58 On The Edge
“By your side, or in your absence; in reality or dreams; in the privacy of friendly corner or against the formidable murmur of the sea; at moonlight or black night and dotted of interrogators stars; in the beautiful and tender moment dawn; in the meridian day stupor or twilight gold thoughtful … Everywhere and all the hours my subdued heart cries out the words which I fear I may never again be able to verbally pronounce.”
Miles Edgeworth
Von Karma Estate, Germany
December 22, 2024, 8:15 AM
Slowly and reluctantly, Miles uncovered his face. He blinked, closed his eyes, and blinked again. Streaks of sunlight penetrate the window and blinded him. He sat up, dragged his feet off the bed, and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. He watched his legs dangle above the off-white plush carpet, then looked over his shoulder at the sleeping form next to him on the bed, an amused smile tugging at his lips as he listened to the soft snores emitting from the other side of the mattress.
Reaching over, he ran his fingers over the familiar silky hair, then, feeling uncharacteristically emotive, buried his head into the comforting warmth.
“Oh, Pess,” he whispered. “Thank heavens I have you to wake up to and to and warm this cold, lonely bed of mine.”
While his chambers had much of the luxe opulence as the ones in the rest of the house, there were no photos within it, or personal items to make him feel as if he belonged there. Unlike in the master bedroom, where Franziska was presumably still slumbering.
He hadn’t slept there in over two months. Hadn’t been allowed to, no matter how hard he tried.
Once again, his fiancée had forcibly ejected him from their chambers.
He shouldn’t complain. At least here at the manor, he had one of many guest rooms to choose from and hadn’t been condemned to the sofa, which had been his proverbial doghouse for a week after the first party at Ku’s, back at the hotel. It was within the walls of that suite where the couple had experienced the inevitable aftermath of the second party.
When things had irrevocably gone to hell in a handbasket.
Miles could still remember the falling out that had resulted in this purgatory as clearly as if it’d been yesterday…
Miles Edgeworth and Franziska Von Karma
Venabu Fjellhotell og Hytter Hotel, Presidential Suite,
Borginia
October 13, 2024, 11:15 PM
They’d left the Interpol offices shortly after the hammer had fallen. In the aftermath of Lana’s infuriated, half-provoked, half-cocaine-fueled revelation, the room had gone to a standstill. Nobody had spoken a word after Franziska had tearily realized the enormity of the deceptions around her.
A mouse’s sneeze could have easily been heard in that room, so rigid was the resounding stillness.
Seconds felt like hours, minutes felt like eons. At last, Lang had awkwardly muttered something about calling it a night and then made haste before anyone else could either balk or agree. The others had followed hot on his heels, nearly leaving smoke trails in their alacrity to follow immediate suit, leaving only Miles and Franziska behind, alone.
He tried to speak, tried to force his lips to cooperate, but when he parted them, no sound came out. She looked at him and shook her head, her silvery hair falling against her flushed cheeks as she lowered her face, obstructing it from his vision. Then she mutely walked out the door. He had no choice but to do the same.
The trip back to the hotel, and then to their room, was filled with a torturous, deafening silence that he’d found more agonizing than if she’d just lashed out at him, either with her whips, or even her words. But no, not a peep from Franziska. She had even kept her head turned away from him so he couldn’t even see the steely set jaw of her profile anymore.
They entered their room, and Miles trailed behind her into the bedroom, absently tossing his suit jacket onto the armchair in the corner of the room as Franziska rummaged in the dresser for her nighttime clothing. He stood there, helplessly, having no choice but to look at her, silently pleading with her to at least afford him a glance so he’d at least know he didn’t repulse her to the point where she couldn’t even look at him, never mind speak to him.
When at last his fiancée turned, Miles wished he had kept his trance anywhere else – the television, the window view … the artwork on the walls. Deliberation was over. She had judged him already and in her eyes, he saw only cool abhorrence. He’d seen that same look when she’d first told him of her premier courtroom defeat to Phoenix, like if someone offered her a loaded gun and a “get out of jail free card” she’d have forgotten that she was a woman of the law and given the homicide of her courtroom rival some serious contemplation.
Only this time, it was much worse. This time it was the same expression under the exact scenario … but he knew in this circumstance, if handed the ammo, she’d have no problem pulling the trigger.
Franziska didn’t even know how infuriated she still was until they were alone at that moment. Her anger had been simmering down to what she’d been hoping would now be a lowered boil… she was well aware that being this steamed was not the most ideal situation for a woman who was “in the family way”.
But then she saw his suit jacket laying carelessly on the plush, wingback chaise lounge, and the bark of her voice even surprised her.
“I am not your maid, Miles Edgeworth! Stop being a slob and get your accursed clothing off the furniture this instant, you lying, inconsiderate, slovenly fool!”
