Behind my smile (UNDER EDITING.)

Chapter 16

And for every story, there's hope, and leverage, and Hayley may or may not find hers.

•••••

H A Y L E Y

Sick to my stomach.

    I feel the way my bones tensed, how my fingers cracked due to the tremendous pressure. How my heart shattered, glass digging deep into my skin.

   I'm bleeding. Internally. I feel the blood rushing down my body in speed, making me dizzy. My body is slumped against the wall, tiredness hogging over me. "How.."

    The tears brushing my cheeks feel salty as they met my lips. My tongue drapes over them, grasping into any sort of emotion. And yet, I didn't feel. "How on earth are they so close to-"

   "They are not." Hayden's lawyer interjects Annie.

    I tone out their argument, my hands pressed against my face, hiding any sort of weakness. But they are! I wanted to yell, scream at his face for giving us hope.

     There will never be hope in a story like mine.

  How naive must I have been this entire time. I thought I would get through this; feel the peace I have been logging for years. But, my parents are always in the way.

     Zoning back into their repetitive argument, I harshly wipe any sort of emotional evidence off my face. Frustrated, I stand. Everyone turns towards me. "I respect you enough to not yell at you, but you are making it hard with all the fibs you are sprawling right now!"

  The lawyer turns to me. Annie mimics him.

  "I understand you want to give us hope, but it is doing nothing but damage us. So, If you would kindly speak the harsh truth, we can figure out a way to win this court case."

    Hayden tsk's at the silence, "Shes right. No time for disagreements. We have enough evidence, so do they, but they don't have one weapon and that is-" Hayden turns towards Annie and I and flings a finger, "- their daughters."

  I smirk, ignoring the emptiness dragging me down. Begging for me to sit back on the floor and just accept that my parents are winning the case so far. That all the effort I had put is now abandoned, unwanted.

    The lawyer smirks along side me, his eyebrows raised. "Hayley. You are more knowledgeable than I had calculated."

   "Thanks."

   •••••

  After the fifteen minute break finished, everyone is sitting back down on their assigned chairs. The atmosphere is intense, suffocating.
As people mumbled to each other, I take a swift glance towards my loveable parents.

   And there sat my mother staring angrily into my eyes, I can see how livid she is that I put her in a position as such. That she believed this is all useless, nothing will come out of it.

   And somehow, I begin believing it too.

   "Relax." The lawyer whispers, placing all sorts of evidence on the table that was not used before, I rapidly gaze at them, seeing all the pain I had suffered being put in display is so unbearable. And yet, I am not ashamed to display them to the court room; as long as my parents land behind bars and afar from me.