Justice Served

14 | Sour Memories

Chapter Fourteen
Rhys Chandler

I continue to hear his laughter despite him not being in the room with me anymore as he most likely descends the hallway, and that in itself makes me smile as I shake my head and chuckle a little. I wouldn't be able to get rid of him even if I wanted to. My smile begins to die down as I can only imagine how much Jayce is likely to get on his nerves and anger him just as much as she did to me and that makes me want to pull him right back into my office, not that I cared that much about him or anything, it's just common courtesy.

It's not my business anymore so there's not much I can do about it. I will no longer have any connection to the Jayce Mirella case and everyone will get off of my back about it. I feel like everyone is constantly talking about her and the case, but she is all over the news in Manhattan and the case is beginning to get global due to the protesters and the speculation that this is a race thing so I can only imagine that I will be hearing about her and the case regardless. Despite how annoying the girl is, I hope that proper due process is followed for her as everyone deserves in a trial.

My office land phone begins to ring. With a sigh, I pick up the black, curvature object as I clear my voice so that I don't sound like Pewee Hermann — her words are still fresh in my head — and raise the device to my ears.

"Hello, Rhys Chandler of Lennox Law Firm speaking." I give my usual stale line that has gotten old but is standard procedure for answering calls so I go with it because it's simple and quick.

"Long time no speak." The voice that I remember so clearly says jokingly on the other end, I can only find it in me to frown as this wasn't so pleasant for me.

"I wish it would've stayed that way," I remark as all emotion leaves me.

"You know that I get confused when you joke like that with your monotonous voice, Rhys." She chuckles, even though we are not face-to-face, I can tell that it's forced and she's hoping to keep things lighthearted because she enjoys acting like things haven't changed as if nothing happened. She was good at that.

"It's a good thing that I'm not joking then." I retort, I hear her sigh on the other end.

"Rhys...nothing meaningful happened I—"

"That's your recollection of events, Verena. I'm not interested in walking down memory lane with you." I bite back with clear venom laced in my words, I know it punctures her because of the silence that followed right after I allowed those words to rip out of my mouth to burn the old wound, to reopen it.

She breaks the silence as she says, "I miss how we were in college, I miss us, I miss how we would hang out and do things. The fun times..." she trails off like she has more to say, the sorrow in her voice painfully apparent but it no longer means a thing to me.

I'm silent at first as I take in what she said but nothing can take away the anger and indescribable betrayal she made me feel. Nothing can take away the fact that she acted like nothing happened or occurred that day when everything happened that day; that day everything between us was tarnished with not a thing left to salvage within the ruins that were leftover.

As if it wasn't bad enough to lose her, I also lost someone who used to mean everything to me but that same person is now the person whom I despise the most. Nothing can take away the fact that that day I lost the two most important people I held dear to my heart but now can't stand to look at out without the familiar feelings of worthlessness creeping into my veins, crawling through my system to sting my heart with unbearable, paralyzing pain.