Fifteen Years Ago…

Veronica’s

‘Finally, we will be free.’ I thought to myself.

We were less than five miles from the country line when I saw the flashing red-and-blue lights in the rearview mirror. I look at the man driving beside me.

“Damn!” Kenzo cursed. Something he rarely did in my presence.

I leaned across the console of my mustang to check the speedometer, and I looked at Kenzo—my husband for exactly four hours and thirty-eight minutes.

We have already planned this for a month now. This morning, a week before my eighteenth birthday, we sneak out early, drive to the courthouse and get married in a simple ceremony. Cause once we were married, nothing and no one could separate us apart. Net even my archaic father and his ideas about social class. Not my father’s drunken negligence.

“You are not speeding,” I said in a calm voice. “Why are they pulling you over?”

Kenzo’s mouth had tightened, pressing his lips into a flat line. And he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and his knuckles turned white. Kenzo was driving even though it was my car—the one my father had brought for my seventeenth birthday. As if the cost of the car could be made up because the present was three weeks late since my father never remembered the actual date of my birthday.

Kenzo, of course, didn’t have a car. His father had a rusted-out Volkswagen up on cinder blocks in front of the aging auto shop where they lived. A month ago, Kenzo had scraped together enough money to buy four used tires from Ben’s Auto, where he worked after school. He would spend weeks trying to get the Volkswagen run, and he only gave up when he couldn’t afford a new alternator. He’d cursed them, too. And Kenzo wanted to drive his own car when we went to the courthouse.

That stubborn pride of his was one of the things I loved the most. And also the fact that in our town almost thirty thousand people live. Kenzo was the only person who saw me as a woman, not just Gabriel Kennedy’s daughter, who people imagined me to be the perfect daughter. If I can choose, I want a simple life rather than a life I had right now, which was hermetically sealed with wealth and perfection.

Fear clutched my stomach. “Why are they pulling us over?” I ask again. I hoped Kenzo would come up with a reasonable answer than I am. Cause I already had a bad feeling about this.

Kenzo slowed down the car from a very respectable fifty-four in a sixty zone down to fifty, and then forty-five. “Maybe you have a tail light damage?”

“No. I don’t.” with every twitch of the speedometer needle, my pulse intensified up a notch. “Don’t pull over,” I ordered Kenzo, impulsively.

The car had slowed to just over thirty. “But I have to pull over.” Kenzo sent me a piercing look. “Veronica, what is going on?”

And I am struggling to put everything into words and the nuclear fear that was bothering me. “If you pull over, something awful will happen,” I said in a low voice.

“What?” he pressed at me. “What do you mean?”

“I… I don’t know. But I feel that something bad will happen. And I just know it. This has been too easy. I am sure my father will do something horrible, like have you arrested or something?”

“But I haven’t done anything wrong,” Kenzo argued logically. “Sherif Alfonso would not arrest me.”

“Please, listen to me. You know that my father practically owns this town. He will have his followers do whatever the hell he wants them to do.”

“That is not—”

“Legal? No, it is not. It’s reality.” And I had learned that do not underestimate my father’s lot of hell determination. “Hon, please, if you will pull us over. The sheriff will find an excuse to search the car. And maybe he would say that this is a stolen car. Or something like that. They will plant illegal drugs, and all the evidence will pinpoint all to you.”

“This is what you have been worrying about. And why did you encourage me to get the Volkswagen work?” Kenzo said in a gentle voice.

I wished I could deny it, but panic claws through me. What if I am right? What if they find a way to keep us apart? And I had already come this close to my happiness, and suddenly, they would come and snatched it away.

What am I going to do?

“Hon, I can’t just keep driving,” he pointed out, obviously trying to be the voice of reason. “Eventually, I’ll have to stop sometimes.”

“But, you don’t have to stop in Kinnikin County.” My voice was thick with resistance. I don’t want to go back home and be caged again. I can do this, we can do this. “We’ve got a full tank of gas. You can drive into Larmore and find a police station and pull over there.”

And after I said those words, the glare of flashing light behind us became brighter and brighter. I looked over my shoulder just to see a second squad car pulling onto the road behind the first police car.

L'armoire was at least twenty minute drive away. If Kenzo didn’t pull over before then, they wouldn’t assume he was running away from the police. I saw a car chase on Tv. I had seen drivers pulled from cars and beaten.

And I don’t want that to happen to my husband.

“I am pulling over now,” he whispers. “Sheriff Alfonso is a reasonable man. I’ve known him my whole life. I will talk to him. Besides, we have to face people sometimes. It might as well be now.” And he gave me a reassuring smile.

“And we can’t go anywhere.” It was the only point of argument between us. “You haven’t even graduated high school and we only have two hundred dollars in our pocket. Besides, you know I can’t leave my father.” And he gave me a hard look. “I can take care of you,”

“I know that,” I murmured. I guess there’s no need to argue right now. And besides, we are married now. Nothing would ever come between us.

