Beautiful things - jaylor story (peace book 4)

one thing after the other

** Friday January 4rd 2036**

-taylors Pov- 

We are going to the court this morning to receive the verdict. I've asked Ellie if she wants to be home for the rest of the day since it's an emotional day, but she wants to go to school after. I suspect it's not that she actually wants to go to school, but more that she wants to see her boyfriend again. 

After our conversation yesterday I'm getting nervous that she is taking things further as it seemed like she was hinting about it. I'm not happy to hear that, I want her to keep her innocence but clearly, she is experimenting with herself and wanting her boyfriend to touch her. As a mother that's not images I want to have in my head, I don't want to know but at the same time I want to know because I want to be there for her on the emotional side. 

She has changed a lot the last couple of months, she has a more mature side now and is becoming a different kind of independent. She has always been independent but now it's different. It's not that it's a bad thing that she is growing into her own person, but I'm having a hard time letting her go in that way. But she still has panic attacks where she goes into her own head and it's hard to get her out, or she struggle with food, so the struggles are still there. Last night I had to sit up with her for hours because she had a really bad reaction from the trial. It was a delayed reaction because she only had a small one after the trial. It seems like for her things hit her harder late in the evening or at night. 

The courtroom is completely silent as the jury comes into the room and Ellie is holding both mine and joes' hand. I know that no matter what the verdict is he is staying in jail and I'm holding onto that. His mom also died while she was in jail because of this so she can't hurt us again either, if she were to not be found guilty and could get out. It was premeditated and we know that, but hopefully this is the last we will see of Adam. Hopefully this will put an end to his bothering us. I don't want to ever deal with this again, it's too much, it's too painful. We need to be able to move on with our lives and heal. If he keeps popping back into our lives the wound he left will never completely heal, it will constantly start to bleed again over and over again. 

The foreman stands up to read the verdict and my heart is beating so hard in my chest. "We the jury find the defendant guilty in premeditating to the crime in question" 

I can feel Ellies previously tense body relax, and she leans into my arms, and I can see she has a faint smile on her face "it's over" she says softly so only we can hear. "it's over sweetie" joe tells her and all three of us can breathe. Sadly, a guilty verdict can't take away what happened, we could have died all three of us, but we are still standing here together. 

Whenever bad stuff happens you appreciate your family more because you know that you truly have something to lose. Without my family I don't know how I would continue living. It's funny because I remember when I first got pregnant, I was so mad and so sure that I would be a horrible mother and bringing a child into my crazy life would be bordering on child abuse. But we have found a way to make it work for us. We have done everything in our power to give the girls as much normalcy as we can, and I hope there will be more of that ahead. 

**

We get in the car and drive towards her school "Are you still sure you want to go to school" joe asks her, and she sighs "yes because I know that I need to go back eventually, it's better to just get it over with. And I just don't want to think about this. I want to move on and I want to hang out with my friends. I want to do normal things because that keeps me from a panic spiral. If I would have stayed home, I would probably panic" she says and i agree with her on that one. For me too doing normal things help me from spiraling.