by Frankie Rose
That feels like a slap to the face. A hard one. I want to retaliate, to say something awful, but I can’t because the second I open my mouth I’m hit with the memory of Luke as a kid, broken and tortured, learning how to play guitar with my father. The old Super 8 footage I found in my father’s study was heartbreaking. Luke was…Luke was traumatized, that much was clear to see. He was sitting there with my father, but only in body. He looked like he’d shut down entirely.
Emma’s come out here on the offensive, and I get it. If I had a brother or a sister, I’d defend them to the bitter end, no matter what they did. She’s just trying to protect him. Over her shoulder, I can see him sitting at the booth inside the diner, and he’s not looking out the window at us. He’s staring at the tabletop in front of him, stiff as a board, and I’m willing to bet he’s not blinking right now. Something inside me twists. I want to go to him, to make sure that he’s okay. I want to slide into that booth next to him and rest my head on his shoulder, place my hand on his knee under the table, and just sit there with him. We did a lot of that after I got out of the hospital. Just sitting together. It was calming, not just for me when I was panicking about Chloe’s first court appearance, but for him, too.
Inside Jerry’s Luke angles his chin toward us, as though he’s listening incredibly hard, trying to hear what’s being said. My heart skips a beat. “He never loved me,” I whisper, and the words feel like a burning hot poker stabbing me in the gut. “He can’t have.”
“Of course he did, Avery. My god, he still does!”
I can’t even comprehend why she would say such a thing to me right now. “He didn’t call me. Not once in all that time. And now, when he sees me again for the first time in months? He didn’t even get up to talk to me. That’s not the behavior of a guy who’s in love with someone.”
Emma shakes her head, smiling softly. “No. It’s not. It’s the behavior of a guy who’s so terrified that he’s fucked up the one most amazing thing in his life that he’s physically paralyzed by it.”
TWENTY-FIVE
LUKE
Back in New York, I had to attend court all the time. More often than not, it took a full year for a case to make it to court, so by the time I was called to recount my statement and identify the criminal in question, there was every chance that I would have forgotten the finer details of an incident that had led to me making an arrest. I got good at making seriously intricate notes. You never knew what was going to be important later on, and you never knew if you were going to have to rely on the observations you wrote down when it came down to it. Sometimes, after a particularly nasty case, I’d stay back after the court had cleared and I’d just be still there. I’d sit in the dock or on the benches, and the cleaners would come in and start tidying up, and I would read through my notes, racking my brain, trying to make sure I hadn’t missed something, or that I hadn’t taken something the wrong way.
This morning, sitting in this court, I don’t need any notes, though. I don’t need to scour over every memory I have of this particular incident, because every single second of that awful night is burned into my memory. I couldn’t forget or block it out if I tried.
This courtroom smells just like the Williamsburg courthouse back in New York. It smells like every courthouse: dried, old paper, wood polish and something like pencil shavings. When Chloe first went to trial, the courts were packed every day and people were fighting over their chance to come sit in and watch the proceedings. Too much time has passed since she was convicted, though. People have gotten on with their lives. Gone back to work. Forgotten about the crazy policewoman who murdered a bunch of people seven years ago. Now, there are only a handful of people scattered throughout the galleries, which isn’t going to impress Chloe, I’m sure. I’m pleased for Avery, though. She’ll be nervous enough as it is. It’ll be a relief when she sees that the place isn’t such a zoo this time.
In my pocket, my cellphone buzzes, distracting me from the gray-haired, tall, bird-like man in a suit who is unpacking his brief case and organizing his papers on the other side of the room.
It’s a text message.
Cole: Have they locked the crazy bitch back up again and thrown away the key? Let me know when you’re on your way back to LA, bro.
Me: They haven’t even started the hearing yet, man. Getting a little ahead of yourself there.
Cole: I think Marika suspects we’re gonna boot her after this show. Butler’s talking about signing some sort of contract.
