Page 64 of Defend Me
Pulling out my phone, I brought up Tilian’s name. He’d responded to a text I sent before my mom messaged me. I’d asked if he had any plans and I wasn’t surprised that the answer was no. When I looked at the picture he’d sent of himself with his tongue out, one eye closed, and his middle finger up, I smiled a little. I adored his playful side.
I wanted to hang out with him this weekend, but every time, I let myself take more. It was little touches, then I was holding him in bed and wrapping my arm around him in restaurants. He kept opening me up and I did it like it was nothing, which only left me regretting those pieces I gave away. I was pretty sure they were making him feel closer to me, just like everything he told me made me want to hear more.
As I chewed my lip raw, I started a message.
Hey. We should hang out soon.
Erase.
I know I’ve been up and down. It’s not fair to you and you deserve more than that.
Erase.
I like you.
Erase.
I really fucking like you.
Erase.
I can’t like you.
Erase.
I can’t give you what you want. All I’ll do is hurt you.
Erase.
With a sigh, I put the phone in my pocket without sending anything. I looked forward and focused on the ads, but I kept thinking about those unsent messages.
My head was a goddamn disaster and it felt like my life was headed in the same direction unless I could get a handle on it.
Chapter 19
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward,
many are strong at the broken places.”
Brooks
Ready to sell what’s left of my soul
She wanted me to meet with Ms. Whitlock again.Holly. As if I cared about her name or qualifications. She was the same as all the other people I met in this world. One day, she’d be one of my professors and she was the head of her department, so I guess it mattered, but trying to impress her made me feel nauseous.
While I was in her office the first time, I started to get uncomfortable. I’d shoved the feeling away and continued through the meeting without slipping. Today, as I made my way across campus, my gut twisted uncomfortably.
Seriously, what else was there to talk about? It was starting to resemble those dinners my parents would have with judges and other attorneys. Even if they had good relationships with them, they had to keep doing it over and over again because none of them actually liked each other. Everybody was a tool. Even my parents were pieces on a board and those with more power than them could wield them like sharpened swords to win their battles.
My mind shifted to the project we were working on for our sociology class. It felt good to explore something like that. The school’s mental health resources really weren’t as impressive as they liked to claim. It made me want to raise my concerns to the board or something. To demand better for the students. To demandjustice.
That was what had been bothering me lately. What was just about defending corporations? Sure, there were false allegations and sue happy people, but they were few and far between, although they liked to convince you otherwise. The CEO who was accused of sexual harassment? Guilty the majority of the time. The employer who overworked their employee and was shorting their paycheck? Also guilty.
The thing about greed was that it was rampant and never fully sated. Power grew into a sickness that drove most people to want more of it. To get it, they’d do increasingly more fucked up things. And when it came to holding onto what they already had, they’d do worse.
Were my parents like that? I liked to think they weren’t as bad as a lot of these others, but what was I basing that on? You didn’t make their kind of money and defend the massive corporations they did without doing bad things. I knew that, but how far had they gone? Who were they willing to destroy in order to keep what they’d amassed?
They were questions I’d been asking myself since I left home, but I didn’t want to think about it. One day soon, I would work with them. Whatever shit came across my desk, I’d have to run with it. It didn’t really matter if a client was guilty. We were paid to represent them and do whatever was in our power to keep them in good standing.
