am even wearing wide! I, best bride, look!" She raised her hands to the sky and shimmied, "The prettiest bride!" She pranced around, "I'm so ready to be a bride!!"
Mid-prance, video-Drew did the unthinkable by plastering herself in a back-hug with the man and rubbed her cheek all over his back. "So big, so strong, so..." Video-Drew slurred.
"So Detestable. So Loathsome. So Vile." Drew muttered upon witnessing her wannabe wedding footage.
"That is why we must drink in moderation, Lady Vinchester," Father Joseph chided.
"I will take it as a lesson to never drink again," Drew sighed, "And honestly, even if I was consenting, you should take a drunken person's words like a grain of salt and discard it!!"
"Dear sweet Jesus, give me patience," Father Joseph sighed as he fast-forwarded the footage and pressed play.
In the video, Father Joseph seemed to be talking some sense into Drew by making factual arguments like, "You will regret this when you are sober. I am not officiating this. Have some restrain, dear child."
To which, video-Drew boldly countered, "Do you think you can stop me baldy—
"I am not even bald," Father Joseph whispered at the screen.
— you cannot! I am the biiiiiiggest sponsor of your chuurcrhrch! Do as I say or your jobs are all... GONE!! HA HA HA. Jesus wants us all to be in Holy Matrimoneeee. Matrimony me, now, Yes."
Aurora physically cringed at Drew's desperate wails.
"I apologise Father for I have sinned," Drew gulped and bent herself into a right angle, begging for forgiveness.
"Yes faaaather, marrie us," said another slurred voice. It was deep and equally as intoxicated as video-Drew.
The footage was grainy and barely any of the man's facial features were clear. On camera, he seemed like any generic pinterest model with black hair and respectable proportions.
"Really, what even is this camera quality. Do better, Father Joseph," Drew scowled.
"I shall, once you increase the funding, Madam Vinchester," retorted Father Joseph.
Even after forwarding and rewinding the footage multiple times, Drew had no idea who these individuals were. None of the grainy faces bore any resemblance to ones in her memory and when she thought all hope was given up, Father Joseph gasped.
"Oh, I almost forgot! We should have a picture of you both in our church album! We keep one of every couple we officiate, it's very nostalgic," Father Joseph said as he got up from the seat in front of the monitor and hastened out, uttering the words, "Wait here, I shall be right back."
It took him three minutes to fetch the photograph of a rosy faced Drew, grinning from ear to ear, alongside her "husband". She was holding a bouquet of lilies and her eyes were barely open to face the camera. Her eventual fall was halted by the man's hand around her shoulders; he had pulled her into his chest and was grinning widely at the camera. His eyes were crinkled shut and much of his forehead and brows were hidden by the hair falling over. A strong jaw and a long neck were the only discernable features from the photograph.
"Wild," Aurora muttered.
"Vile," Drew shot back. "I have absolutely zero recollection," she whined and pressed the picture to Aurora's chest.
"I would need it back," Father Joseph quickly interrupted before Aurora would bag it.
"I don't even want to keep it," Drew snapped and fell in the empty seat, slouching.
"It'll take a moment. I will just click a picture, if you don't mind—
"No no, of course not, go ahead."
—ah, thank you," Aurora clicked a picture of the photograph and returned it to the Reverend.
"Thank you," Father Joseph smiled, "You will be well, child, everything happens for a reason. Somethings might seem like an inescapable prison but they're always existing for a reason. Find that reason and you shall find your solace," he patted her head and picked her from her shoulders to get her off his chair.
"Yes Father," Drew passed a gentle smile and walked out.
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Sat the swivel chair of Chief Parker's office with his feet on top of the glass table, Aldric smirked, "Don't you worry mousy man, she won't be able to touch a hair on your head as long as I exist."
Crouched on the ground beside the table, Chief Parker joined his hands with a loud clap, "You're my saviour, Mr. Christaller, please help me, you know I have two kids I need to provide for. Please tell me that—"
Aldric scrunched up a ball of paper from the Chief's desk and threw it at his face. Startled, the man halted his pity-fest and straightened his back, while still kneeling.
