It's Been A Long Time... [Desperate Measures Sequel]

FiftySeven.

Sitting across the courtroom from Michael Smythe-Jones was the hardest decision I had decided to make. Every now and again if for some reason I looked his way he would send me a smirk. Proceedings were getting to start and I was being sworn in. The people who were in the public gallery were the people who were probably going to stay all day, people who liked to watch court cases, people who were nosey and a young blonde who I assumed was here for him. Dean didn't turn up today, all that worrying and he wasn't even here. Of course, he wasn't here, he'd probably returned to work, back to his friends ignoring what was happening back here. 

I wanted him here, I didn't even care that he would know the sordid truth about me.  I wanted, no needed, him here with me. I needed him to comfort me and tell me everything was going to be okay, instead, I was alone. 

The judge looked down at me in the witness box before he looked at Milton, "Are we ready to begin?"

Milton nodded before the other lawyer nodded. 

"Court is now in session," the judge said before he looked at the other lawyer, Mr McHillson, who promptly stood up and looked in my direction. 

My eyes looked from Milton to McHillson who walked away from his table and towards me before stopping halfway before his bench and me. "Miss Bennett or is it, Ms Langford," he reminded me of the last name I had once gone by, of a time in my life where I had no control over anything. "Do you mind if I call you Natasha?"

I nodded my head, "Natasha is fine."

McHillson smiled in my direction before he walked towards his bench and looked down at the notes on his desk before turning back to me. "Maybe we can return to the night in question, to the moment you were out with your friends." 

Watching him I listened and decided to let him roll with whatever he had to say, I knew that he couldn't make me feel any worse at this moment in time. 

"You said it was just another ordinary night out," he looked at me and waited. 

"Yes, it was," I said slowly as I tried to understand what he was getting at. "Myself and a few friends went clubbing, nothing too different to normal."

"So you and your friends would go out often?"

I scrunched my eyebrows together as I got confused about the words he was saying, "I hadn't been out with most of these particular friends before."

"If you went out with any friends then would you have normally consumed the amount of alcohol you did that evening?"

My eyes looked at Milton as I opened my mouth before looking back at McHillson. "What?"

"Would you normally have that much to drink on a night out?"

"I didn't plan to drink as much as I did," I tried to say. 

"No, I'm asking if that is how much you would have drunk normally?" He seemed to be getting irritated as I skirted around his question. 

I breathed in heavily before I answered, "I don't normally go out."

McHillson returned to his notes, "From your friends we have a few statements that seem to go against what you say, may I remind you lying under oath is a felony."

"I used to drink heavily on nights out, since I returned to my job with the WWE I have only been out a handful of times," I explained. 

"And those few occasions?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "I guess you could say I drink more than the average American female." 

"These friends who you hadn't been out with before, they didn't know what they were getting themselves into then?" He asked slyly as he watched my reaction.