*2001*
I rubbed my hands together, not knowing what to do until that moment would come that I dreaded. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. How did I ever think that I would be brave enough to tell my story in front of all these people. I looked down at my knees, but could still hear all the murmuring around me. The entire court room was packed with people and everyone was anxious for the hearing to start. Nobody as much as me, though.
I felt Vic lay his hand on my hands that I couldn’t keep still. As he started rubbing circles on the palm of my left hand with his thumb, I looked up at him and saw that he was also very nervous. He did his best to hide it, though, for my sake. I tried to shoot him a smile, but I don’t think I succeeded at that.
“At least it will all be over after today.” He said, his voice shaking. I nodded, but knew that wasn’t true. Yes, I could go home after I had done my statement, but the horror wouldn’t just end. I knew that these kinds of complicated cases usually took more than one hearing to be concluded. And this was the most complicated case of them all. A high school drama that ended in a murder, one of the killers being only seventeen years old, the others being barely eighteen. No, I knew they wouldn’t be immediately charged after this. But I couldn’t tell Vic this. Partly because I didn’t want to think about that either, but also because I couldn’t hurt him.
I looked to my left where my father was sitting. He was also keeping up a calm façade for me. I guess they both realized that I needed them today, that this would be the hardest thing I had ever done. My dad noticed that I was looking at him and he turned his head towards me. He shot me an encouraging wink. For a moment it seemed like he also wanted to say something to me, but he held back. He probably didn’t know what to say. It didn’t matter. I was just happy he was here and not my mom.
At that moment, the judge entered the room in his black rope. He walked up to the back of the room and sat down behind the brown table elevated above the rest. It all seemed so surreal at that moment, I had only seen a scene like this in American movies. Never in a million years would I expect to be in this situation.
The judge hit his wooden hammer down at his desk and the murmuring stopped immediately. I didn’t listen to him when he went on listing all the aspects of the case. Somewhere he mentioned the words ‘Luna Fall’ and ‘Kidnapping’ in one sentence and of course I picked up Leah’s name, but that was everything that came through to me. In my head I was figuring out ways to get out of this, but I knew I couldn’t.
At the end of the speech, I picked up a few words that made my heart drop into my stomach. “Please bring in the suspects: Ryan Harris, Peter Lake and Justin Smith.”
I didn’t dare to look up, but heard people gasp and make disgusted noises. For everyone in this neighborhood this had been the most horrible thing that happened in years. I tried to shut everyone out, but still felt my breathing speed up like crazy. I tried to focus on Vic and my dad holding my hands and tried to get strength out of that. I could already feel the tears threating to spill, but forced myself to hold them back. If I would cry now, I would break down and I wouldn’t be able to make my statement.
It took a while before the hearing could start, due to the fact that people wouldn’t stop talking. I could understand why people were confused. At one hand that group of boys sitting before the judge had committed horrible crimes, but at the other hand they were just kids. Did they deserve to spend the rest of their lives in jail? I think the answer to that differed from person to person.
From the moment the hearing started it was clear that the conclusion that they were guilty was already made. That was of course mainly because the statement I was about to make. The only questions that remain were: what should be done with them and whether it was murder or manslaughter. At first I didn’t know what the difference between those two was, but back home my dad had explained to me that murder is planned and manslaughter was committed in the heat of the moment. I couldn’t really see why that was of any importance. Someone was dead. Someone sweet, funny and full of hopes and dreams.
I had to try even harder to keep myself from crying and started shaking. Vic felt it and planted a kiss on the hand he was holding. It made me calm down a little bit, but I was still slightly shaking.
“I call forward, Luna Fall!” Leah’s lawyer called out after I had zoned out for a while. I looked up from my knees from the first time in half an hour. “Witness to the death of Leah Whitmore and victim of abduction performed by all three the suspects.”
