CARMEN“Jasper, please back away a bit, you’re scaring me,” I said as he started to head for me. I was actively thinking of how to get away from him if need be, but he placed the key to the door in his pocket.“You should be scared, Carmen. Do you have any idea how hurt and angry I am now that I know that everything you have ever told me has been a lie?” He narrowed his eyes, staggering until I got to the glass door separating me from the balcony. I didn’t want an altercation that would lead to someone’s life being in danger, so I did not open the door.“Why did you lie to me, and why did Dave help you with it? Imagine my surprise when I called your mother and she said she had no idea about it,” he slurred, given me a drunken laughter as he trapped me between his arms and the door. The bottle of alcohol was still in his hand, and I could smell every bit of it on his breath.“I did not lie to you, Jasper. Not in the way that you think,” I defended, but he was not buying any of it.“You

CARMEN“Dave, what are you doing with Jasper’s phone? Please tell me it’s not what I think it is,” I said, shaking my head as panic settled inside my stomach.“I need you to come back home. We should all settle this when everybody is home, right? You don’t have to worry about sleeping here. I’ll drive you back to where you are when we’re done,” he said with his eerily calm voice once again, ignoring my question.“Where is Jasper?” I asked as I fished for my purse and walked out of the room and into the living room to find Terri and tell her that I would be back soon.“He’s right here with me,” Dave answered.“Don’t do anything you’re going to regret later. I’ll be right there,” I told him and hung up when I found Terri sitting and reading something to Mariah to get her to fall asleep.“Hi, Terri. I was just… I’m going back to the house, but I’ll be right back,” I was quick to tell her that I would be back due to the panic that came across her face when I told her that I would be headi

CARMEN“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.” I pulled my hand out of Terri’s grip to make sure I still had a hold of my phone and could call Steve to hand me Frank’s number. “What do you mean he doesn’t want to give his permission and signature? Does he know how serious this is?”“I’m sure he does,” Terri replied. “There is a long history that I’m pretty sure you don’t know of between Mariah and Frank before her health went down the drain and she got sick. That’s why she stays with Jasper. I don’t believe they got married out of love,” she explained with a low voice.I couldn’t say I was surprised, especially after what Frank had attempted to do to me and what Jasper said he did with other women after Mariah fell sick.“I can go get Jasper,” I suggested.“He cannot sign the document under the influence of alcohol, Carmen,” she said to me, and I sighed in frustrated. Just how unlucky did a person have to be to be stuck with two people who had such problems and just didn’t ca

CARMEN“You’re not going to India, Carmen.”I looked at Jasper as if he had just popped another head out of his shoulder as he told me those words with a cool air of finality, as if I shouldn’t dare argue with him about it.“You can’t do that, Jasper. Not right now at least.” I shook my head at him. “I am going to talk to my mother today, and we can talk about this later. You can’t make that decision for me and just expect me to—”“You’re not going!” He raised his voice, drawing attention from everyone present and causing me to flinch.“You’re still hungover from the alcohol you took last night. I don’t want to believe that you want to argue about this right now, with your mother in there,” I raised a point, but he laughed about it right in my face.“If you have any respect for her, then you wouldn’t be thinking of taking a leisure trip to a whole different country while she lays in there and needs you now more than ever,” he accused.“This is not a leisure trip. A lot of things depen

CARMEN“DAD?!” I exclaimed, frozen at the doorway as my father sat on the bed in the room and looked over at me with a smile and a slightly surprised look on his face.“I had my doubts about you coming, but I know you as someone who does something when she sets her mind to it. Come on over here,” he said, his arms wide open for a hug, and I didn’t know how to run into his arms.I was afraid that if I ran into his arms and tried to hug him, I would swipe at the air that he would disappear into, so I settled for standing there and staring at him, taking everything in.“You look miles different from when you were sick in the hospital,” I said, finally finding the strength to walk forward.The closer I got to the bed, the faster my heart beat, almost as if it was going to burst and break through my chest at any moment.When I got to the side of the bed and looked down at him, he laughed at the look I had on my face as if he was reading my thoughts to know what I had in mind.“I am not a