Objection | SVU

Chapter 12

It had been a long morning at the SVU, tracking down a guy from Central Park who was accused of sexual assault early in the morning. Our victim was still sitting in the precinct, and the suspect was now in our custody. Captain Cragen was taking a long leave, which left Munch and Benson in charge. Munch said, "Okay, I want Jess and Fin to take a crack at this guy. Rollins and Amaro, you guys keep talking to the vic, see if she remembers any new details." We went our separate ways, and I saw Fin come over to my desk. He sat on the edge and asked, "You ready?" I scoffed and replied, "If by 'ready' you mean watch this guy squirm in the interrogation room before we go in, hell yeah." Fin and I walked over toward the interrogation rooms, and he stopped and turned toward me, saying sarcastically, "Man, you've been hanging around Barba too much."

Oddly enough, as Fin and I waited to interrogate the suspect, I couldn't help but think about that comment. Was I really becoming more like Barba?

Well, the interrogation didn't help answer that. Fin and I had previously agreed to play good cop and pushy cop, and I told him that I would take the pushy cop this time. As soon as the suspect started lying, I started calling him out on it, sometimes even yelling. I always had smart, sarcastic remarks ready for any moment in the day, and I used a bunch in that interrogation...

I got home at sometime around 9:30pm. The day had been extremely stressful, and I just wanted to go to bed. I walked inside and put my things down on the kitchen counter, and before I could even greet Rafael, he was standing up and walking toward me. He wasn't smiling, and he didn't look happy. "Hey Jess, when were you going to tell me that you got an offer for a position as a public defense attorney?" He stopped right in front of me, and he was staring me down. I was caught off guard as I replied, "Rafael, I was going to tell you when the time was right." He quickly said, "Yeah, when would that be?" There was a hint of venom in his voice, and I had a bad feeling that this was going to heat up very quickly.

"Raf, I haven't even looked into the job yet. I'm focusing on everything that's going on at SVU right now." Rafael scoffed and I felt his breath against my neck as he replied in a hushed tone, "You weren't going to tell me, were you?" I shuddered, and Rafael knew that he was right. I didn't want to tell him, because I didn't want him to freak out like this; obviously, that backfired. "What the hell, Jess?" He yelled, flailing his arms up in anger. "Raf-" I began, trying to reason with him, but he completely ignored me. He was fuming as he stomped into the bedroom and locked the door. I cautiously went over to the door, knocked, and said, "Rafael, please... Can we please talk about this?" I heard him laugh angrily as he refuted, "What, now that I know about it you want to talk? No. Don't ask me again." I made the mistake of calling for him again, pleading, "Rafael-"

"Out!" He yelled shrilly, and I sunk back, shocked. He never raised his voice with me. He was always the one who reasoned through these things, and I felt my back hit the wall. I felt so small and defeated, and I decided to do what he said and leave. I grabbed my jacket, phone, and wallet, and I called Liv as I slammed the front door shut, walking out of my apartment building and into the freezing cold of New York City.

She picked up on the second ring, answering, "Jess? Is everything okay?" I was breathing heavily as I replied, "Can I come over?" Liv immediately gave me permission to come to her apartment, and I walked there in under 10 minutes. Once I got there, she let me in, and she must have seen the look of shock and defeat on my face, because she asked me, "Jess, what happened?" I looked down at the ground and admitted, "Rafael found out about the public defense attorney job offer that I got from the city." Liv looked at me with a new alertness and casutiously asked, "How did he take it?" I laughed sarcastically and replied, "Not good. We got in a fight, and he screamed at me. I needed to get out and give him some time to cool off." Liv shook her head and commented, "He's normally pretty good about channeling his temper into snarky remarks..." I nodded in agreement, and Liv gave me some advice.