Page 34 of Glass Wings

I break all over again.

Beside me, Kennedy mutters a curse under her breath and rubs my back in sharp, steady strokes, but it doesn’t stop the tears from spilling hot and fast down my cheeks.

I look at Easton. His jaw is clenched, eyes locked on mine. For one heartbeat, everything else falls away, and I know he wants to say the same words he mouthed last time.

The deputy yanks him to his feet, the chains rattling louder than anything else in the room. My sob catches in my throat.

As they lead him out, he looks back, just once, dark eyes locking instantly onto my growing belly.

“Why is this judge such a jerk?” Kennedy whispers as we exit the court room. “I mean come on, Rick said there was evidence. Evidence Harley.” Kennedy is very invested in this whole case, and I don’t think she has anything else to do to keep her busy at the moment. So she spends hours researching past cases and learning all the correct terminology. It’s nice of her, but draining for me, because I never get a break.

Sometimes I just want to forget this whole mess and go back to the old Harley, the one who loved working at the newspaper agency and coming home to her fiancé. I know I can never go back to that part of my life, but sometimes facing my new reality is too daunting.

“I don’t know, seems like he has something against Easton. That’s all I can think of.” Kennedy shakes her head with a scowl as we stepped outside, the Florida sun beating down on us.

“Did you take the whole day off or just the morning?” Kennedy asks after turning the AC onto full blast inside her car.

“Just the morning, I have a few articles I need to edit though that are pressing. My boss said I could bring them home and work on them there if I wanted, he understands that coming into work with all the gossip has been hard on me and the baby.”

“Wanna swing by the office and pick it up?”

I nod and she fiddles with her phone before music starts playing through the speakers. We arrive at the office quickly, and I run inside, thank my boss for letting me work from home, then slide back into the passenger seat.

“Got it all?” Kennedy asks.

“Yep,” I nod. “Let’s go.”

The ride home is unusually quiet. Kennedy, queen of filling the silence, doesn’t even hum along to the music. I study her profile in the fading light, fingers picking at the corners of the paperwork in my lap.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask.

Kennedy lets out a long sigh. “Just thinking about Ethan. I keep replaying everything in my head, trying to figure out how I missed the signs. I guess I was so dazzled by the money he loved to throw around, the good looks, the way he could make a room spin around him. Oh, and his cologne.” She gives a short, humorless laugh. “God, I really loved his cologne.”

I rest a hand on my belly and glance out the window. “It doesn’t make you stupid to fall for someone. Do you think I’m stupid?”

Her head whips toward me, eyes flashing. “Stupid for sticking by your fiancé’s side when he did nothing wrong? No, Harley, I don’t. Did I think you were stupid for meeting up with him at a bar after only writing letters back and forth for a year? Absolutely. I thought you’d lost your damn mind. Did I think you were stupid for moving in with him right away? Totally. But …” She shakes her head, her voice softening. “Even someone who’s blind would be able to see how much that man loves you. You didn’t gamble on a fantasy, Harls. You bet on love, and it paid off. You’d be stupid not to fight for that.”

The knot in my chest eases, just a little. I smile. It’s small and shaky, but real. “Thanks.”

She reaches across the console and squeezes my hand, her sharp nails pressing into my skin just enough to ground me. We drive the rest of the way home in silence, but it isn’t heavy anymore. It’s the kind of silence that feels safe.

Nineteen

HARLEY

Four Weeks Later

Time feels like it’s moving everywhere and nowhere all at once. The baby is growing. My hunger is finally catching up to me, the scale inching higher every week, and my OB seems pleased with the progress. Though, that doesn’t mean I love every part of it. I did love that the morning sickness was over and that I was learning quite quickly how to adjust to this new exhaustion plaguing me. It means I’m doing what I can to keep this baby healthy.

Letters between Easton and I have become weekly now, instead of monthly like before. We write about everything and nothing—baby names, old memories, even silly what-ifs—because we’ve both learned the hard way that there is no use drowning in things we can’t change.

Just last week he brought up the time we got matching tattoos. I’d been terrified of the needle, with incredibly sweaty palms, while he’d been nothing but excited, grinning like a kid at Christmas. I didn’t think much about it back then, but funnily enough, the ink means more to me now than any wedding band. It’s a promise we carry on our skin, a mark that can’t be stripped away by courts or chains. A reminder that no matter how hard the world tries to separate us, we’ve chosen each other. Permanently.

I still carry hurt, of course. Some days it presses harder than others. But therapy is teaching me to hold it differently, to see it for what it really is. It’s not Easton I’m angry at anymore. It’s the system; the endless waiting, the way it steals moments that should belong to us. Together. Alone. Every day I practice forgiving him, reminding myself that loving someone means separating the man from the mess he’s been thrown into.

Rick called yesterday to let me know about another pre-trial hearing. He sounded more optimistic than I felt, talking about motions and new witness statements … like that might finally tip the scales. I told him I’d be there, of course I wouldn’t miss it, and then called my boss to ask for the morning off again. By now it’s becoming routine, juggling work around court dates. I hope and pray it will be over soon.

The next morning, I arrive at the courthouse with Kennedy at my side, both of us wrapped in the kind of silence that means we’re bracing for whatever is coming. I expect to sit with her, the two of us against the world like always. But when I walk into the gallery, I freeze.