The jail has really strict dress codes.
That, plus the painful cut on my leg, makes it pretty hard to get dressed when I'm preparing to go visit Robby in the jail. I've resorted to buying a maxi skirt because it's not revealing (against my personal dress code and the jail's) and it's loose against my thighs. I'm also not allowed to show any chest, back, or midriff... not that I'd want to anyway. I'm wearing a white t-shirt that I tie at the bottom so that it looks okay with the skirt.
They also don't allow any open-toed shoes, so I have to wear these black ballet flats that I rarely ever wear. All in all, I guess that it's a cute outfit but I look a bit too fancy to be visiting a jail.
My father gets a ride to work so that I can take the car to make the half an hour drive to get to the jail that Robby is in to sit in on this meeting with his lawyer and the district attorney. I'm not sure if they're going to offer a deal or just talk about how trial is going to work, so I'm feeling pretty nervous.
Once at the jail, I go through the same process that I went through the last time that I was here. I have to sign in, go through the scanner, and then put away my stuff in a locker before the officer takes me into the private room where Robby is already sitting with a younger man.
"There she is," Robby offers me a wide smile. I was expecting him to still be angry at me for trying to give back the money that he stole but he doesn't look upset about that anymore at all.
"Hey, Robby," I hug him and then sit down beside him at the table. There are more chairs in this room than the other room that we had met in before.
"You look dressed up," He notices. "Anyway, this is my lawyer from the public defense office."
"James Holland," The lawyer extends his hand for me to shake, which I do. I immediately notice how young he looks which is a bit unsettling. He doesn't even look like he's out of high school, let alone old enough to have graduated law school. "And you're Mr. Clarke's sister?"
"Yes," I agree with a nod. "How long have you been a lawyer?"
"I know that I look young," He catches on to my suspicions because I know that by that question, I wasn't exactly trying to hide it. "But I know what I'm doing. We are going to get the best deal possible for your brother."
"No. I just said that I don't want a deal," Robby reminds him.
"Robby, let's at least just see what happens, alright?" I try to ease him into the idea of plea deal. "Don't be so close minded."
"I agree with Miss Clarke, the evidence they have against you is pretty convincing," The lawyer confirms as he's flipping through a few pages of what I assume are case files. "A plea deal is probably the best option. I think that we can keep the sentence in the single digits if you give up some names of your accomplices."
"Well, I'm not doing that," Robby crosses his arms over his chest.
"Robby," I say his name again. "Just tell them who you were with. I know that it makes you a snitch or whatever but it's your best bet."
"I'm not a snitch," He shakes his head at both of us.
Before we can continue our conversation, the door opens again behind me and I assume it to be the district attorney because that's the only other person that is supposed to be in this meeting. When I turn around though, I'm completely caught off guard by the familiar face that I see coming into the room.
Gabriella, or Gabby, Briggs. Dex's second girlfriend, or his hookup, or whatever it is that she is to him. We make eye contact before I can turn back around but she doesn't seem to recognize me. Either from the park or the gas station, she doesn't say anything to me.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Clarke. And Mr. Holland," She adds, shaking both of their hands. "This is the sister?"
"Yes, she's sitting in to help Mr. Clarke make the right decision," James explains to Gabby. I watch as she pulls out her own manila folder and opens it up. She flips her hair over her shoulder and blinks her eyes a few times as she catches up on the file. Her eyeliner is winged perfectly, like it could stab you if you got too close, and her blazer looks tailored to fit her perfectly. Well, it probably is tailored. "Where's the DA?"
"Unfortunately, Mike is busy right now so I'm filling in. Will that be a problem?" She raises one perfectly filled in eyebrow at the young lawyer.
"I guess not," He seems to shrink into his chair. At least I'm not the only one that she intimidates.
Her deep red lips curl into a smug smile. "Great. So let's get started," She looks back at the folder. "You don't have much wiggle room here, Mr. Clarke, but it's your lucky day. The courts are getting weighed down so we're not looking to go to trial. Which means your plea options are a bit more decent than they should be."
"That's good news, Robby," I nudge him.
"But," She continues and then she starts reading off of the paper. "We have video tapes, witnesses, finger prints, stolen property found on your person, victim's blood on your clothes. Like I said—not much wiggle room. I have two plea deals for you to consider. My first one is 12 years if you plead guilty. The second one is 7 years if you plead guilty and give me the names of your three buddies. Consider them, and let me know which one you would prefer."
"No," Robby says immediately.
"She said to think about it," I remind him with an aggravated glare.
"My client is interested in pleading innocent," James informs Gabby. He looks embarrassed to even be saying that because everybody except for my brother can see just how stupid it is that he's thinking about that as an option.
"What?" Gabby looks thrown off by that. "Do you want me to repeat the list of evidence we have against you?"
"It wasn't my fault," Robby explains to her and then looks over at me, as if to convince me to believe him too.
"Robert," I snap at him, using his full name which makes it clear that I mean business. "I swear to god, if you start whining that your friends made you do it, I am going to throw this table at you. Tell her the names and take the 7 years. That's not so bad."
"They did," He insists. I can't lift the table so that was an empty threat but I sure wish that I was strong enough because I'm feeling so incredibly frustrated right now at my brother. "We had been drinking. I didn't want to go but they were my ride so I didn't have a choice."
"Did somebody hold a gun to your head and tell you to stab a man?" Gabby questions him sarcastically. "Because I've seen the security footage and I must have missed that part. Listen, Mr. Clarke, we don't want to go to court but we cannot budge on the 7 years and that's only if you cooperate. If you take this to court, we will be asking for the max penalty."
"That's 20 years, Mr. Clarke," James informs my stupid brother. "I need some time with my client."
"I need an answer today," Gabby tells them.
