Chapter 4 #2
My mother sighed. “You’re right about that. But to allow your boyfriend to continuously rape your daughter and say you didn’t know? Come on, now. That poor girl would have been showing signs or something. She should have gotten therapy, not a thirty-year sentence.”
I nodded. “I agree. I wish I knew then what I know now. Maybe I could have helped her. It’s crazy how her lawyer didn’t fight for her and the law refused to acknowledge the abuse she suffered.
I read the court transcripts and watched the tapes.
They focused more on her mental state at the time of the murder than what lead her to it. ”
Bridget touched my shoulder. “This is really weighing on you, huh?”
“It’s always weighed on me, sis. I’ve been to that house. I watched that man interact with her and how uncomfortable she was just breathing his damn air.”
My sister shook her. “You were a kid, Killian.”
“I was old enough to know something wasn’t right.”
My mother placed a hand on my other shoulder.
“Baby, there was nothing you could have done if she denied it. A friend of mine went to that trial. That man threatened to do the same to her sisters if she told anybody. She probably would have taken that secret to her grave if she could have. I don’t want you blaming yourself for things beyond your control, you hear me? ”
I sighed. “Yes, ma’am. Erica is looking to have the case reviewed. I’m planning to help her. Maybe we can get the conviction overturned and her record expunged.”
She offered me a smile. “I hope you two are successful.”
Truthfully, I hoped we were, too. An overturned conviction wouldn’t change the time she’d already served, but at least it wouldn’t count against her anymore. My thoughts drifted back to seeing Alayah at the parole hearing. She had always been beautiful, but her as a grown woman… She was gorgeous.
I remembered the day I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend, but I chickened out. We’d been studying together for a few months, and our friendship had grown into something different.
She wasn’t as shy around me. She cracked jokes or played around with me. Sometimes she even talked shit. My friends teased us about us being a couple, but she always insisted that we were just friends.
“You never wanted a boyfriend?” I asked one day during lunch.
She looked up at me curiously as she took a sip of her juice. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You like being single?”
She shrugged. “Boys don’t really pay attention to me, Killian.”
“Trust me, they look. You’re just so busy looking elsewhere.”
“What would they be looking at? I don’t look like the other girls at this school.”
“So. You don’t need to look like anybody but you. These other girls do too much. You…you are naturally beautiful, Alayah.”
She blushed. “Killian, stop.”
“I’m serious. You’re always so put together. You don’t show a whole lot of skin like some of these girls.”
“I thought y’all liked that.”
I waved her off. “My daddy says you have to leave something to the imagination.”
“And just what are you imagining?”
My face began heating up. I couldn’t tell her I’d imagined kissing her every day for the last couple of months.
I couldn’t tell her that her scent was like a warm hug every time she came near me.
I damn sure couldn’t tell her I had to count to twenty to calm my raging hormones every time she stared at me with those beautiful brown orbs.
“Hello? Earth to Killian?” She waved her hands in my face, breaking me from my trance. “Where did you go?”
“My bad. I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“I’d rather not say.”
She giggled. “You must have been imagining something. I’d hate to know what runs through the minds of teenaged boys.” She took another sip of juice. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You questioned me. Don’t you want a girlfriend? I haven’t seen you with anybody the whole school year.”
I twiddled my thumbs. “Well, there’s this one girl. I’m not sure if she’d be into me though.”
“Why not? You’re handsome, smart, and very likeable.”
“Thanks. Would you…you know date me?”
She swallowed hard. “Um…if you were into me, maybe, but you aren’t. We’re just friends who study together.”
That stung. “Right…just friends.”
I was too afraid to ask after that. I never imagined that just two weeks later, she’d be arrested for murder.
There were so many stories going around the school about what happened.
People were asking me questions like I would have the answers.
A few people made jokes, saying that it could have been me that was next on the chopping block. I didn’t find that shit funny at all.
I got into a couple fights after it all went down, mostly from defending her and myself.
I begged my parents to let me go to her trial, but they said I didn’t need to hear the gory details.
At the time, it pissed me off. I felt like she’d think I’d abandoned her, too.
Sadly, I did. Time passed. I graduated and went off to college.
My thoughts of her slowly went from every day, to occasionally, to not at all.
Erica putting that file on my desk pulled everything from the back burner to the front. I knew it wouldn’t be long before it began to simmer, and I had to see her.