Reasonable Doubt ✔ | Open Novella Contest 2020 | Complete

Fourteen - Alex

Life continues at LeCI. Hours not in class are spent on the phone or poring over materials for court.

They really had rushed my sentencing. All sorts of information came to light under Sharron's and Colt's insistence at reevaluation. Little things like security camera footage of the drug deal and subsequent murder. The images had been fuzzy, but it was enough to clear me.

Sharron wanted to free me that moment. Colt insisted I plead to something. Less time spent in litigation, that way. Judges don't like totally terminating a prison sentence.

So I did: guilty of conveyance, first offense as a juvenile. Instead of ten years, I'm looking at six months. I've already served almost five.

The fight has changed. Rather than defending me, Sharron is prosecuting Diego Ramilla. The real murderer. Better – I'm the key witness.

Great. More vocabulary. More preparation.

Not to mention pretending that moment with Colt never happened.

Our interaction is limited to socializing in the library, where he laughs and jokes, gives me assignments and inquiries to make of Sharron. Even though I'm out of the trenches, he's helping to find Javier some justice.

Still, there's a guarded nature to him. Something has loosened. Something he's trying desperately to ratchet down.

It was selfish of me to push him. He's been traumatized. Even if I saw burning desire in those hazel depths, that didn't mean it was there.

"He wanted it." Famous words of every rapist, right?

Memories nag me. Miscellaneous data points that are converging into a larger picture. Snagging on a piece, I pull open a drug book from the medical section and scan.

Genvoya: Anti-viral medication used as a single-tablet regimen for HIV.

Dios mio.

Heart thundering, I find texts on infectious disease and bring them back to my table. Like so many books within these walls, the pages are dog-eared and pock-marked from use. Along the margins, I notice familiar smudged, blocky writing.

Colt...

Tumbling down a rabbit hole, I cross-reference the scrawlings that link me to different tomes. I thumb through various research on Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus, utterly derailed from anything pertaining to the trial.

New jargon gets pressed into my mind: CD4 count, prevalence, transmission. I suddenly understand the need for standing three-month appointments; the timer to take his medication; the overt caution about touching his blood.

The long-standing effects from his assault.

"Hijo de puta..." I breathe, sitting back from the table.

I rub the knots out of my neck. My heart breaks for him. How long has he been alone with that diagnosis? How many years has he dealt with being spurned?

"I see you found my old notes."

"Colt!" I start, glancing up to where his broad shoulders take up the small crevasse between the bookshelves. "How long have you been standing there?"

He looks defeated. "Long enough to know you know."

Placing a legal manual in front of me, he begins riffling through. His eyes don't move as the pages turn. Shoulders hunched, jaw taut, eyes intense on the seam of the book.

I know the look. I wore it my first day here. He's terrified. This is what he's hidden from me.

I don't care. This doesn't change how I think...or what I feel.