Me: Do NOT sign anything until I get back.
“Everything okay, honey? You look a little stressed out.” Mom places her hand on my knee, bringing me back to the courtroom and the low rumble of tense conversation that’s taking place all around us. I told her she didn’t need to come with me, but hell. She’s my mother. There was no way she wasn’t coming today.
“I’m fine. Just…y’know…didn’t expect to be back here so soon.”
Mom nods, sighing. “I know. And you’re worried about Avery, too, right? I know you. I know you’re panicking for her right now.”
I look away, because I don’t want to answer that question. What would be the point? Mom knows how I feel. Over the years she’s learned to read me like a book. I told Avery when she first came and stayed with me in Break that my mom’s like Yoda, she just always seems to know everything, and that definitely hasn’t changed. So Mom’s well aware of how sick I’m feeling right now, sick to my damn stomach, and she knows that I really don’t want to talk about Avery, even though avoiding the subject is practically impossible given where we are and what we’re doing here today. She doesn’t push me when I fail to answer her, because she also knows how I’ll probably react to that, too.
When Avery finally enters the courtroom, Brandon’s at her side in an ill-fitting suit, looking grim, and there’s absolutely no sign of Amanda St. French. Avery looks pale. Washed out. On edge. In fact, she looks like she’s about to burst into tears, which makes me want to get up and move over to the other side of the gallery so I can sit with her. Let her lean on me. Just like last night, however, my feet are glued to the ground and I feel like I have a ten-ton elephant sitting on my chest, refusing to let me move. God, she’s beautiful. She never normally wears dresses, but she has today. It’s very respectful—knee length, navy blue, with a matching navy blue blazer that makes her look very responsible and grown up. Her hair has been gathered back out of her face, taming those unruly curls of hers that were blowing about all over the place last night while Emma was in the parking lot, shouting at her.
She shouldn’t have done that—Avery sure as shit didn’t deserve it. It was pretty cruel on Em’s part, but she’s seen how miserable I’ve been for the past few months. She knows how bad I feel over how I’ve treated Avery, and I suppose it’s logical that my sister would want to protect me. Shit, though. That wasn’t the way things should have gone down. Not even close.
Avery and Brandon seat themselves on the left hand side of the court, behind the state prosecution team. Annie Wallis, the prosecutor who led the case against Chloe, heads over and hugs Avery. She talks with them for a little while, and I wait for her to scan the people present to find me. I know she’s going to come up here and ask me to do something I don’t want to do any second now, so I’m just holding my breath, waiting for it. After a few more minutes spent catching up with Avery, I’m proved right when Annie’s head snaps up and she starts hunting me out. When she sees sitting at the far back with my mom, I see the recognition in her eyes and I brace myself.
“Morning, Luke. You look well,” Annie tells me when she’s navigated her way through the obstacle course of benches and wooden balustrades. She’s lying. I don’t look well at all; with my ruffled hair and dark circles under my eyes, I look like shit and we both know it. It’s kind of her to pretend, though. “Are you ready and prepped?” she asks, smiling.
“I suppose I’ll have to be,” I reply.
“Glad to hear it. Now, if I could just get you to c
ome and sit down at the front with Avery, that would be great. We need to present a united front. Both of your testimonies were so powerful last time. All you guys need to do is say exactly what you said last time and this thing will be over before we know it.”
I know Avery is going to hate the fact that we have to sit together, but Annie’s right. I need to be up there beside her, otherwise it’s going to seem strange that I’m lurking in the back of the courtroom like I’m hiding. Doesn’t look good.
Mom gives me a tight smile as I leave her where she is and follow Annie down to where Brandon and Avery are sitting. I make to go around to the right, to sit beside Brandon, but Annie takes me by the wrist and pulls me the other way, to sit on the right. Avery looks stricken when I side step down the aisle and seat myself beside her.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you guys. I thought you were bomb proof from the way you were with each other the last time we did this, and I’m really sad to see that isn’t the case anymore,” Annie says softly. “You should know, though…there can’t be any fighting or lover’s tiffs here today. Remember why we’re here. Remember what the purpose of today is.” She pauses. “And consider the consequences if we aren’t on top of our game, too.”
