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beatricemillerstory · 5 years

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Beatrice Miller

Chapter Four

Wednesday 7:45 PM

Abigale Vallerea sits at that bar table and will continue to for over an hour with nothing to do but listen to her thoughts – seeing them dance across her mind like she’s looking at the night sky with nothing behind the words but vacant darkness. Just a silhouette of her thoughts otherwise known as her gripping and violent nature to over-analyze her confrontational anxieties. Abbey watches as her friend opens her soul to that of mindless freedom. Beatrice had started to drink before they left and basically inhaled a bottle of wine – she’s feeling nothing but freedom right now and it doesn’t bother Abbey in the slightest. She deserves this. Furthermore – as Abbey continues to think to herself – despite the music coming through the speakers trying to drown the thoughts of the building’s patrons – that Beatrice has nothing to do with her now creepy husband does when she’s not looking. At least she hopes that Beatrice doesn’t know anything about it. The last thing that Abbey saw before coming to this…singles ridden bar…was her husbands face pressed up against her bedroom window, looking into her sister’s bedroom window, while she was changing. So, and for her to convince herself she wasn’t crazy, what else would she possibly think about?

It wasn’t long ago that Abbey had thought her husband, Bryce was cheating on her. She thought about it ‘the first time he came home smelling like a person that wasn’t someone she knew, and she knew damn well it wasn’t her. But she just wrote it off. Why? Because he is so hot, she loves him desperately, and has stuck by his side through thick and thin and hasn’t complained once about the fact that he is insufferable.’ “O. M. G.” She says to herself – out loud. “Did I just say all that?” Yes. She did. She now can’t help but think of the fact that she may not be happy with her husband and maybe that’s why she’s feeling these thoughts right now while she watches her best friend have more fun than even Abbey has seen in many years. After Beatrice gave birth to the boys, she had such bad post-partum depression that it actually lasted the duration between her first son being born to her pregnancy with her second – and even still it stayed long after. Beatrice needed a break. Abbey knows this. And must keep convincing herself that it is okay for her friend to be enjoying herself. So, why? Why does she have this aching feeling inside her body that wants to slap Beatrice in the face and tell her, “go back to feeling miserable and depressed so that I can talk about my own problems instead of you having fun dancing around when your husband and children have been missing for over a year!” But she doesn’t do that. She doesn’t want to. She won’t. She’s sure of it. But she still thinks about it. Extensively. But that’s the strange part of Beatrice not remembering what happened between her and Mark, even the boys, the night they disappeared. ‘Why doesn’t she remember anything?’ Abbey shakes her head of all the questions she has about what Beatrice knows about her own husbands and son’s disappearance. Instead, she focuses back on why it was that her husband was looking through his own window and homed in on the bedroom of the girl next door.

Wednesday 8:56 PM

Beatrice can feel the night take control of her body. She pays no mind to the fact that she’s exhausted. Right now, she is dancing. She is dancing for herself and only herself. And for the fun dance partner that graced Beatrice’s spot on the dancefloor over 20 minutes ago. At least she thinks it was about 20 minutes ago. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care. What did she have to be home for? She looks over at Abbey to a) make sure she is still there, and b) to make sure she is having fun. When Beatrice finally catches her eyes staring back at her from the table, she realizes that she has no idea. There is a faintness in her eyes that Beatrice can see when their pupils connect that Beatrice isn’t used to. Abbey has always been the friend that is completely open no matter the situation or circumstance. Abbey has always been the life of the party. She makes fun where there is sadness and brings light to dark moments. But this. This is different. When Beatrice locks eyes with Abbey…she knows something is wrong. Beatrice uses her hands to tell her dance partner that she is going to sit down and walks across the dance floor even though her legs feel like a heavy rubber. ‘How long could I have possibly been dancing?’ She thinks to herself, patting her legs back to life. Beatrice sits down with a dramatic slam of her body, sweat drips from the nape of her neck, down her spine, passed the curvature of her little-black-dress, and settles right above her back-side. She breathes heavily, startling Abbey, and then asks, “How’s it going, friend?” “Bee!” Abbey responds, “I haven’t seen you like this since…well, I can’t remember.” “I feel amazing!” Beatrice says. She can feel that she’s had a lot to drink by how hard it is to articulate words. After a brief, awkward pause, Beatrice asks, “Is everything okay?” Abbey shrugs her shoulders but keeps that smiling blazing on her face. “I mean, want to dance!?” “No! This is exactly what I wanted!” Abbey responds. Beatrice can tell that she’s lying. “Do you wanna go!?” She asks. “Are you ready!? I’m okay to stay, as long as you want! Really!” Abbey says. Beatrice can tell somethings up. It wouldn’t look like it to anybody that didn’t know Abbey. “I want to go! Come to my place because I don’t want to be alone!” She says. Abbey’s face brightens up. “I would love that!” Abbey says. Beatrice can tell she’s not lying. “Let’s get our coats!” This is that part of a friendship that happens when both parties of the relationship will do something for the other. It is a fair trade. A true friendship. Something that Beatrice and Abbey have done since they were little girls. How could Beatrice be having the time of her life while her friend sits there being sad? “Commence more girls night!”

