Sidebarred: A Legal Briefs Novella (10 page)

Are you wondering about the others? Where they are, how they turned out? Today’s your lucky day, because I’m going I’ll tell you.

Riley lives in LA. She started her own business—party planner to the stars. She’s not married, but she’s been living with the same guy for the last ten years. Considering I moved my ass in with her aunt before we were married, Chelsea and I had a whole lot of nothing to say about that. The guy’s . . . okay. I don’t hate him—wouldn’t say I like him, either. He makes Riley happy, so, at least for now, I won’t have to kill him.

I’d like to tell you that Raymond’s first crush dream came true—that he and Presley Sunshine Shaw dated, fell in love, and lived happily ever after. But they didn’t.

Turned out, four years—in teen years—was just too big of a hurdle to climb.

Presley became an attorney, like her father—and she married a lawyer, also like her dad. They live just over the Virginia state line, on a horse farm that reminds Stanton of his parents’ place in Mississippi.

Raymond ended up majoring in computer science—no surprise there. His last year of college, he did an internship with a bunch of other brainiacs in Silicon Valley. One of his fellow internshippers was a pretty little thing with dark hair and big brown eyes, who thinks Raymond hung the moon. She said he was the first man she ever met who was smarter than she was. I’m still getting used to the idea of someone referring to Raymond as a man—not sure when that happened. They’ve been married about two years now, and the only thing that gets them more charged up than a new iPhone is each other.

Rosaleen followed in the footsteps of her mother, Rachel. She married her college sweetheart and started having kids not long after. She’s got three little girls and counting. They’re bouncy, blond, and beautiful and remind me so much of her, it hurts. Her husband’s a
well-paid campaign consultant and they live only a couple miles away in a house bigger than ours.

Regan is a speech therapist in Alexandria. She just finished her graduate degree and shares an apartment with her best friend from high school. She’s young and gorgeous and having a good time dating every guy she meets. She swears she’ll never settle down because she’ll never find a guy who can measure up to me.

Can’t really argue with that logic.

Little Ronan isn’t so little anymore. He’s twenty-two and just finished the pre-med program at Georgetown. Next up is medical school—and he wants to specialize in obstetrics. Sometimes Chelsea and I wonder how big of an impact Robert’s bathroom home birth had on Ronan. Neither of us asks because we don’t really want to know the answer.

Whoever said “you can’t go home again” never had a family. Because even though they’re grown, with lives of their own, and are spread out all over the country—our kids come home all the time. At Christmas and Easter the house is fucking bursting.

I grumble that it’s a pain in the ass. I complain about the craziness and noise and the chaos. Chelsea just laughs at me.

She says, I love it—that I wouldn’t change a single thing.

And . . . she’s right.

BONUS MATERIAL

Keep reading for a special treat!

What follows is a chapter that ended
up getting deleted from the final version of
Appealed
, but I’m excited
to share it with you now! No spoilers if you haven’t read
Appealed
yet.
Enjoy!
~Emma

Brent & Kennedy – 11 years old

They sat beside each other on the rocks along the water, after sharing the lunch she had stuffed in her backpack—spitting black watermelon seeds into the water.

“So you don’t remember anything?”

Woothoo

Kennedy’s seed flew from her mouth and landed close to shore. As far as spitting distance went—hers was pathetic.

“Nope. Not the day of the accident or the three days before it. It’s just gone.”

It had been two years since Brent’s accident. They hadn’t seen each other the first year—after his long hospital stay there’d been too many doctor appointments and physical therapy sessions. This was the first time they’d talked about “the tragedy,” as Kennedy’s parents called it.

“That must feel strange.”

Woothoo

“Yeah. But my doctors said it’s normal—head injury, the shock from bleeding so much.”

“What happened to the guy who hit you?”

Brent shrugged. And spit.
Woothoo
. “My parents wanted him to go to jail. Our lawyers argued with the police because they didn’t give him a ticket. But they said he wasn’t speeding, wasn’t drunk. He didn’t see me coming around the bend and I didn’t see him.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“I am now. I talked about it with my therapist. Sometimes stuff just happens. And it’s no one’s fault.”

“Your therapist? Like a psychiatrist?”

“Yeah.”

Woothoo

“What’s that like?”

