Page 60 of Plight
What I was asking forwas risky. I knew that. But if all I could ever say was that I’d held her while she slept, I’d be happy.
“Okay, Elliot. We sleep and talk. That’s it.”
I smiled, relief flooding my body. I honestly didn’t think she’d agree. In fact, I was preparing to fill her glass again in readiness for her mandatory skoll.
“No fucking,” she repeated.
“No fucking,” I reaffirmed. Well, maybe.
“And I get to sleep on the side of the bed closest to the window.”
That was my favourite side, but I didn’t argue because I planned on sleeping on that side, too. With her. On her. Underneath her.
“Then it’s settled,” she said, covering her chest with her arms.
“It is. So would you like to go to bed now?”
“I still have more questions for you.”
“You can ask them under the covers.”
Her eyelids fluttered with derision. “Can I bring my drink? I think I’m gonna need it.”
She was so bloody cute, even when she mocked me. “Yes, you can bring your drink.”
“You better have something I can sleep in, like an old t-shirt?”
“I have a Batman t-shirt,” I admitted, unable to hide my grin.
Her jaw dropped and she pointed at me. “You lied! You said you didn’t have one.”
I shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”
“Speaking of guilty people, what’s it like … defending them? You defend them, right?”
“Am I a criminal defence lawyer? Yes, predominantly.”
“Do you enjoy it?” She took a sip of her drink and eyed me curiously over the rim of her glass.
“For the most part, yes.”
“For the most part?”
I drank some of my bourbon then put my glass down. “I started off wanting to defend the underdog and wrongly accused, those who perhaps were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who were a convenient target. Too often in life the wrong people fall victim because they don’t know their rights or how to fight for them. I hate that. I hate that they’re made scapegoats.”
“But what about the guilty ones? How do you defend them knowing they’re guilty.”
“They’ve got to be proven guilty first.”
“You know what I mean,” she sighed. “The ones who’ve admitted doing the crime, or where there’s no reasonable doubt because they’ve been caught red-handed.”
I ran my hand through my hair then used it to rest my head upon. This question, this notion, was never easy to explain. “A lot of the time, I can’t let myself think too much about it. I can’t make it personal or get involved beyond what my job, as their legal counsel, requires. But the ones who show remorse for their wrongdoings, genuine remorse … do they deserve punishment to the fullest extent of the law? No. I personally don’t think they do. And unless I help them, that’s what they’ll get.”
Her eyes widened. “So you believe a murderer deserves to be free if he/she is truly sorry?”
I chuckled, but the fact she was asking me these questions twisted my gut. The last thing I wanted was for my career to disappoint her through lack of comprehension.
“No, of course not. If you’re guilty of a crime, you deserve to be punished and rehabilitated. The thing is, more often than not, not everything is black and white. There are almost always mitigating circumstances.”
