as it is || harry styles au

forty-one

tw // mention of sexual assault, physical violence

i v o r y

f e b r u a r y 1
—  1 m o n t h l a t e r  —

"Momma, did you know it's Harry's birthday?"

I was impressed my son pronounced birthday right. There was normally an f-sound in the middle of the word for him.

"I did know that, baby."

I knew it all too well. At the start of the call, I'd been holding my emotion back as long as possible, keeping a bright and happy smile on my face, it took less than a minute for Harry to call me out on it, and I ended up a blubbering mess over FaceTime.

Our first birthday back together, and I wasn't there. I was in Boston.

My son's smile faded fast as he took the phone out of Harry's hand. His face, the structure so similar to mine, ended up filling the screen. "I miss you, Momma."

The sting of tears hit my eyes. It'd taken ten minutes for Harry to calm me down before he called Jamie into the room to say hi. Now, his hard work was beginning to unravel.

"I miss you so much more, James. You know I would never leave you for this long if it wasn't super important, right?"

"I know." His tone was sad and his eyes casted low. "When you're all done with the bad guy, you're coming home, right?"

It took Michelle Keough only four days to find an attorney in the Boston area who would take up my case in all its fuzzy and grey glory. Since she wasn't licensed in the state of Massachusetts, she worked tirelessly and didn't settle for anybody who wasn't as rage-filled and passionate about the situation as she was.

Tristyn Bentley not only took up my grey-area'd case, but cleared the fog for me like a lighthouse to a a ship lost at sea.

She was a personal injury lawyer with a fierce reputation in the courtroom, according to the calls for reference Michelle made. When speaking with Tristyn, she made me feel safe and reaffirmed to me that I was making the right decision. Together, with Michelle over my shoulder, we came up with multiple avenues to proceed down—Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and so on.

Plan A was to pursue criminal charges of sexual assault and stalking. Massachusetts had a statute of limitations of around six years for felonies and misdemeanors, but none for sexual assault. While the rape kit test I had taken was inconclusive after I'd taken a shower and rubbed my skin raw the night of the assault, according to Tristyn, the circumstantial evidence was indisputable.

Plan B would be a response to Plan A's potential failure. I would need to obtain both an in-state and out-of-state protection order for myself and Jamie. If Plan A was set in motion and ended up failing, Jake would not take well to his name having been dragged through the mud. I would stay in Massachusetts for some time to let the water settle after Plan A and see if he abided by the restraining order.

Plan C would serve in addition to Plan B. If Jake didn't abide by said restraining order, we'd go public with my case. We'd contact as many news outlets as we could, whether it be local or national, and tell them what a monster the baseball phenom Jake Carter was.