Last To Know *COMPLETED*

Last To Know Chapter 18 Pt. 1

*Recap: Chapter 17-

The week passed by slowly. I moved back in with my aunt, and she cried as she unpacked my things.

Jill wanted nothing to do with me. She had to testify in court, and so did I. That will probably be the last time I see her before I go to jail, I thought as I lay on the bed in my old room.

In any event, I was not too exited about going to court. It was obviously in my best interest to tell the truth, but I couldn't really lie, anyway. The evidence against me was pretty clear, considering I was knocked unconscious in the accident. The police found me, taped me up, and when I woke, I was about to take a drug test.

There's nothing short of a miracle that could save me.

Chapter 18- pt. 1

And that miracle... well, that miracle was long gone. It was gone the same day I chose to drink and drive. It was gone even before that. The day I decided to fall in love was the day I lost all hope of miracles. I just hadn't known that yet.

I did know this: I was going to fight.

I would fight till the end, even though the evidence was stacked so highly. Even through those odds, I would strain to save myself.

It would not be an easy task.

The day of trial had come. There was an eerie feeling in the air as I woke up and got out of bed. I had been staying at my Aunt Louise's place again, partly because I had no money, and partly because the housing market was pretty much non-existent. Besides, I was going to jail, wasn't I?

There was no avoiding it now.

So, as I completed my morning activities- showering, brushing my teeth, changing clothes- I only could think of the day that lay ahead of me. There was the feeling that I'd make a fool of myself, which I had. Then, there was the fear that I'd lost Jill, which I had. But I still deeply loved her.

There was no avoiding that, either.

I watched her from the window in the back. I watched my love sitting at the front of the room, watched her nodding her head, and watched her answering the lawyer's final questions before the trial.

I couldn't see her face, but I understood that she was crying, as she should have been. There was still that morbid eerie feeling inside me, one that told me I was going to have a hard time facing this. They had me handcuffed and suited up for this, but all of the physical changes in the world couldn't ready me. The internal fear and shame was bad enough in itself.

I finally was given permission to walk into the courtroom. Every eye was on me, every face facing me, and it was all I could do to keep from glaring back. Instead, I stared straight ahead of me, focusing on the podium and my seat beside my lawyer. Now I understood why criminals walked this way.

Each second that passed by was taking me closer and closer to jail, but farther and farther away from the one I still loved. Despite everything, I still loved her.

And as I looked to where she was, I realized that she held no love for me. She glared with a hate that I'd never imagined. I did kill her brother...would I have loved her if our places were reversed?

I don't know, honestly. So with that thought, I turned my eyes away from her, and continued my long walk down the center of the court room.

Things passed by slowly, but at the same time, it seemed time was speeding by quickly... contradictory, I know.

I saw these things as they happened, but I didn't seem to register what was really going on. Until Jill stepped up to the stand.

She smiled ruefully as she stood up at the judge's table, was sworn in, and finally sat down with such grace that it made my head hurt. I could feel her tension as she was about to tell a story that I thought I'd heard before.

The lawyer simply pointed her in the right direction, and she spoke clearly about a topic that no doubt depressed her.

"James..." She began. "James Lowman was my high school love. He was one of the first people I could connect to, therefore one of the most important people in my life." Jill spoke of this man like he was dead.

"I did break contact with him to visit my family, and that's where I met Aaron Stewart. I fell in love from the start, and decided to leave James for him." I stared at her, not believing what I was hearing. She had loved me? I'd known that. But she still loved me?

"I happened to get a call from James' office, offering me a job. No doubt that it was part of the plan to get me away from Aaron. It worked. James blackmailed me, threatening suicide and planning murders and terrible, horrible things..." Jill began to cry. She wiped a tear from her face and looked at me when she spoke again. We both stared at each other and there was the same spark we'd held for each other before... the spark I'd thought I'd lost. It was found again, and it was glowing between us now.

"Every day he threatened me. He made sure guilt kept me from telling Aaron the truth. And the truth was that I was in love with two people. I still am."

This seemed to be irrelevant to the case, but it was making me understand a whole new world. I could now see that Jill still loved me; that she's never stopped, nor ever would. But I could sense the love that was more for James than for me, and I knew it would be impossible to break, even if I weren't going to jail.

"When Aaron finally found out, on Valentine's day a few weeks ago, he was going to kill James. I was trying to explain everything, to tell him the truth, but he wouldn't let me. I convinced him to go, to get away and forget about me.

"He went to the worst place possible, my brother's house. After that, I don't know what they did.

"I only know that I received a call around three in the morning..." She cried soft tears again, but this time she didn't wipe them away.

"And Dakota was dead."

The jury, lawyers and judges were all in shock at her story. Apparently she'd chosen to stay with James, and the blackmail came as a surprise. To me, it was one more depressing piece of evidence, just another few words in a sentence. But deep down, I knew it was more than that.