Annabelle Luther.

Five: A Talk and Divorce! (Edited)

A Talk and Divorce!

The morning couldn't have come any faster. After spending four hours in the ER to get my hand restitched, Juno and Piper had dropped me off at home at almost four am. I was exhausted but found that I still couldn't sleep, no matter how many times I would toss and turn in bed. My mind kept playing over what had happened. Why would she even think it was okay to kiss me? Did she think that I would so willingly accept something like that? My frustration only grew as I picked up my cellphone and looked to see that I had been lying in bed with no results of sleep for five hours. It was officially nine am, and the only thing I could do was a shower at this point and worked in my home office. 

Stepping into my home office, I made my way towards the coffee machine and started it up before I sat at my desk and stared at the sleeping monitor. From my own reflection, you could see that I hadn't slept at all; even the glasses were useless at this point when it came to covering my lack of sleep. With a heavy sigh, I moved the mouse, and to my surprise, a video chat bubble popped up right away. I clicked on it with a raised eyebrow to find that all of my business partners had been in a video meeting without me. When everyone had noticed me being in the call, they all gave me a brief hello before telling me what this call had been for. 

It had seemed that our California branch took a case that had been too much for them, and they needed help, which we had found odd until we got further details. It turns out that the man had a track record of violent behavior with children, women, and animals. The California branch wanted to recede from their position as his lawyer, but as the case had been national news, they wanted to make sure that this would be an appropriate action to take, as it would look off for our firm. 

"Recede," My voice had been firm, taking control of this conversation, "We don't make national headlines as criminal justice lawyers to go and represent what we're working to put behind bars. If they ask for a statement, tell them to reach out to Juno or me." Most of the partners stared at me before they nodded in agreement and left the video call, leaving Juno and me alone in the chat. I could the irritation growing with her as she gave out a heavy sigh and leaned back in her chair. She rested her head in her hand. The silence between us had almost been deafening if it weren't for Piper and their son Cyrus in the background arguing about something I couldn't catch. Being a parent to a teenager could not have been easy, especially for one who was barely going through puberty. 

"Are you ready to talk about how your stitches reopened?" Juno asked, never looking at me. I had kept my eyes on her as she shifted in her seat before leaning closer to the monitor. Her brown eyes gazed harshly at me, almost as though she had been hurt that I lied about what had happened. How do you tell one of your best friends that your sister tried to make out with you? 

"Athena, she tried to - well she did - kiss me last night," Juno's eyebrow raised from this, a small Jesus escaped her lips. Of course, there was not much that we could have said to something like that. But, Juno knew just as much how big of an issue this was. 

"How are you going to deal with this?" Juno asked. 

"I don't know. She also knows I'm adopted, making this so much worse than what it already is. I don't even know what I did to make her think I had an interest in her. Well, I mean, I jokingly told her she didn't know what sort of game she's getting into when she tried to screw around the first time, but that wasn't an invitation for her to kiss me or an expression of sexual or romantic interest. So what the hell do I do, Juno?" Juno stared at me, silent, as she probably didn't know what to say either, or maybe she did but didn't know whether to say it or not. 

"Talk to her. Tell her that what happened can't and won't ever happen again. If her behavior continues, you'll have no choice but to move back to Rhode Island. I understand that your whole 'family's keeper' bullshit is keeping you tied to them, but they have no ties with the firm - "