Charley's Innocence

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The rest of the day went pretty smoothly, without any interruptions. I had been expecting to have someone come in and bother me with questions today considering this early morning’s event.

“Hey.” My coworker Jean greeted me. “How are you holding up?”

“Okay, I guess. I mean I’m pretty sure the security guards that come in at 6 told you about what went on. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do I mean when things got rough before I somehow managed to avoid anything major. The thing I’m trying to understand is why they would look at me as first suspect. Yeah, sure she came here every day and we read together, but how does that connect to a murder?”

“My guess,” Jean told me. “is that they’re just trying to find someone to blame and because you’re with her all the time you became their first target. That’s only my opinion though.”

I put my head in my hands and was shaking my head when I felt her put an arm around my shoulders. She was trying to comfort me. In all my years of knowing people, Jean was the first who ever tried to comfort me when I was frustrated. I was still a little stunned, so I was sort of stiff with her arm around me. She was not only my co-worker but my best friend. We’ve known each other for 2 years and she was the first to accept me, even knowing about my scars. I felt like a miracle had happened when she arrived.

When I had first shown her my scars and told her my story, her face and even her eyes told me that she was listening earnestly and she wasn’t a bit disgusted; only curiosity and interest was what was on her face when I talked to her. It was refreshingly stunning to have someone to talk to about my story, not have them be disgusted, and still have them understand me.

She had scars of her own. She had three bullet wounds and a long jagged scar, stretching from behind her ear to the edge of her shoulder. Jean had a similar story to mine. Jean’s boyfriend had gotten into drugs and gangs and she was dragged into the middle of it. The group that had a vengeance against her boyfriend took her and held her hostage. Every hour that her boyfriend was late he shot her, nothing fatal, but enough to get a point across. After the third shot, she tried to escape but the head of the gang and caught her by her hair and dragged the knife where her scar is now. Needless to say she always has short hair now and doesn’t care that people stare at her scar.

I on the other hand am so self-conscience that I never wear anything shorter than knee length or anything shorter than and ¾ length sleeve. She always encouraged me not to be ashamed of my scars, but it wasn’t so much that I was ashamed it was more that I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t look at them and I couldn’t handle the questions and the stares that came with revealing my scars.

After about a minute long hug, Jean pulled away. “What you need tonight is for me to come over and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I know it’s your favorite.” She smiled, which in turn made me try to conjure up a faint one myself. I nodded telling her that she should come over tonight. With that agreement made, I wiped the few tears that had fallen out of my eyes in my frustration, and stood up to work considering we had about an hour left. The library didn’t close until 9 tonight and it was about 8 right now. Better be off to work.

A few hours later

I flung part of my ice cream at Jean, laughing at what she had just told me, or imitated really. We were watching Daniel Tosh’s Happy Thoughts on Comedy Central. “I should give them facts for Snapple. Like, babies aren’t dishwasher safe. It’s silly, but it gets your attention.” We were laughing so hard, that we couldn’t even eat the ice cream we had. Jean snorted like a pig on accident and I started laughing even harder.