It’s a short and sweet pep talk. She sits herself down then, leaving us, and I can feel the anger rolling off Avery beside me. God, I love her so fucking much. She’s beautiful. Her hair’s gotten so long since I saw her last, and her skin is slightly tanned now. She’s lost some weight, though. Weight she didn’t have to lose. And the circles under her eyes match mine. She clasps hold of her purse, tightly hugging it to her chest as though she’s trying to use it as a shield or something.
Brandon leans forward, grinning at us both, and says, “Well, this is super fucking awkward, huh?”
Avery shoots him a look that could freeze hell over. I want to smile back at him, to laugh at just how ridiculous he is for pointing out the obvious at a time like this, but I can’t. I don’t have it in me. “It’s okay, Brand,” Avery says under her breath. “Annie’s right. We just have to get through this and be civil. After that, we can all go our separate ways and we won’t have to do this anymore.”
She has every right to be angry with me. She has every right to be hurt. But hearing her speak that way, desperate to get away from me, counting down the seconds until she can flee the building, feels like a dagger to the chest. “Avery—”
“Don’t,” she hisses. Closing her eyes, she draws in a deep breath. “Just don’t. It’s better if we don’t talk to each other at all. You didn’t want to talk to me last night. Or for the last four months for that matter. I’m sure you can maintain your silence a little longer.”
Brandon grimaces, eyebrows halfway up his forehead, and slowly sits back. This is awful. I knew after everything that’s happened it was going to be bad, but right now I want the ground to split open and swallow me whole. I’ve been desperate to see her for so long, and now I’m here, sitting right next to her, I have no idea what I should say to try and make this better. A small voice in the back of my head is telling me I shouldn’t even bother trying. She clearly wants nothing to do with me, so why make this worse than it already is. That’s the coward in me talking, though. That fucker is responsible for me severing all ties with her in the first place. He ruined my life. I won’t be listening to him ever again.
She’s worth fighting for. She’s worth pleading for. She’s worth working for. I’ll do anything and everything I can to try and mend what I’ve destroyed. That’s what my grandmother always used to say when she was alive: ‘if something’s broken, you don’t throw it away. You fix it.’
“I’m sorry, Avery,” I whisper. “I know that isn’t enough. I know it’s not going to repair the damage I’ve done.”
She gives me this look out of the corner of her eye, and by rights I should be frozen solid, cast out of stone. Medusa sure as hell would have been proud of that one. “Do you even want to repair it, Luke?”
“All rise.” The court clerk stands, chair scraping on the tiled floor, and then the D.A. makes his way into the courtroom, walking with purpose as he approaches the bench and climbs the steps up there. He’s young for a district attorney. There’s barely any gray in his hair, and from the way he smiles at the attendant who pours him a glass of water, he isn’t completely jaded by life just yet. Everyone stands, and the proceedings begin.
Chloe Mathers has lost weight since the last time I saw her, too. Twenty odd years of policing will help you gain a few pounds, especially if you’re not diligent about your exercise, but now Chloe’s leaned out a little. She’s wearing a plain white t-shirt, along with plain blue prison issue pants, and she looks like she’s been working out. A lot. She must be in her late forties now, but she looks like she’s in the prime of her life.
Avery locks up the second Chloe is brought, handcuffed, into the courtroom. Pride sings through me when she manages to avoid looking at her, though. Not once does my beautiful girl give the psycho on the stand the pleasure of acknowledging her. A huge part of me wants to wrap my arm around Avery’s shoulder and hold her to me, protect her from Chloe in whatever way I can, but I can’t. I don’t have the right to do that anymore. I’ll be sitting on my hands by the end of the day. I had no idea how hard it was going to be to sit next to her and have to stop myself from trying to touch her or have some kind of physical contact with her. I want to kiss her. God, I want that so much.