“Weird.” Brent thought for a moment, then added. “But in a good way. My mother insisted on it, said I had to work through the trauma. But I think she’s more traumatized than I am. She says I’m not allowed to ride a bike again—ever. She had them removed from all the houses and gave them to charity. Even the stationery ones.”

“Like Sleeping Beauty.”

“What?” Brent asked.

“Sleeping Beauty. A curse was cast on her that she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel when she was sixteen and fall into a coma. So her parents banned all the spinning wheels from the kingdom to keep her safe.” She patted his head and teased, “You’re just like Aurora.”

He frowned. “If you start calling me Aurora, I’m going to start calling you Speck because you’re so short.”

Kennedy nudged him playfully, and spit another seed—missing the water entirely.

Brent shook his head. “You spit like a girl.”

Kennedy turned towards him, and launched a seed at his forehead. This one was a direct hit.

“Like an awesome girl.” She corrected.

Brent chuckled and wiped his forehead. “Anyway, I’m not Sleeping Beauty and I really miss my bike.” Then he squinted at the sun. “It’s getting late. I gotta go—my mother breaks out in hives if I’m out of the house too long.”

Kennedy watched Brent as he stood and gathered his lacrosse stick and his bucket of balls. And then she had an idea.

“Hey—do you know that field in the woods—the one that used to be an Indian burial ground?”

All the children who grew up in the area knew about it—and most stayed away. Satanic rituals were rumored to be held there.

“Yeah, what about it?”

Kennedy’s top row of braces scraped across her bottom lip as her quick mind outlined a plan. “Meet me there tomorrow.”

****

The Next Day

“What is that?” Brent asked, eyeing the contraption Kennedy stood beside.

“It’s a bike.”

“It’s pink.” Brent pointed out. “Really pink.”

“It’s a bike.” Kennedy repeated, firmer this time.

“It has streamers.”

“It has wheels,” Kennedy replied. “And you’re going to ride it.”

Brent walked closer to the girly nightmare. The memory of coasting down hills, popping wheelies, and jumping over curbs made his pulse quicken. They were things he never thought he’d be able to do again—things his parents would have a heart attack about if he did.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Kennedy.”

Her soft brown eyes looked up at him. “Of course you can.”

“But what if I can’t? Like, anymore?”

Kennedy gently touched Brent’s wrist. “If you really want to, you will.”

She sounded so certain, he believed her.

Brent swung his right leg over the small bike, awkwardly, hopping a bit on his prosthetic. He gripped the handle bars and tried to raise the kickstand. It took him three tries, but he did it. Then he sat on the bike, braced his prosthetic foot on the pedal and pushed. It slipped off before he moved an inch. He repositioned himself and tried again, but his balance was all wrong and he was just able to catch himself before he toppled over.

“This is gonna take a while,” he said, then sighed.

Kennedy sat on the ground and folded her hands around her knees. “We’ve got all summer.”

****

One Week Later

“Woooooo! Faster Brent!”

Kennedy’s brown braid had come loose and her hair tickled his face, lifted by the wind that poured over them as they raced down the hill. She sat on the handlebars, her feet braced on the lip of the bolt on either side of the wheel. Brent stood behind her, pumping the pedals.

“Okay—hold on!”

And they were off. He flew down the path, through shadows and patches of sun, bouncing over roots and rocks, thin branches slapping at his arms, still wet from yesterday’s rain, but he didn’t feel the sting. Because he was having too much fun. It felt like he was flying.

And he felt something else he hadn’t for a long time.

Normal.

“Yes!” Kennedy screeched. “Go-go gadget leg!”

Brent laughed, ducking his head beneath a particularly low branch. Then he pulled up on the handlebars to hop over a raised bump, making her bounce.

He was having such a good time, he didn’t notice the large rock right in the bike’s path.

Not until they’d hit it.

And then he was literally flying—they both were. His breath burst from his lungs as he landed in the wet grass with a hard grunt. For a second, he didn’t move. Nothing felt broken or injured. Then he sat up. Brent saw the bike on its side a few feet away, the back tire still spinning. He saw Kennedy a few feet beyond that. Her glasses had been knocked off her face, her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving.

At all.

