Chenford Story ✔️

39

Lucy's POV

"On accounts of second degree murder we find the defendant...
Innocent"

Innocent. They had found my innocent.
That was... surprising.

But I wasn't innocent. I had killed him. Watched him die and did nothing. I couldn't be innocent. I-i couldn't be...

I sank to the floor on my knees.
Even the happy cheers of all my friends were drowned out by the beating of my own heart. I couldn't be innocent.
"I-i-i"
"I know Lucy isn't it great, you can go home!"
Wesley looked down at me with a beaming smile.
I looked up with one equally a big, infinitely more forced. I wasn't happy.
If being a police officer had taught me anything it was that criminals deserved to be punished. And I was a criminal.

Tim's POV

She was innocent. Lucy was innocent. She could come home.
Lucy could come home to me and Juniper.
Angela squeezed me tightly, "I knew we could do it"
"So did I. Lucy must be so happy!"
"But still you seem happier"
"Yeah, the woman I love isn't going to jail"
"True, wait LOVE?! You love Lucy?!"
I must have blushed hard.
Angela knew that we liked eachother enough to have an entire child together, even though that was an accident. But she had never outright heard me say I loved Lucy.
"Yeah. I love her"
Angela just squeezed me tighter
"I'm so happy for you guys"
I chuckled and hugged her back.
"Yeah me too"

Lucy's POV

Walking out of the courtroom I was in a daze. I-i was going home. To Tim and Juniper.

My baby. Juniper. In the first few months of not seeing her, I had missed Juniper more than anyone in the world. Now I just...
I didn't even know my own daughter.

Sure I wanted to be with her possibly more than anything else in the world. But I also knew nothing. Not how to raise a baby, how to care for another person.

Sure I had looked after Tamara, but she was mostly independent. Almost fully grown already. Now I would have to take care of a baby. That was a scary thought.

I left the courtroom and waiting outside for everyone else. I needed to thank Wesley. Even if I wasn't exactly sure if I would prefer to go to prison or not.
I deserved to. That was a guilt that wouldn't go away. I had been hiding that secret for 16 years and even now that everyone knew I had still done it. I no longer needed to look over my shoulder, but now I would have to look at everyone. Knowing that they would see my differently.
Because at the end of the day, I still did it. I still killed a man. That fact was unavoidable. I was a murderer.

I was partially covering just confessing to the crime and making sure they gave me another trial. Do something to make sure they came back with a guilty verdict this time. I couldn't walk the streets as a free woman knowing what I had done.

For years it had been different. I had buried the truth deep within me. Trying to forget it even existed. Now I couldn't do that. Because everyone knew. They all knew what I had done. So I couldn't bury it. Now I couldn't avoid what I had done, I was a murderer who didn't deserve to be waking free.

Tim's POV

Walking towards Lucy I saw her pacing around the pavement. She didn't seem as happy as I had imagined. Maybe the reality just hadn't set in yet?

"Hey Lucy"
Lucy seemed transfixed on something, a thought, a memory. Something from within her brain.
"Lucy?"
She looked over at me.
Her expression was neutral, not sad, but not happy.
Not the expression of someone who had just been declared innocent.

"Hi Tim"
"Hey. Um, you ok?"
"Fine"
"That's good. You just seem... Lost in thought"
"Yeah, just. A lot to take in all at once."
"I get that. Maybe do you want to go home?"
Lucy nodded.
Home.
Lucy was actually, finally coming home.
For good this time. I would make sure of that.

A/N
Sorry for the shorter chapter I just wanted to end with Lucy coming home.
Will update next in a few days.
I have one more major storyline left so probably 10 or so chapters though it may be way more.
Thank you for reading, voting and interacting so far.