**Highest Ranking : #1 in Chicklit**
[ A WATTPAD FEATURED STORY ]
Mabel Carter traveled half way across the country to attend college and get away from her dark past. After so many years she finally feels as though she's the one in control of her...
A/N: Beautiful Obsession has chapters up so make sure once you're done with this to check out Hazel & Tyler's story!
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EIGHT MONTHS LATER...
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I sit in the courtroom in the first row with Hazel and Lizzie on either side of me. Each of them holds one of my hands tightly in their own, offering me their strength as they bring out my father for the final time.
He's dressed in an ill fitting suit and keeps his head down low as an officer brings him to the defendant's side. His forehead is still pink around the harsh, jagged lines of the black swastika that was tattooed on the skin there. The prosecuting lawyer explained yesterday that when he was transferred into general population that a prison gang found out about what he had done to me over the years and also what he tried to have done months ago. From my understanding, they had held him down and forcefully branded the racist symbol so that he would forever be marked as the asshole that he is.
My breath catches when his dark eyes meet mine. One might think that he would've realized his wrongdoings, that he would hold some sense of regret for everything he had done, but that's not my father. He has a justification for everything. His lips spread into a cruel smile and he wiggles the fingers of one of his cuffed hands at me.
"Prick," Hazel whispers under her breath. She's practically vibrating with pent up rage on my behalf.
The officer removes the cuffs from my father's hands and feet and then my father moves to sit in his seat beside his lawyer.
It's been a long wait for the trial itself, but today is the day that the jury will be deciding his fate. I've been assured that the case is going our way, that there's a substantial amount of evidence stacked against my father and there's no possible way he can come back from this, but these people don't know him like I do. He's like a weasel in his cunningness. I won't believe it until I hear the word "guilty" come from a jurors mouth.
I find myself wishing that Alex were here with me as the lawyers give their closing statements. I wish I had been selfish this morning when he asked me for the millionth time if I wanted him to come, but I also want him to succeed with his student teaching.
My father's lawyer uses me as an excuse to the jury, trying to convince them that I've made it all up and that "Sheriff" Dwaine Carter couldn't possibly be behind the attack. The lawyer claimed that I had simply been meddling in my father's life since the day I was born.
Lizzie pats the top of my hand, almost as though she's read my thoughts. "My asshole of a brother will be here soon."
I'm so grateful for her friendship. We've grown fairly close since she moved to Colorado, and I'm happy that her and Hazel seem to mesh so well together too.
