The Heartless Prey

4. Left Alone

Chicago. Where it all began. It happened over a year ago but Laura remembered it vividly, as if it had just happened the week before. She had been spending almost every weekend in Chicago during the second semester of her 2L year of law school. Either Chris would buy her plane ticket from Memphis, or she'd tell him that she bought her own ticket when Robert would buy it.

After the two were engaged, a few weeks went by before Chris checked into the ER. He had a rough cough which never went away, and Laura noticed each time she'd visit that it was getting progressively worse. He was reluctant to go to the hospital, but eventually she was able to persuade him after three consecutive nights where he wasn't able to sleep due to his hacking.

He finally checked in one night, and he was absolutely pale when he picked Laura up at O'hare airport. "Cancer", he told her as the two sat in the airport parking lot. "Aggressive, and it's already spread all throughout me. I don't have much longer."

Laura didn't know what to say. It just came out. "I can do an externship. Here in Chicago. I'll get credit from school and I can stay here and take care of you."

"I couldn't ask you to do that", Chris told her. But she could see in his eyes it was what he wanted. "I don't even know where we'dd be able to find a job for you..."

"What about that supervising attorney a couple floors above you? Robert?", Laura asked. "He works in securities law, and that's exactly the area I want to go into. Maybe you could ask him if you could get me in?" But Laura already knew she'd be able to get a position if she wanted it. She'd met Robert shortly after Chris attained his position at the same firm. Robert introduced himself to Laura at the biannual firm meet and greet. It wasn't long until she realized she was drawn to Robert. He gave her his number in case she ever had questions about SEC regulations. She began to speak to Robert on the phone to chat daily about anything other than the law. She soon found she was on the phone with him even more than she was with Chris.

Robert was an established junior partner. He already had it made, and he could push the extra work onto his associate attorneys if he wanted to. Associate attorneys like Chris. Chris had to plow through work at twice the pace of his coworkers so he'd be able to squeeze in an hour to talk to Laura on the phone two or three evenings a week.

Robert on the other hand had all the time in the world. Laura could call him after class, during her lunch, and after studying. He was always available to listen to her talk about her day. "I can't talk right now babe, but I'll try to get through this and give you a call before you go to sleep tonight", Chris would say. "It's okay, don't worry about it", Laura would tell him, sitting on a bench on the law school lawn, staring at her engagement ring. "I've got to hit the hay early tonight. I have my early class in the morning...". "I'm sorry", Chris would always say. "Just two more years of this and we'll have all the time together we could ask for. We'll be sick of each other you'll see me so much". And Chris would always nervously laugh it off.

As soon as she hung up, Laura would dial Robert's number. She never complained to Robert about how busy her fiance was. She never spoke about her relationship with her fiance at all. Robert was a cunning attorney, and he knew how to hold a conversation over just about anything. It wasn't long until she'd need to reschedule time to see Chris just to fly into Chicago to wine and dine with Robert. Not four blocks from the office where Chris was hard at work. And of course, eventually she began sleeping with Robert.

Sometimes Laura would feel a bit guilty, enjoying dinner with another man within arms reach of her fiance after making up some excuse to Chris of why she couldn't visit him. 'Her classmates needed a tutor', or 'she needed to interview for another internship', or her favorite, 'I think I'm running a fever honey, the last thing we would want is for you to miss work if you caught it'. Nothing pushed Chris off like the thought that he may be missing work. He couldn't afford to being a junior associate.