I felt all the eyes in the room land on me and my shaking started speeding up again. I froze, long enough for it to be awkward, but then my dad helped me up and I realized I had to walk up to the back of the room. I wished for either Vic or my dad to walk with me, because my legs felt like chewing gum, but they both kept seated. They couldn’t help me with this. As I walked passed her, Leah’s lawyer, Mrs. Van Dam, shot me a serious look. It honestly made me even more afraid. I had met her before while preparing my statement. She was supposedly very good at her job, but she just scared me, to be honest.
I walked to the low wooden desk next to the one of the judge. I knew I wasn’t supposed to sit down yet when someone of the jury came forward with a bible. As I knew as I was meant to do, I put my hand down on it and my other hand in the air.
“Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?” the man asked me in a dramatic tone. Even though I wasn’t religious in any sense, it still felt unbelievably real when I mumbled “I swear” in front of the entire room.
As soon as the man of the jury had gone back to his seat between the other jury members, Mrs. Van Dam walked up to me and shot me a caring look. “First of all, Ms. Fall, I want to stress that you are totally save here and that everyone in here thinks you’re incredibly brave for coming forward today.” She said with a warmth in her voice. I think she was being sincere.
I just nodded, since I didn’t really know any other way to respond.
She nodded too and started pacing through the room. “First a few basic questions. Your name is Luna Christine Fall, you were born on March Twelfth, 1984, which makes you now seventeen years old and you were born in Bristol, England. Am I right?” she asked. She summed up my personal information so quickly that I could hardly follow it.
“Yes, that’s right.” I said, my voice sounding so weak and small compared to hers.
Leah’s lawyer nodded again and kept on pacing, apparently thinking very about something. “So, tell me, Ms. Fall, what was your relation to the other victim, Ms. Whitmore?”
I looked for Vic’s eyes in the crowd and found them. He shot me an encouraging smile, but it didn’t help with the lump in my throat. If I already thought this question was hard, what was I supposed to do when she would ask me the really difficult questions?
I looked my hands in my lap. “She was my friend. I didn’t know her for that long, but she was there for me.”
“And the suspects? What kind of relation do you have with them?”
I kept my looking at my lap. In the corner of my eyes, I saw three orange suits and I knew it was them. But I knew I couldn’t do this while looking at them. “Not really much of a relationship. I know all three of them from school. They definitely weren’t nice to me or my friends.”
“Can you specify what you mean by ‘not being nice’?”
“They called me names and pushed me as I walked by. They made everyone in the school ignore my boyfriend.” I said. Most of my answers were pre-rehearsed so they would come over a certain way in court, but I added the thing about Vic on the spot.
“And could you please tell me what happened the day you were abducted.”
I sighed and emptied my mind. “I was waiting at my locker, when he grabbed me from behind and took me with him…”
“You have to name names, honey.” The judge told me with pity in his voice. I looked up at him and he shot me a smile. It was a middle-aged, balding man. He looked very serious, but he sounded like a very nice person.
I nodded. “Ryan Harris… He took me away and Peter and Justin helped. They took me to this old shed in a bad neighborhood, where they tied me down…They left me there for a couple of days… I wasn’t really aware of how long it was.” I said. I was aware that everyone in the room was hanging on to every word I said and I tried to push the thought away that I was possibly ruining someone’s live. I knew they deserved it. But it still felt bad.
“What did they do to you while you were there?” Mrs. Van Dam asked me. I looked at her with a desperate look and without talking she begged me to cooperate.
I sighed again. “Sometimes they would hit me, or threaten my friends. Ryan cut me with a knife…in my face…and Peter and Justin they…they would touch my breasts.” I said. I was also going to say that they starved me, but I couldn’t speak anymore. I felt so small and embarrassed. Tears welt up in my eyes.
Mrs. Van Dam walked up to me and looked me in the eyes with a piercing look. “Look, I know this is hard, but just hold on a little bit longer. We’re almost at the important part.”
I nodded and took my eyes away from hers. I took a deep breath and the shaking became a little less.