"Yes, that's how I want you. Silent and docile," Aldric snapped and got up, "Change that chair, will you? It shakes like its standing on a singular screw, dammit," he swatted the chair out of his way and walked across the room. On his way, he patted Chief Parker's head in greetings.
As he neared the door, a glittering pile of mess caught his eye. "What happened to the vase you loved?" Aldric asked, eyeing the now empty silver stand over which the once treasured vase would be sitting.
"It was Madam Vinchester, she knocked it out of spite. Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, her assistant asked me to call them for reimbursement," Chief Parker tattled, bitter in his tone and expression.
"What a petty grudgeholder," Aldric muttered to himself. The ends of his lips twisted upwards, unbeknownst to him, as he made his way to his car. There was an odd bounce in his step that night and a glint in his dark eyes that his assistant had last seen almost a decade ago.
"You seem, happy?" Zach asked as he held open the car door for his master.
"I should be, everything is going perfectly," Aldric hummed and got inside his car.
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"Nothing is going even remotely right," Drew groaned.
"The award ceremony is next Saturday," Aurora added, casually burning Drew's soul to a crisp. Upon receiving a harsh glare from her mistress, she swiftly added, "You could always contact HiM...?" The latter end of her suggestion came off as a whispered rhetoric.
"I do not want to," Drew replied, having pondered over the idea all night.
"It is life and death," Aurora stated, lips pursed. She was sitting on a chair in Drew's room, perfectly straight, balancing the tray of breakfast that was placed on her lap.
"He disgusts me," Drew confessed and ran her hands over her arms to soothe the rising goosebumps.
"But he gets the work done," Aurora shrugged.
Drew sighed and fell back onto her bed. Life had been going a little too nicely for her, not that it was undeserving in any aspect. She had worked to get where she was but still, be it on the lows or highs, life's meals were often unpalatable.
She was being served one such meal during the happiest moments of her life and it was making things hard to bear. Queri's Solo Trailblazer in Business Award was something she had been aiming for ever since the conception of Florence's business model. She had been a struggling college student, freshly orphaned and harbouring the dream of her dead parents.
Ever since she was young, she had seen her parents work hard, day and night, to earn every meal they would put on the table. Though breakfasts were hasty and lunch was isolated, dinner would be the one time they would sit as a family and rejoice the little they had. Her mother loved cooking and her father loved eating, together they were a puzzle-fit filling in the gaps of eachother's shortcomings.
"Do you know why we work so hard, Mary?" Her father asked one night, during dinnertime.
Drew shook her head, brows afrown and mood soiled. Her fluffy pink dress bunched into her lap, creating wrinkles, as she sat with her legs pressed against her chest. Her eyes did not face him and instead were fixated on the forgotten balloon packets and birthday decorations laying on the floor, near the television cabinet.
"It is so that you can dress well and eat well. It is so you can feel like it's your birthday all year around," Her father replied.
At that time, Drew considered his words mere filler speeches to makeup for the time lost and not ruin the moments they still had together. It made sense, until she experienced the real loss in their permanent absence; until she shed enough tears to dry her senses and cage her emotions just to get from one meal to the next; until she spent nights on the cold metal benches of the local park and realised that she had, indeed, lived well when her parents were around.
They used to call her Mary. It made her heart swell with sorrow whenever she would be at church, cleaning the windows and dusting the pews to earn a night's meal. Though, nothing could beat the moments of her sitting around her family under the warm yellow light, while her mother ranted about the food they were having that day and her father interjected with random trivia about capsicums.
Living a good life was important for them.
So, she must live a good life as well to carry their legacy forward.
"Okay, I will do it, let's call him!" Drew exclaimed as she shot up and picked her phone from the nightstand. "Here goes nothing," she sighed as she found the contact she was looking for and pressed call.
The call connected after one and a half rings.
Instantly, the voice on the other end exclaimed, "Mommy?!"