Wednesday 10:02 PM

Beatrice piles into her house, arms wrapped around Abbey’s waist. Her head flooding with thoughts; drunken thoughts, yes, but thoughts nonetheless. She had been smiling since she left the club. “Did you see that beautiful woman I was dancing with, Abb??” Beatrice asked. “I sure did, Bee.” Abbey responds. “Why aren’t you more excited about my…integration!?” “Sorry, Bee,” Abbey says. “I just have something on my mind. I can’t shake it.” “Tell me,” Beatrice says through a vulgar hiccup. “Tell me, right now!” “Okay.” Abbey thinks for a moment. Beatrice finds it weird because it’s so unlike Abbey to think so hard about what she wants to say. “Well, it might actually be easier if you’re a bit…inebriated.” “Go!” They both take a deep breath. “I want to know if you know that my husband watches you through our bedroom windows.” Beatrice had never felt such a sobering question hit her like that. Almost immediately she is brought back to reality and sent for a ride through the ‘my-friend-needs-me’ tunnel. “What?” She says. “Seriously…what?” “I saw Bryce today…he was looking through our window…into your window…while you were changing. And when I went to look back at him,” Abbey takes a deep breath and continues, “he ducked down, and I didn’t see him again. It makes me think he wasn’t just looking…looking for me…he was looking…for you.” “No,” Beatrice responded even before Abigale had a chance to continue. “No. Of course not.” Beatrice thought to herself, ‘I didn’t know he was looking at me. I just always kinda thought he might have been.’ That was information she would keep to herself for now. It wasn’t necessary. Abbey didn’t need to know…well…she just didn’t need to know anything else. There isn’t anything else to know. Beatrice was sure of it. Now, Beatrice feels guilty because she’d always hoped that Bryce would be looking at her but only because she had a bit of a crush on him. ‘Who wouldn’t!?’ She thought. ‘Who wouldn’t have a crush on a kind, gentle, tall, caramel-skinned man that had eyes that could cut steel!?’ Beatrice kept these thoughts to herself. “I just…” Abbey says but trails off into the glass of vodka she’d just poured for herself. “I just have a weird feeling is all. Can I stay here tonight?” “Of course,” Beatrice says. “But shouldn’t you at least let Bryce know where you are?” “Not if I’m thinking what I’m thinking.” Abbey says. “Okay. Well, you can sleep with me if you’d like.” Beatrice offers. “I would love that.” Abbey says.

Thursday 7:15 AM

Beatrice pours herself a cup of coffee and sits down at her dining table. She thinks to herself about how she was so free last night. So free, yet she doesn’t remember much. Had she had that much to drink? Abbey’s upstairs sleeping away in her bed. Beatrice didn’t know that Abbey would stay the night. It had been so long since the two of them had had a “sleepover” that it was odd to find her laying next to her in her own bed. The bed she shared with her husband. ‘Is something wrong with her and Bryce?’ Beatrice thought to herself. Beatrice’ thoughts immediately fall back to thoughts of her husband and children. Apparently, there is never a cure for an avid depression. Well, not so much a depression – more of a longing worry that really sticks to the brain. For Beatrice, it is truly suffocating to know that she will never not feel this way until the day someone comes to her door and tells her that her family is alive…or the other option. Until then, she will struggle with these thoughts that there is a possibility they are out there. The reasons are too much for her to take. Either Mark left her and, took the kids, which she doesn’t think happened because they were okay…weren’t they? Or, they got into an accident in the truck and never made it back. ‘But why were their bodies never found!?’ Beatrice slams her coffee mug down as gently as she can on the glass table. She has got to stop thinking about it. Or she may as well just go insane. They may as well just come and take her to the asylum. No handcuffs needed. She will walk calmly and voluntarily to her lovely, clean, air-conditioned, padded room.