She stood up again and continued her pacing through the courtroom, her heels making clicking sounds on the marble floor. “So, Ms. Fall, were you there when Ms. Whitmore lost her life?” she asked and I did my best to think of it as a normal question. One that wouldn’t make me as upset as it did. A simple question like: is one plus one two?
“Yes.”
“What happened, according to you?”
I told my pre-rehearsed story as quick and monotone as possible so I wouldn’t have to think about it too much. “I heard someone walk towards me. I thought it was Ryan, Peter and Justin. It turned out to be Leah. She was there to save me. She climbed through the little window and freed me, but she was caught by them. They started beating and kicking her and…” I said and I suddenly felt three pairs of eyes burning their sight into my skin. Those eyes belonged to three people whose futures depended on me.
I couldn’t help but look up at them for the first time. I was overwhelmed by shock as there was nothing left of the three scary boys that had made my life a living hell. They looked tired and hopeless. But the thing that shocked me the most was the fact that I thought I saw regret in their eyes.
“Ms. Fall, tell us all. Did you see Mr. Harris, Mr. Lake and Mr. Smith kill Ms. Whitmore?” Leah’s Lawyer asked me as she slammed her hands down on my desk. The sound of it wasn’t enough to break the stare between me and Ryan, who looked at me with waves of sadness in his eyes. Without saying a word, he was begging me to spare him.
But it needed to be over. There was only one way this could be all over. “Yes.” I said while not breaking the eye contact I had so feared. The tears started finally falling over my cheeks and I had to keep myself from sobbing. From what it looked like, Ryan had the same problem.
His friends didn’t have the strength he had, as Peter and Justin started crying. Their lawyer dragged her hands over her face, but she seemed to be expecting it. By the time I had taken my eyes of them, the entire courtroom had erupted in shocked conversation, the jury being no exception. At one point the sound level had become so high that the judge had to slam his hammer on his desk at full force until everyone was quiet again. “Let’s take a short break.” He said even though there was still a lot of talking going on.
As I left the courtroom with my father and Vic at my sides, I looked over my shoulder and took one last look at the people who had ruined my life. Justin and Peter had their head in their hands, but Ryan just looked forward. He tried very hard to look emotionless, but the desperation was readable of his face. The second before I turned around the corner, he looked back at me with all the anger he could still manage to channel. Which wasn’t much, but it was enough for that look to return to me in my nightmares.
That was the last time I saw Ryan Harris and his minions.

*2017*
I let the tips of my fingers grace over the glass of the framed picture I had in my hand. The glass had become filthy with dirt and little leaves and it was cracked in the corner. The picture itself had turned yellow and only a few colors had remained in it. One of those colors was the bright red of Leah’s hair. The color of her lips had almost completely faded away, but you could see the outline of her contagious smile.
I carefully put the frame back on the ground before Leah’s gravestone. It had been so long since I had been here, but it seemed like the only logical place to go at this moment. I noticed that a lot more gravestones had been added since I had last been here over thirteen years ago. I found myself starting to wonder if those people had left the world so abruptly as Leah had done. Did they still have a lot to do? Or where they old and content when they passed away?
I let out a sigh and took of my coat. It wasn’t that cold, but the grass was slightly damp, so I put my coat down on the ground so I could sit across from the gravestone. The letters on the stone that had formed her name had been covered in dirt, so they almost weren’t readable anymore. Even though the stone looked like it was more than a decade old, as it was, there was a relatively new bouquet of flowers placed in front of it, consistent of fire-red flowers. One of the flowers had orange stripes on it, like it was literally made out of flames. It fitted her perfectly. At least for as much as I remember about her. Whether I wanted to or not, my memories of her had faded quite a lot over the years.
I knew the bouquet was from her dad. If I had lost a kid I would visit the grave as much as I could and I was happy that she wasn’t all alone all the time. Even though I knew she wasn’t really here anymore. I tried to ban the thought from my mind that she was probably nothing more than a heap of bones.
