Overdue I Love You’s

Chapter 1

G et a hobby , they said. It’ll be fun.

What a freaking lie.

My thoughts are interrupted by the smell of old carpet and uncovered sneezes.

This is nothing like the movies.

Instead of a hotshot prosecution firing against me, there’s a middle-aged bald man with a beer belly speaking on behalf of my old librarian.

You might be wondering why I’m here exactly.

Whether I’m watching from the sidelines, rooting for Ms. Cartwright to win, but no. I’m not. A couple of feet away from the old wrinkly woman, on the brown wooden table where the defence sits, is me.

This is what I get for having a hobby.

As kids, everyone’s irresponsible.

You go to the library with your parents, get a couple of books, forget to return a few, it’s normal. Everyone knows this. Except Ms. Cartwright who’s suing me for twelve years of overdue library books .

She calls it stealing, I call it attachment issues.

In my defence, no one—other than myself—visited Cornwall Public Library. With the population being five thousand with limited children, they spent time on the beach or being outside.

Sunaira—Sunny—Farsi shuffles papers around and skims through terminology she’s never heard of. My best friend is the best lawyer around. For companies. Corporations . Not so much for private affairs or anything to do with civil rights.

Next time someone tells me to get a hobby, I’m shoving it right up their?—

“Ascertaining to the number of books Miss Rivera has stolen from the library have yet to be calculated but are currently approximated to over 2,000 books.”

Holy heck, actually?

The judge looks up from her glasses at me and I smile, hoping it would assure her that I’m harmless.

I have no qualms of trying to hurt anyone.

I like people. I like her. Even if that fat wart on her nose bothers me, she seems like the kind of woman that’d make me babysit her granddaughter and call me over for Sunday tea.

She looks tired too. I’ll send her a bouquet with clematis and touch-me-nots.

“That’s quite a lot, is there anything you’d like to say, defence council?”

Sunny clicks the button for the mic which results in extensive feedback.

My smile falters with a quiver when she clears her throat. “I, um… Of course, your honour. My client here… She’s, well…”

More shuffling. More clearing of the throat.

I squeeze Sunny’s shoulder to which she lets out a breath. My confident bestie is not so confident right now. Which I get. I could never be a lawyer. I think if I was one, everyone I’d defend would be in prison or not divorced, or whatever other kind of laws exist.

This isn’t Sunny’s thing but she’s still defending me, which is more than I can ask for.

The door bursts open and the judge looks towards the sound. But I don’t need to.

Nadine Rivera circles to the front of my table and stares at the judge. Her bump is bigger than the last time I saw her.

This isn’t allowed, I don’t think. I didn’t call her.

“Your honour,” she juts out her jaw.

“Mrs. Rivera.”

Of course, the judge acknowledges her. Everyone in the room does, staring at her with their eyes wide, mouths dropped. Even the AC shuts up to let her speak.

“I’d like for you to consider how my client, Miss Rivera, has been forced to accept this trial as guilty. Under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedom, her right to security has been breached.”

The judge quirks a brow, “Do you have proof of this?”

“I do,” Nadine hands over a USB to one of the transcript people—never truly knowing what they do—and they plug it in, click a couple of times, and a video pops up.

It’s a video of Mrs. Cartwright banging on my door for the past week, getting all up in my face, and one of her camping outside the whole night.

The old woman is scary, but I get it.

Her livelihood depended on that library, and I took bits of it throughout the years.

“Mrs. Cartwright repeatedly barged into my client’s home without her consent, followed her around the city, camped outside of her building, and publicly harassed her verbally. ”

My cheeks burn. There’s a reason why I hired Sunny to defend me and all of it has to do with my oldest sister saving me once again.

“There is no proof that my client allegedly stole books from Cornwall public library. In fact, as a resident of the city myself, there were often exhibitions throughout the year that would allow citizens to take home books from the library without signing them out.”

Nadine hands over a file, which the judge looks through—quietly nodding as if she understands the truth that isn’t the truth.

The bald man stands. “Your honour—” When the judge raises her hand to finish reading, he places down a new piece of evidence in front of her. Not sure if that’s allowed but I’m learning a lot today.

Starting with my sister and how she somehow knows everything.

“There is proof of your client never returning overdue books, Mrs. Rivera.”

