Proven Guilty (Treadmill III)

XIX

You know what I've always loved?

My name.

I've met plenty of people who don't like their name, and plenty of people who are simply indifferent towards theirs. There are also people who like their name. But I've yet to meet anyone who feels the same affection for their own name that I feel for mine.

Kennedy Abrams.

I think I love it so much because it sounds like a name that could go with any profession, or any title. Dr. Kennedy Abrams. Kennedy Abrams, J.D. Professor Kennedy Abrams. Dean Kennedy Abrams.

Now that I've written my name that many times in a row, it's starting to not feel like a real name. But you get my point.

There was a brief moment in time when I despised my name. I suppose when you love something so deeply, you're not going to end up ambivalent about it. You either love it or hate it; there's no middle ground.

When I was 22 years old, I hated my name. I hated seeing it in headlines, I hated hearing it come out of lawyers' mouths, I hated hearing reporters shouting it every time I exited a courtroom. It felt like a trap.

But then, the reporters stopped talking about me, I never had look another lawyer in the eye, and I began to love my name again.

I especially loved hearing it from the voice of my best friend.

><><><

"Kennedy Abrams!"

Kennedy whipped her head around, trying to locate where Rebecca's voice was coming from. She could hear her name, and she recognized the voice, but Rebecca herself was lost in a sea of joggers and rolling carry-on suitcases.

"Kennedy Abrams!"

This time, the voice was closer, and Kennedy turned again to find herself being crushed in a violently excited hug.

"Hey, Bec." While Rebecca's voice was filled with childlike excitement, Kennedy's was a sigh of familiar relief. She hadn't realized before how much she missed Rebecca. The last time Rebecca had come to visit Kennedy had been almost a year previous, as a late birthday trip.

The two women pulled apart from each other and Kennedy took her best friend in. Rebecca busied herself with grabbing Kennedy's suitcases from her and starting for the airport's exit, talking excitedly about everything she wanted to do while Kennedy was in the country. Kennedy looked around the airport curiously, remembering when she had flown out of the very same one, almost a decade earlier.

Where she had expected to feel trepidation at returning to her home, Kennedy found only a quiet comfort.

"How was the flight?" Rebecca asked once they were on the road, heading toward the apartment Rebecca shared with her fiancé.

"Not too bad," Kennedy replied truthfully, "I actually got started on some notes for the book, which I wasn't expecting to do. For the first two hours I just sat in my seat and stared at my laptop. I think the person next to me thought I was stoned."

"Were you?"

"No."

"Just checking." Rebecca didn't take her eyes off the road, but she smiled. "What did you end up writing down?"

"I'll have to show you when we get to your place. I think I ended up with fourteen pages of shit."

Rebecca nodded, visibly impressed.