Broken Silence (22 page)

“Come on, Oakley! You must remember those hot twins! They were at the Christmas beach party!”

Oakley sighed. “No, Jasper. You made them up.”

“I did not make them up. They were hot and
all
over me.”

“Yeah, that definitely sounds like a lie,” I said.

“Dude, why would I make that up?”

“To prove how big your balls are?”

He huffed. “I don’t need to prove anything. You all know.”

Oakley put down her drink. “Okay, we need to change the subject before I’m sick.”

“I’m so glad Leona dragged Dad and Miles outside,” Mia added.

“You don’t need to make up stuff like that, Jasper. We all like you, ya know,” Lizzie said.

Jasper stared at her blankly. “Well thanks for that, peroxide, but it happened. Believe me, that’s not something you forget. But anyway, I don’t care what you lot think.”

The doorbell rang, thankfully! I think Lizzie was seconds away from reacting to the peroxide comment.

It fell on me to open the door since Mia laid back and kicked her feet up on the coffee table. “Don’t move, yeah. I’ll get it,” I said sarcastically. I pulled the front door open, and my face fell as I saw two police officers.

One of them frowned. “Cole Benson?”

“Yeah.”

“Can we come in?” I stepped aside, and they walked in. The room fell silent.

My dad, who had come back inside asked, “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry to do this,” the taller officer said, turning to me. “Mr Benson, I’m arresting you
–”

That was all I heard because Oakley shouted, “No!” She stared at me in horror. Her face was as white as a ghost. Shit, was she going to be okay? I turned around as one of them held out handcuffs.

“Is that really necessary?” Dad shouted.

Oakley wasn’t moving. The only thing that made her still look alive was the tears rolling down her face. I looked at Jasper for help.

“You can’t do this.” Mum sobbed.
They can do this.
I’d had sex with Oakley when she was fifteen. They were
supposed
to do this.

“It’s okay, it’s going to be fine,” I said as I was pulled towards the door.

She shook her head fiercely. “No! No, please. You can’t do this. Please. Please?”

Jasper caught her as she fell towards me. I wanted nothing more than to grab her and wrap my arms around her, but I couldn’t do a fucking thing. “Oakley, it’ll be fine,” I repeated.

She shook her head. “No. Please don’t do this,” she pleaded with the police officers.

It broke my heart. I hated seeing her like that. What the hell could I do to make it better though? First, I needed a damn good lawyer. In my head, I was mentally planning the worst case scenario and what I should or shouldn’t say.

As we approached the car, I noticed the neighbours’ curtains being pulled back, and some even came outside. “Leave him the hell alone,” Mr Gregory from across the road shouted. I flashed him a grateful smile. “They’ve been through enough. How dare you!” he roared.

Shit. The whole street were getting involved. By the time the officer had opened the door at least ten more people had come out of their houses to protest. As the car door was slammed shut, I looked back at Oakley. Sarah grabbed her as her legs gave way. My heart felt like it had just been ripped out of my chest. ‘I love you,’ I mouthed as the car pulled away.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Oakley

I laid in bed staring at the ceiling in a zombie-like state. Arrested. Arrested because of me. That night was the best night of my life: it was the night when I had felt so loved, and safe, and normal. How could that possibly be wrong?

Wiping my face again, I noticed there was nothing there any more. Had all my tears dried up? I felt as if I had nothing left inside me to come out. It had been almost thirty-five minutes since Cole was arrested, and I just wanted to be with him.

‘It wouldn’t look good if you went to the station’ were the officer’s words.
Wouldn’t look good? Surely it would show that I love him? The only reason I was still in the house was because I was too scared of making it worse for him.

There had to be something I could do? Deny it and say I had lied in court? But then why would I lie about sleeping with him in the first place? I could say we didn’t go that far. That Cole stopped it just before we’d actually had sex. I pressed my face into the pillow and whimpered. What
could
I do?

“Oakley,” Jasper said softly, sitting on the edge of the futon. I hadn’t even heard him come in. “Oakley?”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I pretended he wasn’t there. I felt bad for ignoring him. He was only trying to help, but I just couldn’t talk to anyone. The only person I wanted to talk to was Cole.

Jasper sighed and got up, making me roll a little as the mattress sprung up. “I’ll be downstairs. David and Jenna have gone to the station. We’ll get him a good lawyer and figure this out.”

As the bedroom door closed, I sat up and gasped. Linda. Of course! She’d helped me, she could help Cole too, surely? I called her straight away.

“Oakley?”
she said, picking up on the second ring.

“Linda, I need your help. They’ve arrested Cole.”