Miles flinched at the sudden outburst and eyed her with startled, hurt grey eyes. She knew she should reign it in, and apologize before she made it worse, but she just didn’t have it in her to stop. Her words crashed out unchecked, unaltered.
“It is the epitome of foolish laziness! Lazy, disgusting, and vile. Get your damn jacket off the armchair and hang it up in the wardrobe like a civilized human being before I toss it – along with your treacherous Arsch, off the bloody balcony!”
She grabbed his jacket and hurled it at him. He caught it, and then, in a tiny fit of additional temper, she picked up a pillow from the bed and hurled that at him, too.
“Franziska, please,” Miles implored, although he wisely grabbed the pillow and held it up as a shield between them. “Let me explain.”
“Explain what? How the father of my child is nothing but a wretched, two-faced Judas? One who had repeated, ample opportunity to confess the truth to me about his tawdry history with that… Hure, yet did no such thing, and chose to look me in the eye and flat-out lie to me instead?”
As he dropped his gaze guiltily, her voice rose shrilly.
“Get the hell out of my sight, Miles Gregory Edgeworth! Off with you! Begone! I do not even want to look at your duplicitous face for another minute!”
“It was a long time ago, meine Dame!” He insisted, slowly backing out of the room as she began shoving him back out the door, pushing forcibly at his pillow, which was clutched against him as a barrier between them. “I didn’t want to upset you in your delicate condition! In your state, I never could have lived with myself if, had you known about my history with Lana, you then got unnecessarily upset and stressed out … I was trying to protect you!”
Her second voice was urging her to stop, but this was an explosion in progress, no reverse gear, no dampeners. Franziska’s every word was clipped, punching into the air. She jabbed the air with a pointed finger at each utterance, her eyes narrowed and set hard.
“Miles Edgeworth, I cannot even stomach the sight of you right now! What the hell are you even still doing here? Are you so foolish that you think I am going to allow you to get in this bed with me tonight? Or ever again? Get out! You may have made your bed with your lies and deceit but I will be damned if I let you lie in it with me!”
The German woman ground out the words through clenched teeth.
“You go out there and fight with Pess to make room for you on that sofa in the sitting room! And I genuinely hope she refuses to budge at all and makes you sleep on the floor like any other dog!”
“Franziska, please! I know you’re angry right now, and I’m so sorry, but maybe after you’ve calmed down a bit we –”
Her eyes flashed with indignation and anger, much like lightning on a pitch-black night. He couldn’t recognize her anymore. The sweet, loving girl he used to know was now gone, and it was all because of him.
“Miles Edgeworth.” There was a blast of Arctic in her cadence as she slowly, calculatingly, spoke her ire. “No matter what you say or do, it will never make up for what happened between us. I will no longer trust you. I will never again be comfortable around you. I will never look at you or think of you without considering the destruction you have train wrecked through my life. Right now as we speak, I despise you so much, I can wholeheartedly tell you that if I were not pregnant with your baby right now, as the sole tie that binds us together, there was enough decisive evidence gained tonight to make me render the verdict and end things with you, utterly and permanently.”
Miles stood, swaying at the venom of the words. The desolation he felt was all-consuming. His mind became an icy wasteland, the wind howled in his soul and wrapped sangfroid tentacles around his heart so tightly it almost stopped beating as he stared helplessly at the woman he’d loved, one way or another, for nearly his entire life.
Franziska Von Karma loathed him. Despised him. Hated him so much that she had just clearly and painfully stated that the only reason she was still staying with him, from this day on, was because of the baby. This was what he’d reduced their status to. The knowledge was staggering, devastating. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
He felt as if a part of him had died inside and his burgeoning hope that he’d be able to rectify matters was now completely vanquished, gone faster than summer rain on the tarmac.
She wasn’t even looking at him anymore. Indeed, her focus was somewhere on the wall behind him as if he had become invisible to her, or she could not bear to see him at all anymore. He’d crossed some invisible line, offended her sensibilities. He’d seen her do this to others before, but he’d thought their bond immune, unbreakable.
Now his blood drained and his heart hammered erratically. He was never troubled of Franziska’s anger when it came as fire, for that burned hot and fast.
But Miles was deathly afraid of her ice. It coated her like protective permafrost. It was pointless to try to reach her now. His well-meant words would bounce off as good as hard rain. He knew as he was no stranger to the same preferred method, that it had saved them both from the torments of their youth, but now the same method would isolate her everything; work, friends… but most of all, him.
The words had flown from her mouth that she never thought she’d even think, let alone say out loud. She knew instantly from the look in his eyes that they’d hit their mark. In that instant, their relationship shattered into glassy shards. Nothing would ever be the same again. She felt emotionally bankrupt. The was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say, nothing left but the void that enveloped her mind in swirling blackness.
Comments