kiss me thru the phone | myg.

xxii: don't lie to me

the court hearing was harder than jurnee ever expected. the witnesses, the victims, and the families were all in pain. jurnee felt like if she was there physically she'd vomit because even sitting behind her laptop, her fingers were shaking. jurnee already emailed her evidence against charles plea of not guilty. messages included him sending her nudes and the two of them texting flirtaciously.

jurnee felt her body get hot as she sat through all the other victims and how he preyed and groomed on them. how he tried to plan to marry a sixteen-year-old illegally. worse part of everything was that they found charles had copious files of child pornography on his laptop at home. jurnee felt dirty, her neck started to itch first then her scalp. she didn't know that she was crying until daniella got up from her bed and moved to console her.

jurnee tuned everything out she didn't even know what else happened but she was done. she slammed her laptop shut and took a deep breath. "i don't wanna hear about that scum again."

"okay, okay," daniella said to her as she rubbed her back, "what do you feel like doing?"

"crying."

jurnee heaved out a sob and daniella sat there with tissues. jurnee hated the feeling of crying. people said it felt good but it just made her mad, her body would tense up, her nose would burn, and she felt like ripping herself apart. jurnee took off her shirt when she felt too hot and downed the bottle of water handed to her from daniella. "is there a place where i can find a roof?"

"yeah," daniella sighed as she looked at jurnee, "my family home."

daniella's family home was an hour away in a very discreet area. jurnee felt her emotions still bubbling up and waiting to explode until she remembered the tips that dr. myers gave her. jurnee was in a car so she knew that she couldn't do too much. instead, she threw her head back and took deep breaths. by the time she felt numb enough to not feel stress was when she was at the house that was surrounded by big land.

"you look tired," daniella observed as she used the back of her hand to touch jurnee's forehead, "you're burning up. come, get inside!"

daniella had two dads. jurnee didn't notice a mom but she didn't ask. the two dads were extremely nice named leo and chris. chris was black from london and leo was from hawaii. when they opened the door and saw how drained jurnee looked, they immediately opened the door. daniella introduced them and quickly made jurnee lay down on the daybed in her room.

"my dads are going to make tea and soup for you," daniella said with a bright smile, "it helps me when i have an emotional breakdown."

jurnee didn't expect for milk tea and hawaiian chicken soup to soothe her but it did. only a little she was still irritated. "when you're done, you should try getting some sleep. that's why you're irritated because you're worn out but you're still up. it's okay if you go to sleep, i'll still be here."

jurnee learned that daniella's mother passed away in child labor and that her father was gay. basically daniella's father (david) really wanted to have kids but he didn't know how to. his best friend volunteered to help so they conceived daniella. jurnee found out a few days after daniella took jurnee to her family home. before they left that day, they went up the roof like promised.

it was silent for a good twenty minutes. that's all jurnee needed as her head was lifted high up at the sky. she wanted to say sorry but in the middle of doing so she stopped herself. "it's not my fault," jurnee had said instead which alarmed daniella due to the suddenness of the outburst, "it is not my fault that a pedophile took advantage of me."

daniella joined in, "it's not your fault, jurnee."

jurnee turned her head to see daniella crying a little bit and extended a hand to daniella, "it's not yours either."