Short Stories

The Case of Love

           

Keleigh Bowman is a driven and successful lawyer who lives in New York City and has worked her whole adult life trying to make partner at her firm. She works morning and night, which means she barely has a personal life. With that little time, she had time to find a man. Yes she found through her work but still they found time to fall in love. Carter is an attorney who constantly works and doesn't have a personal life either, he is the male version of her. Their relationship works well because they both understand if work comes first sometimes. They have been dating for two years and Keleigh feels like someday soon he might propose. She has always dreamed about getting married and having kids but she always wanted to become successful first so she knew she could be independent.

One day Keleigh was at work emailing her client about their case when, one of the partners, Robert Harrington walks into her room. Robert states that she is one of three people fighting for the partnership opening up. He tells her that he thinks she is the best choice but not all the partners feels the same. He also says her that he has a friend who lives in California and is in need of a lawyer to help him with a case. He suggests that if she can find the time to make her way there and win the case it would be a home run and she would be a shoe in for partner.

That night she is at dinner with Carter and in between emailing she explains to him that she is going to California for a case that could win her the partnership she always wanted. Carter is very supportive of her decision to do whatever she can to make partner and makes her feel excited to go. Carter asks her when she is leaving and how long she will be there, her response by telling him in two days and that she will be back in a month.

When she gets home that night her roommate Melissa is sitting on the couch watching television. "Hey Mel." she said before she sat down next to her. Keleigh told Melissa that she was going to be gone for the next month but will be coming back, she said it was for a case. Melissa told her that she would help her pack tomorrow since she had the day off as well.

The next day Keleigh and Melissa get her things packed up, they spent the whole day getting things ready for her departure. Robert didn't go into too much detail on the case, but he did tell her that a huge company is trying to kick his friend off their land. Since Keleigh doesn't fly out until two tomorrow she decided to stop by Carter's house to see if he wants to got to breakfast in the morning before she leaves for the airport.

When she arrives to his apartment she uses her key and walks right in. She calls Carter's name but he doesn't respond, so she assumed that he wasn't home so she was going to leave a note and go home. As she was walking to the door she hears a thud from the other room. She calls Carter's name again and this time he does respond, he yells that he is in his room and would be out in a second. While she is waiting for him in the living room, she gets curious so she went back to his room. When she walks in he is walking out of his bathroom in a towel. He walks up to her giving her a kiss on her forehead and asked why she came by so late, she told him that she wanted to see if he was up for breakfast in the morning. Before he could respond there was another thud in the bathroom.

The thud makes her look at him and then she takes a step towards the bathroom, but before she can take another he side steps in front of her stopping her taking another step. He tells her that he shampoo bottle just have fallen and to ignore it, but she isn't easily fooled. She looks between him and the bathroom before she quickly side steps him and run to the bathroom busting in to find a woman with a towel on her hands and knees picking up the bottles she dropped. Keleigh stands there looking at the woman who is looking at her like a scared puppy. In her mind there are a lot of emotions flowing, sadness, confusion and anger. She couldn't shake the prominent feeling when she saw the woman in Carter's bathroom.