"You don't need time with Robby," I tell James and then I look at Robby, feeling angrier at him than I ever have before. "How is this even something that you have to think about, Robby? Are you fucking kidding me? How many times do I have to tell you that you not going to prison is not an option? You are going to prison. Whether you like it or not, you are going. The question now is if you are going for seven years or twenty years. So grow the fuck up and accept responsibility, you fucking dumbass. You are willing to leave me stuck here without you for twenty years just because you can't let go of your pride? Can you stop being so goddam selfish?"
"I'm the one being selfish, Yaz?" He raises his eyebrows at me.
"Oh, right," I sarcastically give up my argument. "I'm only thinking about myself. Your life will be so much easier if you're in prison for 13 more years than necessary. What was I even thinking? You go ahead and go to prison for twenty years because that's clearly what's best for you."
"I can win this. I've told you that," Robby insists.
"Did you stab a man?" I ask him curiously. "Did somebody physically force you to stab him? Or threaten you? And don't you dare tell me that it was self-defense because he was protecting his wife. You were attacking them. You are a monster. You know what? Don't take a plea deal. Whatever. Just rot in prison for twenty years, alone. It's probably what you deserve, anyway."
"Yasmine," He says slowly as I stand up from the table to leave. I'm so angry at him for being so hard-headed and ridiculous. I'm so angry at him for leaving me and for doing this to himself. Prison is dangerous, he could get attacked or murdered in there.
"I can't do this on my own," I'm starting to cry, both because I'm afraid for Robby and my tears are also kind of rage tears as well. The two lawyers just watch us, probably not sure what to say to us right now. "I can't get you out of here. Nobody can. If you are going to be this stupid, I can't convince you to do the smart thing. You are abandoning everybody. Me, Dad, Zero, we all need you and you just don't care. You don't care! Wake the fuck up before you're spending the next twenty years of your life behind bars. If you even survive that long."
"Don't say that," Robby objects.
"Whatever," I head for the door of the room. "Let me know what you decide."
"Yaz, don't leave," He calls to me but I still knock on the door so that the officer opens the door for me and I leave so that I can gather my things from the locker and get the hell out of here. I can't believe that I thought that being here would help. I thought that he could see how miserable he was making me, how miserable I would be without him around for the rest of my young life.
He's obviously convinced that he's onto something and that he will somehow be able to convince a jury that he's innocent. After they've seen the video of him stabbing somebody, he's going to tell them that they didn't actually stab somebody, and then they're going to believe him.
Robby is charismatic when he wants to be, I'll give him that, but he can't charm his way out of this.
Once I get back outside, I dry my eyes and then I drive back home. With my hands on the wheel, I glance down at the ring on my right-hand ring finger with the heart-shaped ruby gem on the front. It used to be my mother's and I rarely ever take it off.
I wonder if she would have been able to convince him to take the plea deal if she was here. She was always the most charismatic, it's where Robby got all of his charm from. I got my father's social awkwardness. She could convince anybody to do anything with a friendly smile and a calm, reasonable tone of voice.
I bet she would have been able to convince him to take the 7-year sentence instead of risking the twenty.
I guess that I should have tried to reason with him more instead of just getting angry but I feel like I've tried to reason with him before, I've done as much as I can without losing my patience.
Half an hour later, I'm returning to my house but I don't get to relax because as I'm pulling into the driveway, I see Dex sitting on my front porch.
I haven't seen him since I dropped him off at his house when he was drunk, after he had been discussing my lack of sex life with Sage. It was only two days ago but I was hoping that I wouldn't have to see him again for a while. It'll take me a long time to heal from the amount of humiliation I endured that night.
Not only that, but he's sleeping with the woman trying to put my brother in jail. I know that it's not her fault and if anything, she's on the right side of things. Putting bad people in jail. But I guess that I'm on the side of the bad people in this case, so he's sleeping with the enemy and I'm not in the mood to talk to him.
I almost don't want to get out of the car. I just want to drive away and pretend like I don't even notice him there.
I don't do that though, because I've already pulled into the driveway. So, I get out of the car and I hope that whatever he wants is going to be fast because I just want to get inside and maybe take a nap or figure out what I'm going to do here without Robby around to keep me sane.
"What's up?" I ask Dex, leaning against my car. He walks closer to me so that he's standing maybe a meter or two away from me.
"Gabby called," He informs me.
"Yeah?"
"She told me that she's working your brother's case," He adds. "And that his sister was in the meeting, she said that you totally freaked out."
"Did you seriously come over here to tell me that I'm upset because my brother is going to prison?" I raise my eyebrows at him. I do adore his beautiful face and his addictive aura of mystery but I can barely even think about that right now. "Because I already know that."
"Well, no. I couldn't tell Sage that I know that you're upset," He explains. "Because she doesn't know about Gabby. So I just came over to see if you were okay."
"Oh, I'm just fine, Olly, thanks for checking in," I start to head toward the house.
"Tell me what would cheer you up," He suggests.
"Why?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why do you think that it's your job to cheer me up?" I clarify for him. "I just think that you're getting nervous because I'm starting to work with Amber on the mural so you're trying to stay on my good side so that I don't change my mind about keeping your secret. If I needed to be cheered up, I would have just called Sage myself but thanks for the effort."
"Hey, that's only 90 percent of why I'm here," He informs me with a straight face. I can't tell if he's joking or not.
"And the other 10 percent?" I wonder curiously.
"I wanted to apologize for the other night."
"Bringing up that disaster is about the worst strategy to cheering me up I've ever seen," I mumble. "But sure, whatever, your forgiven. I've already forgotten about it. I have to go feed my dog."
"Are you sure that you're good?" He questions me.
I pass him to go into my house and I know that he won't follow me in there because he's afraid of Zero. Before I close the door between us, I answer him. "I'm as good as I'm going to get."