Not Guilty （n.） – Liam
NOT GUILTY (N.):
PLEA OF A PERSON WHO CLAIMS NOT TO HAVE COMMITTED THE CRIME OF WHICH HE/SHE IS ACCUSED, MADE IN COURT WHEN ARRAIGNED (FIRST brOUGHT BEFORE A JUDGE) OR AT A LATER TIME SET BY THE COURT.
LIAM
Ithaca, New York
Thirteen Years Old
The next time I opened my eyes, I was lying on a hospital bed in a bright white room.
There was a man in a suit sitting next to me.
“What’s going on?” My throat hurt.
“Well, you’ve been out for quite some time, little fella.” The man smiled. “That’s typical for trauma at your age.”
“Can you call my dad, please?” I asked. “Actually, make it my mom. She’ll yell less.”
“Liam…” He grabbed my hand. “Liam, your parents are deceased.”
“They were in my dream, I know,” I said. “But—”
“They are deceased, Liam.” He looked into my eyes, his voice firm but kind. “You’ve been checked into a post-traumatic stress unit for two weeks.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s not true.”
“The friends and neighbors have held off on the funeral until you’re better.”
“They didn’t die.” Tears fell down my face. “It was a nightmare. Stop talking, please…”
“I’m here to walk you through some legal proceedings regarding foster care and to let you know about the potential criminal charges.” He wiped my face with a handkerchief. “Okay?”
“No.” I yanked away from him. “Fuck you.”
“Nurse!”
Before I could jump out of the bed, a male in scrubs pinned me down and stuck a needle in my arm.
I instantly felt warm and calm, but my mind was still racing.
Minutes later, the suit pressed his hand against mine.
“Your parents, and the two other victims, were hit by a drunk driver,” he said. “Well, an alleged drunk driver.”
“Who?”
“A man from Manhattan named Trevor Jenkins.”
“Did he do it on purpose?”
“Drunk drivers never do…” He shot me a look of sympathy. “But…I have to be honest with you. He may not see any jail time because of this, but he feels awful about what he’s done.”
Accident. Deceased. Drunk driver. Trevor Jenkins.
I tried to file everything in my mind in order.
“Drunk diving is a crime?” I asked, feeling woozy. “My dad dives into the lake with a beer all the time.”
“Drunk driving, Liam,” he said. “Getting on the road drunk.”
“Oh, right.” I knew that. “Well, he has to go to jail for killing my parents, right?”
“Mr. Jenkins’ lawyers—Well, it’s…” He sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“I’m pretty fucking smart whenever I’m not being shot up with whatever this stuff is or being emotional.” I looked at him. “Talk to me like I’m eighteen instead of thirteen.”
“Mr. Jenkins has some of the best lawyers in the world, and the police have already admitted to making several mistakes at the scene.” He paused. “The blood alcohol tests, the delayed Miranda rights reading, the—”
“So, because he’s rich, he gets away with it?”
“He might get away with it.”
“How do I make sure that doesn’t happen?”
“You can retain me as your lawyer.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Mr. Jenkins has generously offered to pay off your family’s home mortgage and set up a college fund for you and the other victims’ surviving son,” he said. “He would hate for you to have to suffer in foster care, and he’s also willing to pay for your attorney and—”
“Shut the fuck up talking to me.” I sounded just like my father. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“Um, Nurse!” he yelled. “Nurse?”
“I don’t need the fucking nurse to translate bullshit when I hear it.” I lowered my voice. “That guy is trying to buy his way out of jail, but guess what?”
“What?”
“He can’t afford it.”
“These are very generous terms, Little Liam.”
“Don’t call me that. You’re not my friend.”
“Right…Well, regardless of what you decide, the funeral and your parents’ mortgage have already been covered very generously by Mr. Jenkins. And he’s paid me for over four hundred hours so—”
“So, you’ll run and tell him everything I’m thinking and saying?” I asked, now sounding like my mother. “Just because I live in a small town doesn’t mean I have a small fucking brain.”
“Liam, listen to me.” He looked into my eyes. “I don’t think you’re aware of just how much power Trevor Jenkins has. He’s no longer even listed in the police report, so it’s almost like this didn’t happen.”
“So, my parents were killed by a ghost?”
“By the time his lawyers get through everything—it might look like that.”
“I don’t want your help.” I knew a scumbag when I saw one, and my dad would’ve told me to take a long hot shower to wash away all the bullshit the guy had exposed me to.
“You need to sign off on paperwork that says you won’t hold Mr. Jenkins liable for—”
“I’m a minor.” I shrugged. “I’m not signing shit.”
“We also have to discuss foster care,” he said. “Perhaps you and Little Ryan can be placed together?”
“What part of ‘I don’t want your help’ did you not understand?”
“If you don’t work with me, you’ll have to work with some random, overworked person in the department of children’s services.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Perhaps you should take some time to—”
“I said I’ll take my fucking chances.” I hissed. “Get away from me…Now.”
He sighed and stood to his feet. He pulled a business card from his pocket and left it on my side table.
“In case you change your mind…” He gave me one final look of sympathy before disappearing.
The next several months were an ugly, tragic blur.
I couldn’t sleep in my own bed without thinking about my parents. Every element in the house reminded me of them, and everyone at school looked at me like something was wrong.
I had nowhere to go, though.
No place else to be.
My new foster parents—young lawyers who loved their jobs a little too much—sold off my parents’ home and moved me to Manhattan.
To make us feel “more like a family,” they legally changed my last name.
I wasn’t Little Liam or Liam Hines Jr. anymore.
I was Liam Ashton.
They put me in private school and set me a new trajectory, helping me recreate a new day of life for every day I left behind.
To their credit, they never accepted any money from Trevor Jenkins on my behalf, and they did their best to raise me as their only son.
I kept up with Little Ryan’s journey through social media; he’d been paired with an influencer couple who shared everything, so it wasn’t that difficult.
College was a breeze.
Law school was even easier.
After working at my foster father’s firm and then transitioning to Hamilton & Associates, I was appointed to the bench.
I couldn’t deny I was overly harsh on anyone who broke traffic laws—completely unrelenting when it came to drunk driving—but one September morning, the fates tested my fucking patience.
Grant Jenkins, the son of Trevor Jenkins, was standing before me for a case of drunk driving.
I should’ve recused myself right then and there. Should’ve made the strings of our connection known, but I waited for his million-dollar lawyers to do it for me.
They never did…
What they did do, however, is make a mockery of my fucking courtroom. They paid off police officers to recant statements, hired hackers to redo and undo official blood and hospital records, and offered to pay the five victims’ families off just like Trevor had once offered to pay me.
If I’d been a juror during his trial, I might’ve erred on the side of “reasonable doubt,” might’ve considered that this was a simple “young guy making a mistake” who could still be of use to society.
But I knew that wasn’t true.
This was a monster, raised by another monster, and he didn’t think the rules applied to him.
And I was willing to risk everything—every. fucking. thing.—to take everything from them, like they’d taken everything from me…