And If... {completed and edited 2024}

And If... You simply let me help you ?

"Hey. How are you ? "

"Hey. It could be worse, I guess." I sighed, opening the refrigerator. "Where is Ignito at ? You can't be my lawyer."

"I know and I'm not. But Mr. Ignito is away until tomorrow. Another client needs him, it was an emergency and he couldn't not go. In the meantime, he asked me to go through those files with you. This is the proofs they have against you. We're going to go through this and prepare you to answer to their questions."

I nodded, closing the door, with the bottle in one hand. "Okay. Thank you, you could have said no. I know you hate me."

"I do not hate you, shut up." She scrunched up her face.

"You're always telling me to shut up. You're mad disrespectful."

"Well, I'm coming here as a friend and you're jumping down my throat. I came here to help you, so let me do it. Okay ? "

"Okay." I mocked her, making a grimace.

"You know what, I didn't came here for that. Bye." She grabbed the dark grey cardigan she took it and put it back before to grab her bag, the documents and start walking away.

I groaned, following her. "Always dramatic ! I'll stop, I promise. Let's go upstairs."

She abruptly turned around, looking at me as if I grew a second head. "Excuse you ? What ? "

I rolled my eyes, "trust me, I don't want to have sex with you. C'mon." I climbed the stairs, with her trailing behind me. I led the way to the playroom, where we sat on the long couch. She put her huge black Chanel bag down, then her little cardigan and took her shoes off.

"I do not remember telling you to get comfortable."

"Shut the f--"

I didn't let her finish as I hit her face with a pillow, that she returned. I hit her a second time and she did too. "You know, I have all day."

"Not me and I might kill you."

"Oh ! Be careful, they're gonna have you on house arrest too. How is RJ ? " I was mad about all of this, but for reason I could make fun of it when Tinashe was around.

She finger combed her hair as she sat down, "he's a true champion. He can't wait to see you. And he keeps telling everybody that you're innocent."

I smiled, "that's my son." I looked at her, admiring her beauty. She didn't age at all after all those years, she still look super young. But you could see the growth in her behavior. Not all the time though, mainly when she was with me.

"Do I have something on my face ? " She asked, avoiding to make eye contact with me. Since we broke up, she couldn't look into my eyes anymore. At least, not as she used to do. If we had the misfortune to let our eyes meet though, she was always immediately looking away as if she was trying to hide from me. She knew how easy it was for me to read her, but she didn't want to let me in. I lost that privilege.

"Uh, no. So, what do they have against me ? "

She cleared her throat, putting the files out. "Well, there's the anonymous witness to start with. We tried to find out what they exactly said, but the researches were unsuccessful." Did she say we ? She's been working on my case ?

"Seems like their witness doesn't exist to me." I said, not really thinking about it.

"We thought the exact same thing. Everything is fishy, a real mess. They found fingerprints on a body that was buried in a forest a few years ago. But the thing is fingerprint evidence is not currently permitted to be reported in court unless examiners claim absolute certainty that a mark had been left by a particular suspect. And a body starts to liquify a month after death, so it's impossible for them to have found your fingerprints. Then they're saying that this Mrs. Jefferson was your maid, but you never had a maid before. And when we looked up Patricia Jefferson, she was registered nowhere. And they have a lot of other proofs that just don't make sense. Somebody tried to send you to jail, but they didn't do it too well. We'll find who it is and take them to court though. They're playing with the system and we don't have time for this."