Heteronym

Chapter 22

I ended up not having to murder anyone which was a real time saver.

In reality, I ended up only blacking out for around a minute, according to Beck. I was still on the floor with Taylor and Beck hovering over my when I woke up, taking a deep breath through my nose. Despite everyone's eyes on me, I just got up, looked around, and acted like nothing had happened. It must have been pretty fucking hilarious but no one laughed outwardly.

I would have.

Beck was watching me the rest of practice, making sure I was staying on the exercise bike and not doing anything else that would cause me to pass out again. Taylor ended up unofficially banning yellow Gatorade without context, though I'm sure everyone could figure it out with two minutes on google. Either way, practice zoomed by my distracted brain.

Though today was not a day I looked forwards to at all. This was probably one of the days I feared the most, but there was no stoping it. Sitting in the wooden chair beside my attorney at a table where just a few feet away my rapist sat with his own lawyer made me want to vomit. I could convince myself all I wanted that Jensen Spack wasn't going to walk away a free man today, but deep down I knew that was a false statement.

I felt like I was going to throw up from where I was sitting in a wooden chair at a table with my lawyer on the left and Beck on the right. I was allowed to have one support person with me. Originally I had been thinking of taking Sylvia or Finn considering they had been there for me since the original trial, but they both had work and I felt like Beck could provide me more moral support. That and I needed someone who could calm me down when I broke down in the car during our two and a half hour drive home from Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, Connecticut.

The two men and one woman sitting at the long wooden table in their large leather chairs across from the two tables stared everyone down intently, watching specifically as Jensen Spack walked in wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles around his wrists and ankles. His cold dead eyes sent a chill down my spine, eyeing me like a lion watching a piece of meat. I was a well developed fifteen year old at the time, but I looked like a woman now and I didn't know if that made it worse or not.

The dark haired Hispanic woman started speaking first, her commanding voice taking over the small beige toned room. "This is the parol hearing for Mr. Jensen Spack. Let us start by taking note of who is in attendance. Mr Patel from the Attorney Generals office, can you please list the patrons for your party?"

My lawyer stood, as he was the acting assistant private prosecutor for my case . "Ms. Danielle Riley and Mr. Beckett Sampson are present Ma'am." Mr. Green had prosecuted Sylvia's rape case eighteen years ago but he had retired shortly after winning mine. But I trusted Mr. Patel's council; he had learned from the best and he had helped me win my case, but even the best lawyer lost parol hearings. Sometimes they were hail marys.

"And what is their relationship to the defendant?"

"The victim and the victims significant other respectively."

"Thank you, Mr. Patel," she nodded before my lawyer sat down. "I'd like to start out by introducing myself. My name is Kelly Martinez and I am the chairmen of the Board of Pardons and Paroles of the Sate of Connecticut. Beside me is Mr. Canes and Mrs. Conti. I understand that Mr. Spack has a statement prepared. If you could present that now, that would be preferable." Every line was so formulaic and reversed that it felt like I would destroy the carefully crafted fixate if I even breathed the wrong way.

I held my breath as the brunette stood from his chair. It had been seven years and the only thing that had changed was his hair seemed ever so slightly thinner as he hit his late thirties. He still looked like the attractive young trainer girls used to fawn over and it disturbed me immensely. He had everyone's attention as he stood before the board, my eyes burning holes in the side of his head despite my calm face.