216 |𝐛.𝐚| (hiatus)

𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢-𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 »

❝♛❞

GENEVIEVE CARR sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair, not being able to control the bouncing of her leg as she sat in the courtroom meeting the judge's eyes.

They had made it this far, and Genevieve didn't dare look at the other table that was defending her father, Derek Carr. How could anyone protect such as vile man, Genevieve was unsure, but it was time this whole thing finally ended.

When Genevieve was first put in Lucy's care, she had been rather young, 11, and they waited for Genevieve's mental state to recover before they continued with the original plan to press charges and send the man to jail. After five and a half years, Derek Carr's life was practically ruined. Due to the severity and nature of the lawsuit, Derek Carr lost his job working as a bartender and freelance construction worker and had been struggling to make ends meet. Genevieve and Lucy shared the same opinion.

Serves the bastard right.

Penny and Genevieve, unlike Peter and Aspen, had similar situations where they often shared the same emotions and feelings about their home life that they previously had. Obviously, their previous lives held very significant differences but that didn't change the fact that Peter and Aspen would really never know what Genevieve and Penny went through emotionally.

Derek Carr abused Genevieve. After Gen's mother died when the girl was only 5, Derek Carr started drinking more alcohol and going out more, and then the abuse started. It started out as slurs and snide remarks but then leaped quickly into physical harm that would often leave marks. Genevieve didn't know what to think of it at the time and she could never thank Mrs. McWillard, her Kindergarten teacher, enough for noticing the light bruises, lack of lunch, or her nature to flinch, cry or cower when someone came a little too close.

Lucy knew Mrs. McWillard, Gina, because her husband and her were one of the nicer couples that Lucy stumbled upon when she would attend galas and charity functions. Gina was one of the first people Lucy told about her plans to adopt after Hartley could afford his own place and she severed the ties to her parents for good. When the adoption went through successfully, Lucy would even ask Gina for advice with parenting and never failed the family. Every year on Genevieve's birthday, a letter would appear in the mail from Gina just asking Genevieve how she was.

Now, Penny, her mother, Reina Gracer, was never physically abusive. Any PTSD was from the mental and emotional abuse that Penny experienced throughout the entire, also, 11 years of her life. Reina was big on alcohol but also dabbled in drugs, whether they were illegal or not. And when talking about Reina, you use the word 'dabbled' loosely because that was a very nice way of putting it. But who the hell was Gen kidding, Reina Gracer didn't deserve nice. To put the relationship between drug and drugee: it was a miracle Reina Gracer hasn't overdosed on any drugs because the amount they found in her trailer was enough to get her arrested without any plea deal even though she gave up many drug dealer names.

Still, the resemblance of emotions made Genevieve see a little bit of herself in Penny. Although, Penny never had to go to group counseling as Genevieve did. Genevieve was also thankful for Willa, her counseling leader, agreed to send in her testimony to be used against her father. As did Mrs. McWillard, the officers who arrested Derek and picked up Genevieve, and Lucy.

Lucy's affidavit, though not extremely important in the sense as a witness as were the others, still mattered in the sense that Genevieve has indeed been in a safe environment for the past six years. Hopefully, the combination of the abuse charges and the affidavit would allow Lucy to forever have full custody and never have Derek Carr becoming a problem for Genevieve ever again.

The saddest part of all is that Derek Carr wasn't even trying to defend himself, only get a lesser sentence. He wasn't trying to deny that he abused Genevieve for nearly six years. For those six-ish years, Derek Carr had been legally bound to stay away from Genevieve until the trial date. Genevieve had the opportunity to not be in the room during sentencing, but she thought it would be best to close that part of her life down forever.