earned it [h.s.]

59.

still in my lawyer era

Genevieve.

"Hi, Jeff." Diane smiled as she stood in front of the witness stand where Jeff took his seat.

Lunch had come and gone – with both Harry and I not able to swallow down a single bite – while Diane went over our strategy for the afternoon. Everything felt a little blurry to me at this point and I just found myself nodding. She said it's possible that our testimonies might be delayed, possible to another day because our time in court was halfway through and most of the witnesses still needed to testify.

We knew it was a possibility that this could last multiple days, but we sort of hoped it wouldn't. One day was bad enough so far.

I for sure hoped that those were all the tricks that Blair claimed to have up her sleeve.

Harry seemed more exhausted than I was. His entire body was tense the whole time and I suspected he didn't sleep at all last night. He sipped some more coffee before dragging himself back into the courtroom. A tight hug from Anne perked him up a little as well as my little kiss to his temple before we took our seats again.

"Hi." Jeff greeted back Diane, getting a little more comfortable. They went over the basics, like Jeff stating he's Harry's best friend and that he's known Harry and Blair for a long time, that he actually introduced the two of them, that he used to run in the same circles as Blair.

"Oh, uh..." He scratched his beard in thought "I think it's been years." He answered to the question when the last time was they spent a night with Blair there too. Jeff shrugged, "Harry used to invite me to an event sometimes because he got really lonely there. Blair was always off mingling and talking, leaving him by himself a lot. So I was his company."

"So you'd say you and Mrs. Hilton grew apart throughout the years?"

He nodded, "Yeah, loads. Like I said, we used to be pretty close. She was one of my best friends. A lot just changed in growing up and her taking a more important role her company. It just felt like... she was too good for us."

"In what sense?" Diane pried.

Jeff leaned back a little, "She never wanted to hang out with us anymore. Called us lowlifes for hanging out in dive bars or going to clubs. But you know, we were young, still are. We just like to do normal stuff. Harry likes all of that, so he always joined us by himself. We grew apart from Blair pretty quickly since we never saw her anymore."

"So Harry just came by himself?"

"He did." Jeff nodded, "So it was Mitch and Sarah, me and Glenne and then Harry. He told me often how lonely it felt, how sad he was that his wife and his mates didn't get along. He tried to include us. Sometimes, he invited us over to their house because he thought it'd go smoother like that. But we never really felt welcome in their home. It just never felt like we were wanted there and Blair just couldn't wait to kick us out."

Diane slowly nodded, "That must be hard for you, as a best friend, to watch that."

"It is." Jeff agreed, "I just watched Harry become a shadow of himself throughout the years. He completely made himself vanish to fit Blair's idea of him. For a bit, he stopped hanging out with us because she asked him to. Or he dressed differently, spoke differently... to fit a mould. He doesn't do that anymore, but it was always so sad to see him living two such separate worlds. I could tell he was a bit jealous whenever he was the fifth wheel and didn't have his partner there to share that with."

"How did that make him feel?"

"Objection, speculation!" George Williams called. Diane rolled her eyes and judge Evans nodded, "Sustained. Rephrase your question."