Married To Baseball

In The Snow.

Jailyn~

"Thank you," Tonya says, hugging me tightly after reaching their car in the parking lot, "For everything."

"Of course," I tell her, hugging her as tight as she's hugging me, "Please don't hesitate to reach out, and I mean that, if you guys ever need anything."

"We will," Tonya assures me. After hugging a few moments longer Tonya breaks away and Johnathan takes her place.

He doesn't say anything as he holds onto me tightly. The silence is welcome, knowing there's not much to be said. His little girl is gone, but at least the culprit has been convicted. My eyes start to well up again as he hugs me. It's not fair that any of us are here, but at least the piece of shit is going to prison for the rest of his life.

Once Johnathon lets me go, I lean into Christian as we say our goodbyes with the Taylors. It's been a long few weeks, but at least this whole thing is almost over. In three weeks, the sentencing for my case will be announced, and not long after, the sentencing for Olivia's will be too. While there's never going to be a way to just move on, living with the reality we have will be a little easier once the whole case is behind us.

As soon as Christian and I get home, I grab the keys to my Jeep and start heading out. "Hey, where are you going?"

"For a drive," I let Christian know, "I'll be back soon, just trying to clear my head a little."

"You've got your phone?" He asks, knowing I've been staying as far from it as I can.

I nod and grab it from where it'd been resting on our entry table. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I reply, giving him a small smile before I head out the door.

Setting my phone into the cup holder it seemingly only ever gets at most thirty seconds before a new notification pops up. That's really not going to help me get some space from everything. Starting my Jeep I pull out and head north to the closest Best Buy.

Scanning through the used phones, I can't help but chuckle, finding a purple Razor. My mom had that phone when I was little. "I'll take that one."

"Are we transferring a number or opening a new line?" the employee asks.

"New line please," I reply watching as he grabs the phone and pops the sim card slot open.

"I'm sorry for asking, but," the employee starts, "What do you, of all people, need a burner for?"

Letting out a breath, I shrug, "Kinda trying to go off the radar for a bit. The hubby would prefer at least some way to contact me." He nods, chuckling a little as he gets everything set up.

After checking out, I get back into my Jeep and open my phone, ignoring every notification as I pull up Christian's contact and dial it on my new phone. After a couple of rings, Christian answers, "Hello?"

"Hey, it's me," I say.

"JJ, everything okay?" He asks, clearly confused by me calling off a different number, "Whose phone are you calling from?"

"Mine, I got a burner," I tell him, "If you need anything, call me on this number. I'm turning my other phone off, I can't really get space to think with five thousand notifications going off."

"Okay, thanks for letting me know," He answers.

"I'll be home in a bit, I love you."

"I love you, too."

Starting off again, I don't have a plan of where to go, only that driving will help give me something to do to let me think, to let me clear my head.

At some point, I cut over to 41 and head towards Menomonee Falls. There's a nice trail about 20 minutes west down County Line Road. I've got extra winter gear and boots in my trunk. It's been a couple of years since I've been on it, but I remember a great little clearing not far up it.