District Attorney Whitlock speaks to the court, explaining that he’s reviewed Chloe’s case file extensively, and then he goes on to say that he plans on making a judicious decision regarding her case based solely on the facts that are presented to him today, and not on whatever he may have heard or watched on the news before. He introduces Annie to the court, and then he introduces Samuel Wochek, Chloe’s lawyer.
Normally in situations like this, the witnesses are asked to give their testimonies quickly, at the beginning of the day to avoid any unnecessary distress to be caused to them, but the defense requests that the police reports be assessed first. Whitlock grants Wochek this. It’s a cold, calculated move on Chloe’s lawyer’s part. Chloe knows all too well how this shit works, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she made the initial request. The longer they keep me and Avery in the courthouse, going over what happened from every possible angle, quibbling over the finest details, the more upset Avery’s going to be when she finally takes the stand.
Three hours. Three hours, and we sit there in silence as they talk about the ballistics reports from the basement at Avery’s old house. They try and spin it so that the angling of the gunshots was recorded incorrectly, making it impossible for Chloe to have shot either one of us. When that’s disproven by Annie and her team—thank god—the defense moves onto Avery’s drugging. They try to claim that her labs came back containing very low levels of any reported toxin, and then they try to say that Avery was actually drunk when she fell into the pool.
That has Brandon’s hackles up, as well as my own, but Avery just sits there, immobile, staring at the back of Annie’s head, not letting anything faze her. Annie shoots down that claim, too, pointing out that Avery had almost bled out by the time she reached hospital. She received three blood transfusions during the ninety-minute mad dash where the doctors rushed to save her life. It stands to reason that there wouldn’t be much poison in her system after that.
We break for lunch. Everything tastes like cardboard. Avery vanishes into the ladies’ toilet and doesn’t come out until it’s time to go back into session.
Chloe grins at us as we make our way back to our seats, and I’m hit by the strangest of sensations. I worked with Chloe for a while at the Breakwater Sheriff’s department before I retrained and moved over to the NYPD. She was a mentor to me, a friend. I had no idea what madness laid beneath her offers to fetch me a coffee and her bad Hilary Clinton impersonations.
Seeing her here like this, clearly so unhinged and desperate for attention, I find myself que
stioning how I missed it.
I’m called up to give my account of that night by the swimming pool. I get through it quickly the first time, not wanting to linger over the encounter, but predictably Chloe’s attorney makes me go over my testimony three or four times, trying to catch me out. Did I harbor any resentment toward Chloe from when I worked in Breakwater? Did I want to come back to Break and become Sheriff myself? The implications get crazier and crazier. The old, bird-like guy defending Chloe even dredges up some bullshit warning I was given by Chloe for underage drinking when I was fifteen at a friend’s party. By the time I climb down from the stand, my blood is buzzing in my veins and I’m angrier than all hell. More than that, though, I’m worried. Worried for Avery.
They’re going to try and pick her to pieces. If I could get up there and give her testimony for her, I would. And fuck. If Wochek brings her to tears, I’m going to be vaulting over the damn railings and punching his lights out. I won’t be able to stop myself. My skin feels like it’s rippling with electricity when I sit back down next to Avery.
I half expected her to avoid looking at me while I was speaking, the same way she’s been avoiding looking at Chloe, but she didn’t. She watched me intently, her eyes never leaving my face, and now she turns and looks at me, too. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she needs something from me. Something that will make this less terrifying.
“The defense now calls Ms. Avery Patterson, formerly known as Iris Breslin,” the clerk calls out.
Avery stands, and I don’t care anymore; I reach out and take her hand, squeezing it tight. I say the first thing that comes into my head, and I know it’s going to affect her. I know it’s going to hit her hard, but she needs it right now. She needs it to be strong.