Proven Guilty (Treadmill III)

I

I think I figured the whole thing out, you know.

Maybe that'll make people hate me. Maybe that's a stupid beginning sentence. Maybe I'm a terrible writer and no one is going to read this.

Who am I kidding. Of course, people are going to read this. If there's one thing every single person I've ever met has been consistent about, it's an inappropriate level of curiosity.

But it all made sense in my head, once I'd been sitting in a cell for three days straight with absolutely no one to talk to and nothing to do but think about how in the hell that tape got to the cops.

It wasn't difficult to figure out. I guess I just still thought the best of people. Or, I was trying to think the best of people. I hadn't been very good at that throughout my life up until that point.

But, maybe me changing my mindset to be more trusting was what had led to me ending up with two arrests in two months. Maybe I should go back to being a cold, bitter bitch.

Beside the point.

Lydia Farrow-Abrams kept just enough of the security footage that she would not be able to be implicated in her little dip into the pool of women killing abusive men. She kept it in her arsenal on the off chance that Jaxson's body was found.

His body just happened to be found much quicker than anyone had anticipated.

And to think, Eaves had told me not to call her a step-monster. I'm going to spend the next few days trying to think of an even more fitting name.

But anyway. I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's pull a page out of Eaves' book. Or blog.

Let's go back a bit further.

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Kennedy remembered the phone call where her father had revealed his plans to propose to his midlife crisis.

"Ken?"

"Don't call me that."

"Well, that's not how I wanted this call to start."

"Maybe you should have thought about that six months ago. You know. The last time you called?"

Kristopher Abrams sighed loudly into the phone, but Kennedy couldn't tell if he was apologetic or annoyed.

"I'm sorry, Kennedy. Things have been a bit busy over here recently."

"Oh, I've seen the articles." Kennedy spat out, physically incapable of keeping the disgust out of her voice, "Am I going to meet this model girlfriend of yours? Or are you planning on replacing Mom without letting me vet the bitch first?"

"Watch your language, Kennedy Abrams." Her father ordered. "I am not replacing your mother. We divorced, honey. It happens all the time. I'm trying to move on."

"You do realize that you're supposed to see us every other weekend, right? That you haven't held up your end of that for who knows how long?" She couldn't wait until she graduated and left her mother's house. She wanted to move far away for college, so that not seeing her father for almost a year was a normal thing and not a main topic of conversation for the therapist she knew she was eventually going to have to get.

"I know that, Ken. I'm sorry."

"I told you not to call me that."