Then, a knock at the door. A surge went through her. It’s Mark with her sons. She feels it. She embraces it. She’s ready. She knows it’s them. This is the moment. She turns the knob to the door. She can see a man on the other side, his silhouette through the drapery. She pulls the door open and, “Jimmy?”

JR McWilliam

Find out who Jimmy is, what Bryce is thinking, and what Beatrice is going to do next in Chapter Five! Stick around for the new Chapter releasing at the end of April! Details to come. This will be the most dramatic and blood-chilling chapter yet...

#writer #writer on tumblr #writers on tumblr #jrmcwilliam #shortstories #tumblrnovel #novel #thriller #psychological thriller #psychological #gone #BeatriceMiller #beatricemillerstory #mine #chapter 4 #chapter 5

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beatricemillerstory · 5 years

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Chapter One

Beatrice Miller

Chapter One

Tuesday, 2:03 PM

Beatrice Miller stands at her kitchen sink, her back against the counter, and stares at her husband and her two beautiful children laying on the floor in a pool of blood. She feels crazy because this is the image her mind shows her every night. Even if she closes her eyes, she can still see it. So, she just stares at it until it finally goes away. Beatrice turns back around and finishes up the last of the dishes in the sink, turning around again to survey her kitchen for any more of a mess. She wouldn’t want to leave a mess for her husband and children when they get home. She’s always been their caretaker and she knows that she is needed. She loves that she is needed. She soaks in the feeling of safety that she gets when she’s in her kitchen. Beatrice is a beautiful woman. Ageless, like Adeline. Long, wavy, chocolate brown hair draped down the middle of her back and covering just under her mid-sized breasts. She wears a simple black dress, like one you’d wear to a funeral or a cocktail party. She has a cute nose; sparkling blue eyes – deep as the ocean. Her nails are perfectly manicured to match those on her toes. A deep red similar to that of blood. She stands tall at nearly six feet.

She grabs her purse and opens the door, standing in the way for just a moment before closing the door gently behind her.

Tuesday, 2:11 PM

‘There she is. Beatrice Miller.’ Bryce Vallerea says in his head as he watches her leave her house. He hasn’t seen her come out of her house for weeks. The car hasn’t moved. The lawn remains untouched. “Where are you going?” He asks to himself. He watches her slowly make her way to the car, blinded by the bright sunlight above her she covers her face with her forearm and gets in. She closes the door slowly. She backs out of the drive. She stops for a moment on the road. She looks over at Bryce’s house. Bryce quickly walks away from the door. Bryce is an average looking man with the arrogance of a male model. He stands sky high at six-foot-two. A brilliant man. He has night black hair, a magical set of dark brown eyes, and teeth that could light a theatre before curtain call. His skin is the color of caramel and he smells of pine. His hands are soft and clean like that of a man who hasn’t worked a day in his life. Childish in his speech and demeanor yet charming with his grace and mannerisms of a gentleman.

He watches her from behind the drapes as she gets into her car and says aloud, “well, at least she’s gone now.”

