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“I
like Thea, she seems like a really sweet girl, but do any of us really know her? For all we know she could have been planning this for months. She comes into my bar, and just happens to meet and go home with the best criminal attorney in the country? Then, she somehow turns out to be your student, and from what Tristan’s told me, she’s not afraid of playing the blackmail card. And on top of all this, she drops this bomb and tells you about her father? I know this sucks to hear, I know you really do love her, but what if she’s using you? I mean consider the timing of all this... what if—”
“Stop,” I whispered, not wanting to hear anymore.
“Levi—”
“No. She isn’t that person.”
I knew her.
Tristan frowned. “She did blackmail me once just to get what she wanted—”
“No!” I snapped at them both, and they just looked at each other. “Fine, let’s say what you’re saying is true. Let’s say that for months she’s been jerking me around, and she’s that good of an actress that I fell for it. Nothing changes for me. Even if she admitted it right now, I would be hurt, and so fucking pissed off, but I would still be right here looking through all these files. I would still want to help her even if she betrayed me like that. Thank you for worrying about me Beth, but I’ve made up my mind.”
Tristan sighed, got up, and headed to the kitchen. Before long, he was back with two more glasses and he poured us all a drink.
“Where you go, I go. And when this is done, I am taking the longest fucking vacation of my life,” he said, as he handed me my glass.
“Thank you.”
THEA
I was half frozen by the time I got to Atticus’ place. I couldn’t feel my toes, and my fingers felt like they could be snapped off one by one. When he saw me, he didn’t crack any jokes and he didn’t say anything stupid. Instead, he stepped aside, and held the door open, allowing me to enter his tiny, one bedroom apartment, and crawl up onto his couch.
He placed a thick blanket over me, and left a cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table, for whenever I was ready to drink. He sat down in front of the couch, watching the news in silence.
“That’s my dad,” I whispered, and he looked between me and the television, at the Asian man speaking.
If I could, I would have laughed.
“No. Down at the bottom of the feed, Ben Walton, the murderer, who tried to kill himself. That’s him. That’s my dad.”
He understood me now. “My dad was a corn farmer before he became a Governor.”
“Thank you,” I said, as I wiped my eyes.
He wasn’t making fun of me, he was simply trying to tell me he that didn’t care.
“They say he killed Levi’s ex-wife’s mother.”
From there it all just spilled out of me… everything from when I was a child, to my step father’s alleged crimes, to that last moment with Levi, the moment where it felt like he had stabbed me through the heart with a smile.
LEVI
It was my third time walking past the office. She should have been in there, but she wasn’t. I had seen all of my students with the exception of her… Three days; that was the last time I had seen her. Neither she nor her sister had answered any of my calls, and at this point, I didn’t even know if she was okay.
“You can stop walking by, she isn’t coming in today,” Atticus said to me, with his tie over his shoulder as he changed the light bulb.
“So you’ve spoken to her?”
“Kind of hard not to, what with her crashing at my place and all… I’m already out of cereal,” he replied, stepping down from the ladder.
I felt my hand curl into a fist just seeing the smug look on his face and I had to force myself to relax.
He was a student. He needed to learn to not be involved in my personal life.
“What is the percentage of cases that are plea bargained and settled outside of court?” I quizzed him as calmly as possible.