“It will be okay. We will be together soon.”

Kenzo always said the exact same thing every time we were together, just as we were saying goodbye.

“And we will travel somewhere far away. To the place where we don’t even speak the language,” I said, as I always did. It was all part of the elaborate fantasy we always dream about. “We will drink coffee in a little café by the park and order foods we can’t pronounce.” While saying that, my heart was dying inside.

“And we will stay in the best hotel,” Kenzo added.

“We will drink expensive champagne.”

“And I will shower you with love, every day for the rest of our lives.” I said sadly. All the while as he flipped on the turn signal and pulled onto the shoulder.

Before Kenzo could even open the door, I jumped out of the car. “Sheriff,” I began, but he cut me off before I could even speak or protest.

“Stay out of this, Veronica.”

“No.”

Sheriff Alfonso gives me a stern look. His mouth was pressed into a disapproving line. “This has nothing to do with you. So stay away from this Veronica”

“What is this all about, sir?” Kenzo asks politely, stepping out of the car.

“You’re coming with me, Kenzo Gabriel.”

“Why?” I demand. “Kenzo didn’t do anything to violate the law.”

The sheriff didn’t pay me attention. Instead, he stared at Kenzo and gave him a silent warning using his eyes. “That car you are driving is being reported as a stolen car.”

This wasn’t shocking news, right? I already expected this, but fuck!

“This is my car,” I insist. “I was inside my car. How come it was reported as a stolen cra?”

“It is your father’s name on the title Veronica. Don’t make this harder for us than it has to be.”

“You can’t do this. I won’t let you.” I reached out a hand toward Sheriff Alfonso, signaling to stop him, not realizing that another deputy had snuck up behind me.

I didn’t know that he would misinterpret my actions. When I reached out for Sheriff Alfonso, the Deputy snagged me around on my waist, pinning my arms to the side and lifted off the ground.

“Hey!!!” I yelp for protest.

“What are you doing?” Kenzo Launched himself towards our direction.

But Sheriff Alfonso was too fast before I knew it. Kenzo was lying flat on the ground. Sheriff Alfonso uses his knee to clip Kenzo, and he uses his elbow to pin him on his shoulder. My anguish made me more mad. I tried to free myself from my capturer; I was kicking, screaming. But to no avail. I couldn’t break free. I couldn’t help Kenzo.

I just watched him helplessly, as my husband, for less than five hours, was yanked from the ground, and as they shoved him into the back of Sheriff Alfonso’s car and hauled off to jail. I pleaded with Sheriff Alfonso, to the deputy, to anyone who would listen to my plea.

But no use. They insist Kenzo kidnapped me.

No, he did not kidnap me. No, my car wasn’t stolen. And no, Kenzo wasn’t carrying a gun, as they proclaimed that they found a gun in his pocket. And I didn’t know how Kenzo could have gotten in his hands my mother’s diamond necklace, which they also claimed that they found in Kenzo’s pocket.

And the worst part is they didn’t allow me to see him. And they didn’t let me call a lawyer for him. I was so devastated that all I could do was cry in the corner, waiting for a miracle to happen.

Kenzo is my everything’s the only person in this world could make me happy. And I could trade my life just to set him free. He did nothing aside from loving me.

I waited for hours in front of the information desk. Then, just before midnight, my father walked in. He was calm, peaceful, and completely in control.

“You disappointed me. You know that, right?” he said.

“But we did nothing!”

“He stole MY car and your mother’s diamond necklace. I can’t neglect the evidence that the Sheriff found.”

“No!” I stood up. I was fuming mad. “That is my car! And he didn’t steal the necklace. They just falsely accuse him.”

“You know your words are useless, and I know you’re smart enough to know that. Your words against the law officer. What do you think would happen to your beloved Kenzo?”

“You can't,” I shook my head in disbelief.

“You wanna try, my dear daughter?”

I didn’t answer him back cause I know he can. He is the Law.

“I can set him free. Only in one condition. Only if you sign these papers.” And he gave me a brown envelope with shaking hands I reached for it and when I opened it. My knees turn into a soft jelly.

Annulment paper.

Of course, he knows that I married Kenzo. And he did these things just to break us apart. I know my father’s middle name is cruelty and I just experienced it many times, but this time it’s beyond what I imagined. He will send an innocent man to jail?

“Sign it. And the boy will be free. If you won’t, he will have spent, let us say, five years or ten years in prison. You choose, Veronica.”

“Do I have a choice?” and tears escaped in my eyes.

“What do you think?” He smiles wickedly while giving a sign pen.

“I will hate you forever, father.” With shaking hands, I can hear my heart breaking into a million pieces while signing the paper.

It was hell and I don’t know if I could take it. I just lost my husband, the only man who truly loves me.