Nadine turns to look at me for the first time since she entered, and I see it. The look. The same one she gave me when I came back home from school and ate a Hershey’s chocolate kiss instead of a banana. A look that holds a whole lot of tsks .

I can see her brain turning while she figures out the best route to take. “Overdue books do not qualify as stolen books, your honour.”

“Correct,” she takes her glasses off and sighs. “But there are twelve years of overdue books. Twelve years of lost public property which was in the possession of Nova Rivera.”

“Who was a minor.”

“Exactly. Who was a minor, Mrs. Rivera.”

I swallow hard. I know where this is going and I’m mentally calculating the number of zeroes I have in my back account, coming to a solid two. Maybe one, actually.

“I’ll take into account how her rights have been breached, but the fact remains that she has never returned an approximate of 2,000 overdue books.

That’s about $48,000 give or take. Accounting for wholesale prices, that’s around $20,000.

Knowing that Ms. Cartwright harasses her, the most I can offer to Miss Rivera is that she either return all those books or pay a fine of $15,000. ”

“Your honour, that’s unfair considering the loss my client has been through.”

The judge doesn’t pay the bald man any mind.

She stares at me, at my sister, and I can feel Ms. Cartwright’s gaze digging into me.

Amazing.

That’s three zeroes.

I don’t have two and they want me to pay three.

Just great .

“Thank you, your honour.” Nadine curtly nods.

“If she doesn’t pay within six months, Miss Rivera will serve one year in prison with six months of community service upon release.” The judge hits the gavel on the sound block and dismisses the court by calling upon the next case which happens to be for a parking ticket.

It’s official, I’m going to prison.

Sunny holds onto my hand while we follow my older sister out of the courtroom.

She’s brimming with tension. Her shoulders tight on the top and her fingers are wiggling against her right thigh in typical Nadine fashion.

Sunny and I share a look of worry when we walk out on a cloudy day. The courtroom is a small, almost terrifying red-brick building. Instead of stairs leading out of it, there’s grass on the side of this cement pathway and a couple of feet away is an intersection.

There’s a dog sticking its head out of the window with its tongue out .

“You can wait in the car,” I tell Sunny when Nadine continues walking towards her black Mercedes Benz.

“You sure?” Sunny looks beyond me at Nadine holding the passenger door open, her fingers thrumming impatiently against the top. “She looks like she’s about to scream your ear off.”

She’s never yelled at me a day in her life.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll come to you after talking to her.”

When Sunny walks away, I give myself a pep talk.

Mostly because I’ve been lectured by Nadine before, but it's never been serious. It’s always about issues she fixes for me.

Being the oldest sister meant putting me first, which she’s always done.

Is it so bad that I want to take care of this on my own?

Beneath the smell of vanilla and leather is a rancid smell. “What is that?” I gag.

Instead, I get glared at. “I threw up in a bag back there.”

Sitting up straighter, I wait. I know it’s coming. She’s first gonna ask me if I’m okay, then she’ll push her way into my problems and do what she does best. Being my oldest sister?—

“Come here.”

Nadine pulls me into a hug. One soul crushing, somewhat awkward hug. The middle console digs into the outside of my left thigh when she drags my upper half towards her. Her arms circle around my neck and she… sobs?

A vague reflection of worry stares back at me through her window. “ Ate ?”

She cries harder and it hits me that I did this to her. She’s crying because of me.

“I don’t understand,” she muffles. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I rub her back instead of answering.

Nadine lives in Calgary with her husband, Easton. She calls all the time, texts me a whole lot of memes and TokDot videos that I can’t keep up with, but she does her best to remind me she’s around and nothing has changed since she left.

She tries but trying doesn’t put the puzzle back together, it makes it worse especially when you’re burnt out.

My arm brushes against her round belly. Her expected delivery date is September 4th. I swallow back the truth on my tongue and pull away from the embrace.

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

I don’t want to force my way inside when she’s barely making room for her new life.

She sniffles, rubbing the bottom of her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. “You're lucky you make good money, and Easton got that apartment for you. Because if you had to pay rent on top of this, I would’ve been double-worried for you.”

I should start tallying up all the lies I’ve told her, because I’m losing track of each.

“Right,” I chuckle. “Imagine if I didn’t make enough money.”

Don’t have to imagine that at all.