“They’ve what?” She sighed as it obviously sank in why. “Oh. Okay,” she said, changing to her business-like tone. “I assume they’ve taken him to the station already?”

“Yes, half an hour ago,” I whispered. A strangled sob escaped my throat and I clamped my mouth shut. What the hell would I do if he was actually charged? His whole life would be ruined because of me.

“Alright, they might offer him one of their lawyers, but I’ll call now and tell them I’m on my way. Don’t worry. I’ll do everything I can.”

Hearing her say that gave me hope. She was the only person I would trust with this. No other lawyer would be good enough. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
There must have been something. I couldn’t just sit around and wait.
“What if I said that I made it up?”

“Oakley, no. You’ll undermine everything you said in court.”

“Please, Linda. I
need
to do something. Please?” My heart dropped. I felt so useless.

“Well…” she trailed off, sounding unsure if she should tell me. Or whether what she was going to suggest would be right.

“Please, I just want to do something. I’ll do
anything
,” I promised. And I would. There wasn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do to get him out of that station.

“I’ve not looked at the TV, but I assume it’s news.”

“Yes,” I confirmed. Two people from the press and most of the neighbours had witnessed the arrest. They would be having a field day writing their stories for the papers, reporting half-truths with their own messed up fantasy twists.

“I thought so. Well, since it’s already news it might be a good idea to get the public behind Cole. This isn’t something I would usually suggest, but then this isn’t your usual situation.” She let out a shallow breath. “Oakley, I think you should go to the local press with the truth, before they put their spin on what they assume to be the truth.”

I froze, automatically shrinking from the idea of speaking to journalists, then shook myself, remembering what was at stake here. “Okay. I can do that.” There was still a large gathering of people out in the street, there would most likely be one or two members of the press still out there.

I heard Linda’s car door slam and the engine roar to life. “One second, I’m just putting you on hands-free,” she explained. I waited, listening to her press a button. “Alright. I’m now on my way to the station. Before you go out there we need to run through a few things you should and shouldn’t say.”

For the ten-minute drive to the station, with one two-minute break as Linda called the police to say she was on her way, we spoke about what I should say. Linda promised she would call the second she had any news, and I was happy that she had given me something to do that might actually prove helpful.

I was scared though. Actually, I was terrified. What if I said something wrong? What if people thought Cole deserved to be arrested for it? I just prayed that they would see our point of view. Yes, I was underage but barely and there wasn’t a huge age gap between us. It was nothing like what Frank did to me and to think other people would be making it out to be the same made me feel sick.

Five minutes later and I had mentally prepared myself, getting everything I needed to say straight in my head. This was all happening so quickly. I hated not having control over the situation. Taking a deep breath, I opened the front door. Jasper stood beside me on high alert with his chest puffed out. The rest of my family were just inside, behind me all the way.

My name was shouted over and over. The sea of noise was deafening. I held my hand up and surprisingly they all shut up. I guessed they really wanted to hear something from me.

Deciding to get straight to the point and not hang around wasting time, I said, “I really need your help.” Questions were yelled at me all at once, the second I finished my sentence. “Stop! I’ll answer some questions but one at a time.”

“Oakley, what’s happening with Cole?”

Jasper stepped closer and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “I’m okay,” I whispered to him, before addressing the reporter who had asked the question.

“Cole has been arrested because we slept together when I was fifteen.” Another round of questions started, and I wanted to scream. Could they not just let me finish? This was so important. I wanted the whole country behind Cole, but they were making it so difficult.

“Please,” I shouted, sighing in exasperation. “Cole doesn’t deserve this. We were both teenagers, both in school and both made the choice to be together. What happened between us was completely different to what my father and Frank did. Cole is
nothing
like them. This shouldn’t be happening.”

Words of support and disgust at the situation buzzed around the crowd, in which neighbours outnumbered press. Talks of a campaign and protests made my head spin. They really were willing to help. Most of the explicit words were spat by the neighbours, the people that had known me and Cole since we were born.

I opened my mouth again, and the crowd paused. “Please, I need your help.” Launching into the details I could say, I prayed they would follow through and help.

“Oakley, are you sure you know what you’re doing? Drawing this much attention to Cole?” Jasper trailed off, frowning as he debated internally with himself. He locked the front door behind us.

I was overwhelmed by the support everyone was showing and just needed to keep going. “I can’t sit around and do nothing. It’s already all over the news, and I want people on Cole’s side. And if Linda thinks it’s a good idea…”

I pushed past Jasper and headed back up to Lizzie’s room to get my phone and try calling Linda for some news. Lizzie was in her room for the first time in weeks. She looked up, startled. “Oh, sorry.”

