Page 42 of Made For Me

I stand, my legs shaking from sitting down all night long. “Turn and face the wall with your hands out in front of you,” he demands, and I follow his order and feel the metal cuffs wrap around my wrists. “Okay,” he says and I take a step forward as he opens the cell door. “Ready?” he asks, and I don’t say a word because I’m not ready. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can make me ready for this.

CHAPTER24

Chase

“It’s almost time,” my father says from beside me on the bench. I open my eyes and look over at him. He hasn’t left my side for one minute this whole night. When I decided I wasn’t leaving and went to sit on the metal bench, he looked at Max and then at me. It took him one second to come over and sit down next to me. Max and Michael had to go home and make sure Jillian was okay, but my father made sure that if I needed him at all during the night, he was here. I spent the whole night with my head resting against the concrete wall watching the door. Hoping that by some miracle they would have let her go. They didn’t.

“Thirty minutes,” I say, looking at my watch. “Thirty fucking minutes.”

“We should head over to the courthouse,” my father suggests, getting up as I follow him standing up. I walk out of the precinct and head over to the courthouse. I hand my father the keys to my car, getting in the passenger side. “Did you want to stop and get something to eat on the way?” my father asks as he turns the car on. The only thing I can do is shake my head.

I’ve said maybe five words to him all night. I spent the first two hours freaking the fuck out that she was behind the concrete wall and I couldn’t get to her. I went from sitting down to standing up and repeating the action over and over. At one point I thought they were going to ask me to leave, but that Colin dude came out and covered for me. I didn’t say anything to him either. The freak-out was followed by anger. I had so much anger in me all I wanted to do was punch the concrete wall over and over again. I felt like my blood was boiling in my veins and at any moment it would explode. When it got to be around midnight, that was when the sadness kicked in, fuck that feeling of burning in your stomach because you literally can’t do anything to help. The feeling of trading places with a person to shield their pain hurting your chest so much, because you can’t do it. Bottom line: I have never felt so many emotions in such a short time as I did during the night. I’ve been to war zones to help and didn’t even feel half of what I felt sitting on that steel bench. I’ve had to tell parents that their child wasn’t going to make it. I had to tell big strong men they would never be able to walk again and watch them shatter in front of me, and still never felt what I felt at that moment.

Everything is a blur to me as I look out the window as the trees and cars pass us by. When my father parks, I see Michael get out of his car followed by Max. I step from the car and walk up to them. “Where is the lawyer?” I look around trying to see if I can spot him. “Shouldn’t he be here by now?” I ask them as I put my hands on my hips. “Like, what the fuck is he doing?”

Max looks at my father, who slaps my shoulder and squeezes it. “You need to reel all that anger in,” he says calmly, “because when you see her, you are going to have to be her rock.”

“If my wife is any indication as to what she went through,” Michael says, his voice soft, “it wasn’t good at all.” I look at his face and see the same anguish I’m sure is on my face. “Jillian spent the night rocking in the same spot.” His voice gets tight. “It almost felt like she was in another space.”

“Zara and Zoe said it’s normal,” Max says to him quietly and he just shakes his head.

“I don’t care what you call it,” he says. “It was like she was with Julia in that cell.” I swallow down the bile that rises up my throat. “If I don’t bring her home, I have no idea what is going to happen.”

“We are bringing her home,” my father cuts in before he knows I’ll lose it.

“Good, you guys are all here.” I look over at Stuart, who is dressed in a three-piece suit this time, a black briefcase in his hand. “We should head in.”

My father and Max walk with him. “Where the fuck did he think we were going to be?” I hiss between clenched teeth. “I know that we have to take Julia to see Jillian.” I look over at Michael. “But it’s going to be a short visit.”

“Is that so?” Michael says. “How sure are you about that?”

“As sure as if I’m not walking out of here with her,” I say, looking at him, “I’m going in there with her.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Michael warns from beside me. “The last thing we need is more people in there.”

I don’t say anything to him, instead I walk upstairs and toward a brown door that says courtroom number four. “Here we go,” Stuart says, pulling open the door. I’m the last one to walk into the room as the four of them stand in front of me. I don’t know if they are doing this to stop me from charging up there or they are looking around.

My eyes roam around the room to see if I see her and I don’t. Stuart walks forward to one of the benches in the back and sits down. “What are you doing?” I ask him.

“I’m waiting for her case to be called and then I’m going up there,” he states and I hear Michael behind me.

“Just sit down,” he grits between clenched teeth. “All we need is you going apeshit now and postponing shit.” He practically pulls me to sit in the bench behind Stuart and our fathers.

“What time is her hearing at?” I lean forward to ask Stuart.

“It can be anywhere from nine to three,” he says and I sit back on the bench, my hands clenching by my sides.

I look forward at the judge sitting at the top of the bench. A woman brings him a manila folder. “Next up on the docket,” he announces and all I know is I hear her name. “Julia Williams.”

Stuart stands up and the side door opens, and then I see her. She walks into court with a man holding her arm, her hands placed behind her in cuffs. Michael puts his hand across me to stop me from springing up, and my father does the same thing to Max. Max just looks down and shakes his head, but my eyes never leave her. The tightness I felt in my chest all night long gets just a touch lighter. I can even breathe a touch easier now, knowing she is there in front of me and in a matter of time she is going to be in my arms.

The man leads her to the brown table on the left, just in front of us. Stuart takes his place beside her and he leans over and tells her something, and her head nods. The judge starts reading the charges, I can’t hear anything except for my breathing and heartbeat in my ears. The judge never looks up, never even sees Julia. Stuart says, “Not guilty, Your Honor.” The judge looks over at the prosecutor, who for some reason I want to throat punch.

“We ask that bail be set at seventy-five thousand dollars,” he says and I look up at the ceiling and I see spots of black and white.

“Bail is set for seventy-five thousand dollars,” the judge mumbles as he writes something down before closing the file and taking the gavel to bang it. Stuart looks over at her and says something, and she just nods as the guard comes over and escorts her out.

“Where is she going?” I fly from my seat as my eyes go to the door that closed on the side.

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