picture you-monsters: the lyle and erik menendez story.

chapter 11.

"Lyle, I'm sorry. I can't do this while you're in here. I can't date you. I can support you, I can believe you. But I can't let myself do this anymore." Laurie's voice cracked as she spoke through the phone.

Lyles hair was disheveled as he put his head into his free hand, letting out a hard sigh.

"I'm sorry." He looked up at her.

"Out of all times to do this?"

Laurie swallowed thickly, her knuckles tinting white from the force of holding the phone in her hand. Lyles voice was so pained.

Lyle was angry. He was always short tempered and hot headed—any little thing setting him off—but now he just sounded sad. One of the emotions she rarely saw from him.

"Lyle, I'm so sorry. I love you. I love you so much. And I'm gonna be here for you, but I have to look out for myself too for the long run."

"The long run? You're worried about yourself? Laurie, I'm in here for the rest of my life possibly. I'm never leaving this prison."

A tear rolled down her face.

"I want you. I've always wanted you. But I can't just...I can't let myself do this."

The same year, 1994, her single "A Pearl" released. She confirmed it was about that exact moment.

Laurie kept her promise to be there and believe Lyle and Erik. And even Rosealine.

The trial was long and was a mess of reporters and journalists flocking the area like crows around roadkill.

The snap, click and flash. The snapping and pointing at the camera. The wave of people.

The day of the sentencing was the worst. Laurie walked outside the courtroom, nothing else left to do but go home. She was crying, the back of her hand over her nose and mouth as small cries and sniffles left her.

People were outside, screaming at her. Begging for an autograph, or to look at the camera for a shot. People swarmed her, every step she took they took two.

Laurie yelled out in a fit of rage and punched the lens of a camera.

"Fuck off! Cant you see I'm fucking upset?!" She screamed at the man as she blew air on her knuckles to try and ease the hot pain throbbing through them.

"Laurie—Laurie, cmon honey." It was Martin. He had his hand on the small of Laurie's back, leading her. He put his hand out, yelling at people to let them though.

They parted, snapping up close pictures of Laurie's now oozing blood knuckles as she sped away from the scene.

She had to get six stitches in her knuckles. She sat in the emergency room with Martin, gauze wrapped around her knuckles as she sat there on the bed, unmoving as she stared at the tile floor. The only sound of the world present to her was the humming of the fluorescent lights above her. The stench of sterilization and must lingered in the air.

"I'm gonna go grab a water. Do you want anything?" Laurie shook her head and Martin moved the curtain before leaving.

A thing blue curtain hung between her and two other patients in beds. A nurse threw the curtain back on her left, retrieving a tool from Laurie's side of the room. She didn't move the curtain back before she left.

Laurie looked over at the patient beside her. An old woman laying in the hospital bed. She wasn't too old, possibly only in her early 60s but she had a full set of white hair with wrinkles on her face. Her fingers and shoulders were slender and bony, the light blue and purple veins poking out against her porcelain skin.