Dabbling in Danger

Epilouge

For a very long time I only felt numb.

Well after the gavel slammed down and the verdict announced, I could not comprehend that I'd just been released from the rat race and chains until I was buckled in the back seat of Sasha's mom's car. Even upon arriving at their home it still didn't feel real.

He was all over everything, from most TV channels, to the newspapers, online, people talking on the streets, he was everywhere, I couldn't get away and for once it's all I wanted.

Strangers online, people I'd never face in real life, absolutely loathed me. This response mainly came from women, they said I was ungrateful, that he was too beautiful to be behind bars. These people hated and blamed me for Adeen's imprisonment. It hurt to read what people were saying about me.

Everyone came from one extreme or another, even if not impressed by his looks, whether defending me or accusing me. But one thing remained consistent, the public all equally hated my sister. I can't say I'm surprised considering how every news outlet painted Tiana to be a destructive drunk. Nothing I read about her was of decency, she was sinply named again and again as the reasoning of her demise.

Out of all of this, I began to regret not being the one person to speak on her behalf, instead there are snippets of court video footage of me slandering her, shared online.

I open Yahoo and there I am on the homepage, a hand reached up to cover my face as the camera's flash bathes me in white light. I was trying to cross the street before they saw me but they caught me like always. The headline reads, Prey or Predator?

I turn off the monitor after the three words are engrained in my brain. It's been two months and it's as if nothing's died down besides the news coverage. I'd been asked to do a couple interviews which I intended to turn down, but the cash amount was more than generous and I felt Sasha's parents deserved some sort of compensation being roped into my twisted mess.

The blonde woman whose voice I hated since childhood sat on her soapbox not a foot away from me, digging into me with her nasally shrill questions and accusatory tone. I was told it didn't matter if I'd answered the questions or not, but if I ran off camera there would be no check. So I sat through her insufferable questions nearly blaming me for conspiring with Adeen, for plotting against my sister. I hated every moment, but for the first time in all this I was able to speak of Tiana in a comforting light. I told the viewers of her laugh, I spoke on how she protected me as a young girl, how we were inseparable until she left me that dark night.

"I never wanted anything more than to regain my sister's love, but I was too little too late in the end and she had no more to give," I spoke wearily.

Now that a year has finally passed mostly things have quited down. I'm still given double takes as people recognize me in public, occasionally a photo is snapped of me, inconspicuously or not.

The talk on Good Morning America, CBS, Fox and every other news outlet has moved on to the latest horror stories.

I'm in college now, I live on campus. Sasha practically begged me to live with her and Terrance in their apartment they got together but I had to turn her down. I want to feel for life on my own for a while, without reminders of the past, Terrence being a big one of them.

I have a roommate that just moved to the states from England which I'm more than thankful for. At least for a little while I'll still be a normal student to her, then she'll make friends and they'll whisper about that girl and her girlfriends will squeal, sheee's your roommate?!

Maybe if I befriend her first it won't bother her like it has every other new person I've met.

I push through the door of the mail room to be welcomed by a man behind a desk.