“So…Hi.” I let out, remembering that I used to talk to her gravestone all the time. It didn’t feel as normal as it felt back then. Could you grow apart from people that weren’t alive anymore?
“Leah…I hope you don’t mind that I’m here. I didn’t know where else to go, you know.” I started. “I know I haven’t been here in a while, but I’ve just heard some news that I just can’t shake and it is about you, in a certain way, so… Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”
I looked up at the sky to find a way to even say what was on my mind. The morning sun shone through the light-grey clouds. “A few hours ago, I got a phone call that Ryan will be released from prison today.” I said, not believing the words coming from my mouth. “I mean, I could’ve seen it coming. He was sentenced fifteen years in prison and it has been almost sixteen now, but I thought I would be emotionally ready by the time it would happen…I guess I’ll never be totally ready for this. That’s the funny thing about trauma’s.” I said with a chuckle.
I looked at her picture on which she was so lively and happy. “I wonder what you would’ve wanted…Would you’ve wanted him to be in prison for longer? Would you want him to have a second chance?” I asked, suddenly realizing what a stupid question it was. “I couldn’t understand if you wanted that. He had so many chances to make things right, but he didn’t. I mean, yeah, he was your cousin, but does that even matter when you betray someone that badly?”
I remained quiet for a while. “Ah well, I guess it doesn’t matter to you anymore. There’s no way you can come back anyway. This whole situation…I guess it just reminds me of that I still miss you. After all those years.”
“Could’ve known I wouldn’t be the only one showing up after what’s going to happen today.” I heard a familiar voice say from behind me.
I jumped a little even though I immediately recognized his voice. I turned around with my hand on my heart. “Don’t you know better than to scare people on a cemetery, Tony?”
The tall, dark man before me chuckled and scratched his neck. “I’m sorry.” He said and he sat down next to me before the gravestone of our mutual lost friend.
“So, I figure you’ve heard the news too, huh?” I asked him. Even though Leah had been his friend too, I was still surprised to see him here.
“They called Vic…the police. Ryan is under supervision, but due to their past together, they decided to give Vic a heads up. As a warning” He said as he stared at the faded picture of Leah.
I nodded. “Wise decision.” I said. Of course, the possibility of Ryan sending those message to me had crossed my mind, but there was no way he could’ve done that if he is only out now. I just had to trust in the system of the law and hope that he is not dangerous. And that sucked enormously.
Suddenly I noticed that Tony was carrying something. “A red rose…Weird choice.” I said and I couldn’t help but giggle at the blush on Tony’s cheeks.
“Ah well, little confession: I might’ve had a little crush on her when we were in high school.” He said and he beamed towards Leah’s picture. “I was always too much of a coward to tell her, though. Only realized how stupid that was when she died of course. I hope this makes it up a little.” He raised the rose and put it on her grave, just before her picture.
I suddenly felt really bad for him. He must’ve gone through a lot around that time. And he had concealed it very good too. Although I wasn’t really in the mind-space to notice anything anyway. I was going through my zombie phase back then.
“Really stupid question, but I have to ask it: Are you okay?” he asked and he turned his head towards me.
I kept looking at Leah’s picture and shrugged. “I’ve been better. I just feel so small. I could go through all of that horror again, now.” I said.
Tony put his arm around me and pulled my head towards his shoulder. “No, you’re much stronger now.” He said, his voice bringing a warmth to my ears that made me almost believe what he said. Tony was such a fairy godmother in a sense.
I hugged him back and buried my nose in his shoulder. “I’m not. But I want to be.” I said. I needed to be stronger. For just a little while longer.
My hair fell before my eyes and I took a strand of it between my fingers. I think I knew what step one would be.

Notes

Yaaay it has been four months :'( I can't promise I will update quickly, but I will make it as soon as I can! I don't blame anyone who hasn't stuck around anymore for this story, but I highly appreciate everyone who did!

Sorry if the court scene was very inaccurate. I hardly know how these kinds of things go in my own country, let along in the US.

I love you all.

xxxx