As he looked at her, something inside him felt like it was breaking after all. In the seconds it took to get to her, a dozen thoughts ran through his head—each more horrible than the one before.

She was hurt—and it was all his fault. He would never forgive himself.

Never.

“Kennedy!” He knelt beside her, touching her cheek, looking for blood, his voice raw. “Kennedy wake up! Look at me.”

Instantly her eyes snapped open, shining like amber stones. And Brent was so relieved, he didn’t realize what was happening.

Not until Kennedy said, “Gotcha!”

Then she laughed. Loudly. Freely. Without a worry in the world.

Brent sat back. Relief turned to understanding. And understanding turned to anger. “You idiot! You scared the crap out of me.”

Disgusted, he scrambled to his feet and walked a few steps away.

“You should’ve seen your face!” Kennedy cackled.

Then she slipped her glasses on and was able to see what Brent’s face actually looked like. Pale. Tight. His breath escaped fast and hard.

Then she wasn’t laughing anymore. Because she realized what she hadn’t before: Bad things, terrible things really did happen. And Brent knew that better than anyone—because they had happened to him.

The smile fell from her lips. She crawled forward, rose to her knees. “Brent, I’m sorry. I didn’t think . . . it was stupid. I’m really sorry.”

He didn’t look at her right away. He stood, turned around, his hands on his hips.

And Kennedy wanted to cry. She could do it, easily, because she felt so awful.

When he did finally face her, his eyes were hard, two sharp-cut sapphires. Then he forced out a big breath. “It was stupid. And do you know what happens to stupid girls?”

“What?”

“They get the mud.”

Kennedy wasn’t familiar with that expression. But as she started to ask what the heck he was talking about, a glob of cold, wet mud landed on her shirt—splattering across her chest and neck.

“Ah!” She yelled out.

She looked between her muddy shirt and the boy who’d made it that way. And he was smiling again.

Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. “You are so dead.”

She scooped up the wet earth and formed a ball in her hand, like a mucky snowball.

Brent wiggled his muddy fingers at her. “Oooh, I’m so scared.”

Kennedy Randolph didn’t just spit like a girl—she threw like one too.

A girl with perfect aim.

Brent tried to dodge the attack, but a moment later the back of his white t-shirt resembled the Rorschach Test. And it was on. They scrambled and crawled, flung and smeared, screamed and shouted and trash talked. When it was over, there wasn’t a clean spot between the two of them. Brent spit brown saliva. Kennedy used a leaf to wipe off her glasses.

“If my mother saw me right now, she’d shite bricks.”

“What?” Brent laughed.

“Seamus, our new driver is Irish. That’s how he says the s-word—shite. I like the way it sounds. Shite bricks. It makes me feel powerful.”

Brent fell on his back, still laughing. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

Kennedy shrugged. “I’d rather be crazy than boring.” Then she smacked Brent’s leg – leaving a muddy handprint behind. “Let’s ride down to the river and clean up.”

Brent sobered as they stood and walked toward the bike. “Maybe we shouldn’t ride anymore.”

“Why not?”

“We could fall again. You might get hurt, Kennedy.”

The small girl turned to him, hands on her hips, stubbornness in her jaw. “We probably will fall again—and that’s why we have to get back on and keep riding. The ride is the only thing that makes falling worth it.”

Brent squinted. “Okay, human fortune cookie.”

Kennedy stuck her tongue out at him. “Don’t be such a pussycat.”

He just looked at her blankly. “What the heck does that mean?”

“I heard Seamus say it to the gardener. He said, ‘Don’t be a pussy,’” She shrugged. “I think he meant pussycat, like ‘Don’t be a chicken.’”

“I don’t think Seamus is gonna be your driver for very long,” Brent said before reluctantly climbing on the bike with Kennedy on the handle bars.

He rode slower at first, but when she begged him to go faster, he did.

Because he was no pussycat.

****

Three Weeks Later

They were by the pool. Mrs. Mason hyperventilated when the Mason’s butler, Henderson, caught them swimming in the river—even though Brent’s physical therapist said his prosthetic was saltwater grade. She made him promise that the only place he’d swim was here at the pool, with Henderson close by. There wasn’t anything Brent hated more than seeing his mother upset, so he made a promise—and stuck to it.