All those years ago- Joseph Quinn

I'm scared

"If you can however prove the abusive relationship we can win the case easily on the basis of protection" the lawyer told the pair.

They were both sat in Joe's kitchen with the lawyer discussing the grounds on which they stand in the case of the chargers pressed against Joe.

"But he's a lawyer, and a good one at that" she rolled her eyes. "I feel like he'd only do this if he knew we couldn't prove the abuse" Addie groaned sinking in her chair.

"We have pictures"Joe stated. "Addie you've got texts too" he defended.

"In order to really use this in the case it has to have been reported to the police- Adrianna did you report it?"

"No" she bluntly stated.

"Well first things first you need to go to the police and file a report, gather witnesses etc and then we'll move from there."

"What if I don't want to report it?" She blurted out as she sat upright in her chair again. Both the lawyer and Joe looked at her confused, neither quite understanding what she meant.

"Well then Joe's case doesn't look promising" the lawyer explained shrugging his shoulders. "They've got CCTV footage of the incident, no proof as to why Joe would feel it necessary to defend you and himself." He added. She just diverted her eyes to the table in front of her, her eyes following along the lines in the wood. Them all falling into a silence that was uncomfortable.

"Right I'm going to let myself and I'm going to leave you two to discuss this, just get back to me with what you want to do and we'll go from there." The lawyer excused himself and left, leaving Addie and Joe in the remaining lingering silence.

"Addie what do you mean not reporting it?" Joe asked braising the silence, her head snapped up, embarrassment present on her face.

"Look being a woman is hard enough but reporting things like this? No one believes us" she sighed. "I don't want to fight with men who side with their own gender instead of understanding that women deal with so much more than they'll ever know."

"You don't know what'll happen" Joe shook his head.

"I've been a female my entire life I'm pretty sure I could take a guess Joe" she said in frustration before storming out the room.

She didn't want to fight with Joe but she also hadn't thought about pressing charges against Caleb at all. The new thought leaving an outstanding amount of fear and self doubt in her mind. She knew she wanted to help Joe but she was worried this would tarnish everything, her entire career has been built on her name and her trust, scared pressing charges would remove business options from her grasp. She knew she was being selfish but the fear of not being believed was sinking in, she'd seen friends over the years file cases against ex boyfriends or even random men in the street harassing them and watched them fall apart during the case just for the jury not to believe them in the end. Always leaving the men getting off with whatever they did, facing no consequences, leaving the person they hurt tens of thousands of pounds out and broken. She didn't want that for herself, she didn't want her name associated with him, she didn't want her career lost and her mental health destroyed, but she did want Joe, so she found herself in an unique position. Sighing in frustration at her reflection in the mirror, it had been 4 days since the charges were pressed and in 4 days she was certain she had only managed to have a total of 5 hours sleep and it was showing. She knew Joe was in the same position, neither of them really talking about it deeply nor talking much at all, silently eating dinner and taking turns on who walked Lola. She could see it across his face that this was eating him alive, he'd never gotten into trouble before really, never mind with the law, it was all a new experience and not a welcome one either.