Tuesday, 3:30 PM

Beatrice hands cheques to the woman across the counter. She’s been meaning to cash these for some time now. She hasn’t wanted to. It makes this all seem real if she starts to take care of these things. The doctor has ordered her to start running errands again though so she feels that she should. It’s been a long time now so it is time for her to get back to reality and start living her life. This is step one and this is all she can handle right now. “Is there anything else for you today, Mrs. Miller?” The kind but tired teller asks her. She doesn’t really know what to say because saying no is a lie but saying yes means that she would be asking for things that don’t pertain to this teller’s job in any way. So she says nothing. “Mrs. Miller?” The teller asks again. “Are you doing okay?” The bank teller, Abigale Vallerea, formally known as Abigale Smith, is a short but beautiful woman. She is poised and kind, courteous yet genuine. She has half blue half blonde hair, a perfect ombre’, and has a tattoo of a symbol unfamiliar to Beatrice on her neck, just below her ear-lobe. Her eyes are kind, constantly glossy, and the most beautiful shade of Grey that anyone has ever seen – combined with her half-blue hair makes her look like a winter princess. “I’m doing as good as I can right now,” Beatrice finally looks up at her. “I’m taking it day by day. Thanks, Abbey.” “Is there anything I can do for you at all? Woman to woman?” Abbey and Beatrice have known each other a long time. They were childhood friends and then grew apart. They worked at the bank together for quite some time but then Beatrice stopped working about a year ago. They reconnected after Abigale and her husband, Bryce, moved into the house across the way from Beatrice. When Abbey and Bryce moved in, they had no idea that Beatrice and her family lived there. It was a surprisingly pleasant surprise. “Can I borrow your husband?” Beatrice giggles a little at this request. Abbey genuinely laughs back. She knows that it is a good thing to see Beatrice smile so she replies curtly, “How about I bring over a bottle of our finest and you and I can sit over a couple glasses and watch Bryce take care of anything you need done around the house?” She sees Beatrice remove her gaze and try to refuse the offer so instead of letting her, Abbey gently says, “We will be there tonight after work. If you could make a delicious pie again then we can call it even. I dream of those pies.”

Tuesday, 4:41 PM

Beatrice returns to her home with a completed checklist, a small bag of groceries – a new stack of mail – the fixins for pie baking. A bottle of white wine, Chardonnay – Abbey is bringing one, yes, but one is never enough for three people, especially with the way Beatrice and Abbey can finish a bottle of wine. If her neighbors are to arrive after supper, she’d better get to baking that pie. Since baking hundreds, maybe even thousands, of pies in her life, this wouldn’t be hard for her. She set everything out on the kitchen counter after replacing her purse in its normal spot – perched at the edge of the kitchen counter closest to the door. That was when she noticed something out of place. A small yellow daisy, soaking up water from a coffee mug, on the right side of the sink. Someone put that there and it sure wasn’t her. She stares at the little yellow daisy as she stands over top the ingredients to make pie. She stares at it without realizing how long she is fixated on the flower until she looks over and notices the lard had started to melt. But what else could she do but wonder how that flower got there if not her putting it there herself? No one had been in this house for weeks – not even her family. If not her, it had to be someone. Who?

Tuesday, 6:00 PM

Beatrice looks across the way into her neighbor’s kitchen window. She notices the small family just sit down to eat supper which means she has at least another hour before they show up for fresh pie. She has decided to bake a pear and gruyere. It is her specialty. Her secret ingredient is a sugar-coated roasted garlic clove. She chops it up and bakes it into the cheese. She hadn’t eaten anything for supper as she supposed the pie will be enough to maintain her desire for food for the rest of the evening. After all – she doesn’t want to waste the secret bottle of expensive vodka hiding under the kitchen sink by soaking it all up with something as menial as food. She sat, glass in hand – a vodka poured gently over ice-cubes with a wedge of lime floating on top – and watches her neighbors do the dishes. She still can’t believe that a bank teller and an unemployed journalist are able to afford the same home in which Beatrice lives.

They lived in a complex. Each house the same as the next, lining a perfectly manicured and cleverly cleaned street and park. The complex was something Beatrice chose to live in when she and her husband were just about to get married. She’d chosen it because it was close to all amenities and the view from the far side was of the cityscape behind the house. The garden in the center of the complex was so beautiful she figured she would have something to paint for years to come. It also dawned on her that all the people living there were beautiful, new home-owners, that were all young and motivated to make something of themselves. A similar mindset and way-of-life as Beatrice was in. Her husband concurred.

Now, as she sits here on this mildly rainy evening, sniffing the gorgeous smells of baking gruyere, she stares at her neighbors doing after-supper dishes together in their freshly renovated kitchen. Instead of being jealous of anything they have that she doesn’t, she feels pleased and wonders at her neighbor’s happy lives. She then sits up as she notices them turn off the lights to come across the way – she takes the pie out of the oven and places the bottle of chardonnay in the middle of the table surrounded by 3 polished glasses. Chardonnay, as Bryce will notice, will complement the oaky taste and texture of the gruyere.

“Welcome!” Beatrice says excitedly as the two familiar friends walk through the door hand in hand – in each free hand they hold a bottle of wine and a small gift bag, respectfully.

Chapter Two coming soon... JR McWilliam

#beatricemiller #beatricemillerstory #tumblrnovel #tumblr writers #fiction #fiction story #thriller #psychological thriller #mystery

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