Stuck In A Moment

The trial. *sigh* continued.

"I... Yes, ok? Is that relevant?" Laurens heard a gasp come over from where Peggy was sitting.

"No more questions at this time." The attorney smirked.

Laurens was petrified. Could he have just lost the case for everyone? Would they pity Stephen now thinking Peggy set him up?

"Ms. Margarita Schuyler? Please take the stand."

Peggy took a deep breath and stood to her feet. She made her way over as Laurens walked back. He kept his head down and refused to make eye contact with her.

"Ms. Schuyler, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"

"I do."

"Did you end your relationship with Mr. Rensselaer because you loved Mr. Laurens?" The attorney asked.

"I did. He was in the hospital and almost losing him made me realize I still had feelings for him." Peggy sighed. "But it wasn't..."

"Did you purposely post that picture of you and Mr. Laurens on your social media account knowing your ex fiance still followed you?" The man interrupted.

"Yes, I posted it on purpose. And no, I thought he unfollowed me when we broke up." Peggy tried to make herself clear. "And I never..."

"Did you want to get Stephen out of your life?"

"Yes, but I never..."

"No more questions at the moment." The attorney smiled.

Peggy should've known Stephen would hire the best lawyer money could buy, and to Stephen, there was no limit to what he would spend to keep himself out of prison.

"Council for the prosecution." The judge announced.

"Yes sir." The lawyer jumped up and walked over to where Peggy was sitting. "Ms. Schuyler, was Mr. Laurens the only reason you broke up with Mr. Rensselaer?"

"No, not at all." Peggy replied. "I wanted kids, he didn't. I wanted to stay here in America and he wanted to move to England after we were married."

"So you did not intend to purposely hurt Mr. Rensselaer by dumping him for someone else?"

"Of course not. I wanted to still be friends with him even after. I didn't push however because I knew he would be upset."

"And the night Mr. Rensselaer went on his shooting spree, you intented to spend the night with Mr. Laurens as nothing more then friends. Correct?"

"Yes. I didn't want to ask him out yet because I figured he would still hate me for being with Stephen in the first place."

"So even though you loved him, you had no intentions of being with Mr. Laurens after what happened the last time you were together?"

"Yes."

"No more questions."

It was about this time that the court took a brief recess. Peggy and Laurens couldn't gather the courage to talk to each other though, so Lauren's was ranting to Alexander while Peggy was ranting to Eliza.

"I messed up. Me and my stupid mouth!" Laurens sighed. "I was better mute."

"I think you're being a little hard on yourself. This is a much bigger deal then what you said." Alexander stated. "I'm not saying you didn't help, but this decision now just rests on the opinions of the jury."

"Ugh, why do I have such bad luck when it comes to court cases?" Laurens whimpered.

"One, what happened with your father still ended up ok. For awhile at least. Two, you just have bad luck in general." Alexander replied.

"You're supposed to be helping me."

"Right, sorry."

Just then, Laurens got a call from Washington.

"Hey! How is everything going?"

"Peggy's gonna go to jail and it's all my fault." Laurens said.

"What!?!?!"

"Give me the phone, drama queen." Alexander took the phone from him. "Hello?"

"Alexander? Why is Peggy going to jail?" Washington asked.

"She's not, or not yet at least. It's complicated. I'll call back when we're done. Bye." Alexander hung up. "And I'm the dramatic one."

"Well, you are." Laurens laughed.

The two shared a moment of silence before talking again.

"So... are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?" Alexander asked.

"What do you mean?" Laurens questioned.

"How both you and Peggy confessed your love to each other?" Alexander stated like it was obvious. It kinda was.

"Right. I don't know, I'd rather just focus on the task at hand for the moment." Laurens replied.

After the 'brief' recess, the jury finally came to a decision.

"We find Stephen Van Rensselaer......
...
...
...
guilty of the charges of attempted murder and of aggravated assault." (I feel smart when I get to use big words. lol 😜) "We find him innocent of the charges of breaking and entering, since there was a party."

"I sentence Mr. Rensselaer to fifteen years and a fine of $150,000." The judge said before slamming the mallet down on the table. "Court dismissed."

"Oh my gosh! We did it!!!" Laurens sighed in relief.

The police stood up and took Stephen out, but he didn't go down without a fight.

"This isn't over Margarita! You took everything from me, and I'm gonna take everything from you!!!" He spat. "Starting with your precious little Laurens!"

Peggy just tried to ignore him. She was already so stressed out with everything that happened. She just wanted the day to be over.

"Yay! They believed you after all." Eliza cheered.

"Thank God. Good thing all the proof we needed is on Laurens' leg. Well, some is in it." Peg joked.

"So, are you finally going to talk to him about what just happened?" Eliza pushed.

"I feel like it was longer then 'just happened', that we both said what we said."

"You can't hide from him forever. He can't hide from you either. There's no point in postponing the inevitable."

"Not now though. We need to talk about that alone, but how is the time to celebrate the fact that my ex fiance is in jail." Peggy chuckled.

"Ok, we can go out for pizza or something. But as soon as we're done, you have to face him. Promise?" Eliza gave her a stern look.

"I promise."