"See I don't care who Dean is or whatever kind of person he is but I am not giving in to anything both of you had and signed with my name!" Jessica snapped her voice sharp and unrelenting.
"Jessica calm down," her dad pleaded his voice trembling. "I can't figure out how to make it clear to you. I believed I could compensate for everything but I failed"
"Shut your mouth you foolish old man!" Jessica interrupted him her frustration reaching a peak. "You have been spending money without me knowing. You used me as collateral to take a loan from a very bloody person and you know about it. You never told me about it and now I have the price to pay!"
A nurse showed up at the door, glanced at them, and then vanished. Her father was attempting to rise from the bed, grimacing, his hand reaching for the tube in his arm.
"Allow me to clarify," he said.
"Clarify what. A man entered this room before dawn and informed me that I am the price. Those were his precise words. And you were already aware of that."
He was unable to gaze at her. Each time she pressed he glanced at the bedsheet, the window, the machines. Anywhere but her face.
"How long have you known about this arrangement?"
The room was silent.
"Answer me."
"Jessica"
"How long!"
He closed his eyes. When he opened them the last of whatever he had been holding collapsed.
"Eight months," he said quietly.
Everything stopped.
"Eight months," she repeated.
"I tried to find another way. I thought if I could get the money together before it came to this then you would never have to know. You would never have to be involved."
"You have known for eight months that a man had my name on a piece of paper and you looked me in the face every single day and said nothing."
"I was trying to protect you."
"You were trying to protect yourself!"
She grabbed the plastic cup from the table beside his bed and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor.
"There is more," he said.
She went still.
"What do you mean there is more?"
He looked at his hands. "The arrangement with Dean. It was not just about the debt."
"Then what was it about?"
He didn't respond quickly enough so she snatched the TV remote from the side table and hurled it at the foot of the bed. It cracked against the frame and her dad flinched hard.
"What was it about!"
"Marriage." The word came out of him like it had been buried. "Dean agreed to cancel the entire debt. Every cent. In exchange for your hand in marriage. I signed the agreement six months ago."
The room went quiet.
The door opened. Her mom stepped in.
"Jessica what on earth" She stopped when she saw the broken remote on the floor. Looked at Raymond. Looked back at Jessica. "What is going on?"
Jessica couldn't speak. Her father had not been cornered. He had not made a desperate decision the night the collectors came. He had sat across from Dean Lance six months ago and signed her name on a marriage contract and then come home and cooked and called her and asked about her students like everything was fine.
Six months.
"Raymond." Her mom's voice dropped low. "What did you do?"
Her dad opened his mouth.
"Don't," Jessica said. Flat. Hollow. "Don't say anything else."
She picked up her bag.
"Jessica wait" can you just listen to me her mom started toward her.
"I need to leave."
She hurried down the corridor, through the doors, and into the morning, continuing to walk because stopping meant she would completely break down and she wasn't ready for that yet.
Dean Lance had her name on a marriage contract.
Her father had put it there.
And she had twenty-four hours to decide what to do about it.
She exited the room and didn't glance back. Neither at her mother calling her name, nor at her father lying there, nor at any of it.
She just kept moving down the corridor and through the hospital doors and outside.
That was when she saw the car.
Black. Parked right outside. Engine running. She did not recognise it but her legs slowed down on their own before her brain caught up.
The window rolled down.
Dean.
"You think it's by shouting at the poor old crook lying on the bed who isn't even sure of survival," he said. "Wake up and face reality. You are the collateral."
Jessica stopped walking.
"Wait a minute." She stared at him. "How do you mean you heard me shouting at my dad inside the room?"
Dean looked at her. Nothing on his face moved.
"Deal with it," he said. "That is why I am Dean Lance."
He drove off.
Jessica stood there on the pavement and did not move. People were walking past her. The morning was carrying on as if nothing had happened. Like everything had not just collapsed around her in two days. Her father had signed her name on a marriage contract six months ago and said nothing. And the man whose name was on that contract had been standing outside that room the whole time. Listening. Waiting. Letting her fall apart and then getting back in his car like it was nothing.
He had not shouted or even threatened her because there was obviously no need to do that when he could get anything he wanted.
He had just waited.
Deal with it. That is why I am Dean Lance.
She remained on that pavement, her hands trembling, and for the first time, grasped precisely what type of man she was confronting.
Twenty-four hours