“Lizzie, this is your room. Don’t be sorry. I was just getting my phone.”

“You don’t have to go, you know?”

“You don’t have to stay over at your boyfriend’s every night, either.”

She shook her head and shrugged. “He’s not my boyfriend.” But she wanted him to be, that much was clear.

“Maybe not yet.” I grabbed my phone and headed to the door before I realised we’d just had a normal conversation. She really wasn’t that bad. “Lizzie, tell him how you feel. You never know you could just get everything you want.” I did, and I hoped with everything that I hadn’t lost it again.

“Oakley,” she called, and I turned around, poking my head around the door. “You’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do, right?”

“Yes. Thanks.” I closed her door, giving her some privacy. “Jasper,” I shouted, running down the stairs. He jumped up and spun around, looking up at me confused. What had he been doing? I didn’t even want to know. “Can you take me to the station, please?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

I nodded. “Yes.” Now I’d told the world and asked them go get behind Cole, I needed to do the same thing.

He frowned as he considered what would be the best thing to do. Finally, he gave in with a grunt of exasperation. Jasper found it hard to say no to me, and I tried not to use it to my advantage too much, but this was different. “We leave if we need to, though. If it’s best for Cole, we leave, okay?”

Of course that was okay. “Yes, I promise. Let’s go. Mum can you
—”

“We’ll keep calling and researching. You go.” She waved her hands, dismissing us and went back to the computer. She was looking into laws and calling our local MP with Miles and Mia.

We arrived at the station and headed straight to the front desk. A short plump woman in a police uniform sat behind the window drinking from a take-away cup.

“Hello?” I snapped to get her attention.

She looked up at me and sighed.
Oh, sorry, was I disturbing your break?
Putting down the cup, she scooted her chair to the opening. “How can I help?”

“I need to know what’s happening with Cole Benson. Please?”

“He’s still being questioned. That’s all I can tell you, Miss Farrell.” She knew who I was, then; not that it was a surprise.

I sighed. “Please?”

Jasper pulled my arm. “Go and sit down, Oakley. I’ll try talking to someone who knows what’s going on.” She made a face at him but didn’t comment, just sat back down and looked at her computer screen.

“David!” I pushed past Jasper and ran to Cole’s dad, who had just appeared from around the corner. “Where is he? Is he okay? What’s going on?” I questioned, speaking too fast.

He held his hands up. “Calm down, it’s okay. He’s still being questioned. Linda’s with him. I don’t know anything else, but Linda assured me she would do everything she could. We didn’t get time to speak properly, but I think she’ll be able to get him off.”

David looked stressed and worried. He was usually a closed book, hiding his emotions well, but right now the book was lying wide open.

“Really?”
Oh, God, please!
My heart started pounding in my chest.

“We just have to wait. Come and sit.” I let him lead me to the black fake-leather chairs, and Jasper followed. 

Just have to wait
. How long for though? What did they have to ask? Yes, we’d slept together when I was underage but we
both
wanted to, we were
both
kids. It wasn’t the same. They were turning it into something sick and twisted and that wasn’t what it was.

We all sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. The mahogany clad clock on the wall ticked loudly with every second. Watching time pass was never a good idea. Time was different in here it seemed. Every second lasted a minute.

“What the…?” David trailed off, looking out of the window.

Turning in my seat, I gasped as my eyes fell on what he was looking at.
Oh, wow.
Outside were most of our neighbours, some of the press I recognised, and others I didn’t. It was hard to hear what they were shouting, but a few people had ‘Free Cole’
banners. They really listened. My heart leaped into my throat, and I ran for the door.

There was a round of applause when I stepped outside, and the all-too-familiar flashing of cameras. I didn’t mind the cameras this time. They were there because I’d asked them to be, as well as just wanting a story.

“Thank you all so much,” I said. My eyes filled with tears. It was so overwhelming to see all these people here for Cole.

“Oakley, what’s happening now?” someone from the crowd shouted.

I couldn’t see who it was, so I replied in their general direction, “Cole’s being questioned, so at the minute we’re just waiting.”

Jasper pulled my arm. “We appreciate you all coming, but we need to get back inside. Thank you,” he said and dragged me back into the building. “Just stay in here, okay?  You’ve done your bit now, but you can’t get too involved.”

“Yeah. Okay,” I agreed, nodding. He was right. If I stayed around out there, I could mess something up, say too much. Jenna paced the reception area. “What’s going on now?”

She shrugged and rubbed her hands over her face. In the short few hours that Cole had been here, Jenna had developed dark circles under her eyes. Did she hate me for what had happened? I gazed at her, anxiously.