Tear Tracks Forever

Today was my court date. I was a nervous wreck. First, I woke up and took a shower. Then I dried my hair and straightened it. Soon after that, I practically went through my whole clothes drawer, trying on at least 30 combinations of clothes before I found something to wear. Well, Alex did. He came into my room, stared at the mess of clothes on the floor and asked, “What happened?”

In frustrated tears, I explained to him that I couldn’t find anything to wear. I could see him stifling laughter, then pointed out what I was wearing, a blue silk button-down shirt and black dress pants, were fine. I argued pointlessly with him for a few minutes, until he pulled me into his lap and told me, “Rhee, it’s not that you can’t find something to wear, it’s just that you don’t want to go to court and you’re nervous. Just relax. I promise everything’s going to be fine.”

“How do you know?” I whined.

Alex gave me a crooked smile and brushed a strand of my hair out of my eyes. “I just know. Now come on, everything’s gonna be fine. Don’t worry about anything. We have all the evidence we need to incriminate them. Are you ready to go?”

I still had to redo my makeup and do my hair.

“Ten minutes,” I promised.

“Okay. But hurry up. We can’t be late,” Alex called as he left the room.

I put on some eyeliner and concealer, trying to look professional. The only makeup I wore normally was eyeliner, and I hadn’t worn that since my father died, I hadn’t had time or heart to focus on my appearance. Every day I just got up, showered, threw on some old clothes, put my hair in a messy ponytail, and was ready.

I pulled half of my hair back and clipped it with a butterfly clip. Having some of it up somehow made me look more…girly and innocent. I stood up and slipped on my black dress shoes with a low heel and grabbed my bag, which consisted of random folders of evidence Mr. Meyer had put together in folders rubber-banded together.

Looking back into my room, I sighed, prayed to God, and left the room, almost tripping down the stairs.

“You ready?” Alex asked when he saw me. He looked cute in a blue button-down dress shirt rolled up to his forearms, black dress pants, and his blond waves still as messy as ever.
I nodded and he handed me a glass of water. I tried to drink it, but my hand was shaking so bad that I dropped it. The glass shattered and flew everywhere, and I fell back into Alex, squealing.

He luckily caught me. Still gripping my shoulders, he asked me, “What happened?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m sorry. It just fell, and—” Alex cut off my blabbering.

“Rhee, it’s fine. Just don’t do it again,” he knelt down and swept it into a dustpan as a stood back, gnawing my fingernails.

I found my voice and asked, “Do…do you want me to help?”

Alex gave me a tiny smile. “Rhee, you’re probably so unsteady that if I let you help, you would probably make this worse.” I knew he meant it as a joke, but the words still stung.

Before we left, we looked over the papers to make sure we got everything. “Defendant: Rheeyadh Marina Kumshi,” he read aloud. He looked at me. “Who’s Rheeyadh?”

My eyes widened. “That’s me. My full name is Rheeyadh. I go by Rhee. You didn’t know that?”

He shook his head. “No. No one ever told me. I just thought your real name was Rhee. It’s weird enough, I never thought of a weirder name like Rheeyadh.”

A dam inside me broke. He’d been acting like a total know-it-all jerk this whole day. “Are you going to act like that the rest of this day?” I snapped.

“Like what?” he asked coolly, which made me boil even more.

“Like someone with no shot of ever kissing me again. You’re being a total jerk,” I told him.

“How?” he asked, still smiling in a way that said, she’s lost her mind.

“Ugh! Like—like—that! Just stop it,” I whirled around and walked into the kitchen.

He caught me by my elbow. “Rhee, wait.”

“What?” I snarled.

“I know. I’ve been acting jerky today. I’m sorry. It’s just the whole court thing getting to me too,” he told me.

“Alright, whatever,” I mumbled, wanting him to say more before I accepted his apology.

“Rhee, I really am sorry,” he said, and then surprising me, he gently kissed me on the lips.

“I know. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Can we just go before one of us goes rabid or something?” I asked.

He laughed. “Alright, let’s go.”

We were supposed to meet up with Mr. Meyer at Panera Bread before the court, and we picked up Pepper and drove there. At Panera Bread, we went over what I was supposed o say, and then an hour later, we all went to court.

Pepper was driving, since Alex claimed that he was way too nervous and would get us into a car wreck if he had to drive.

We pulled up into the parking lot. I already saw Daniel and Lynn’s cars there and chills ran through my body.

We walked into the building and through the cold eerie halls, me gripping Alex’s hand tightly the whole time.

“Pepper, you have the video, right?” I must’ve asked that or like the tenth time.

“Yeah, I do,” he answered calmly.

“Okay,” I mumbled, and let go of Alex’s hand as we entered the courtroom. I stood at one podium, Daniel on crutches and his arm in a sling, next to me at the other podium.

I admit, I was barely paying attention as they went over the being sworn in and court rules and things. It was like the directions to the SATs that the teacher repeated over and over that no one listened to.

I kept daydreaming until the Judge suddenly pounded the desk and asked, “Ms. Kumshi?” I jumped. “Huh?”

“I said, how do you plead?” he asked through gritted teeth.

A wave of laughter flittered through the prosecution side, and I mentally slapped myself. What a great first impression.

"I plead innocent," I decided firmly.

“Okay. Mr. Svenson, the prosecution,” the Judge said.

I felt trapped in a cage as Daniel paraded around, telling lies about me, presenting worthless evidence that wasn’t really evidence to prove me guilty of murdering my father. I wanted to scream out, “That’s not true! He’s a liar!” But of course, I couldn’t. I would have to wait my turn.
Instead, I clenched my fists and stayed calm, waiting for my turn.

I turned around and caught Alex’s eye. He gave me a tiny, apologetic smile, and then a look that said, stay calm. Don’t lose it.

I quickly nodded back at him, and tried not to concentrate too much on Daniel’s court case so I didn’t have a mental breakdown. My mind wandered elsewhere, like to shallow, unimportant things about which swimsuit I would wear tomorrow, but I still stayed focused on whether the Judge was talking to me or not. I didn’t want to seem spaced out and crazy.

“Ms. Kumshi?” the Judge asked.

I snapped back at attention and very politely asked, “Yes?”

“Mr. Svenson has finished presenting his case. Do you have any evidence or witnesses to prove him otherwise, and or, do you wish to charge anyone else with the willful murder of Anthony Kumshi?”

“Yes, I do,” I said firmly.

“Very well,” the Judge sighed, and then continued. “Who will it be?”

Heart pounding, I looked around. My eyes suddenly rested on Daniel, sitting next to Lynn, his hand on her knee, smirking.

I remembered his exact words a few minutes ago, before he'd turned against me and prosecuted me.

"It takes a very unique person to kill. That's not you. It’s me."

And when they'd found his fingerprints on the bottle of Cyanide. He'd claimed to have not been wearing gloves when he found it in my underwear drawer.

And last but not least, the threat. After he'd almost shot Alex and beat me and Pepper up.
He had pushed me up against the wall and grabbed the front of my shirt and said "If you ever tell anyone about the two things--that I murdered your father and tried to shoot Alex, you and him will be buried alive, rotting in a grave no farther from here."

Pepper had caught the whole thing on video.

I was definitely going to accuse Daniel, but I felt my throat swell in fear. It was totally scared. of his threat. And him. What would he do to me if I told? Suddenly, I felt a tidal wave of power rushing through me. No way could he do this to me. I wouldn't let him. I glanced back at Pepper, and his angry eyes and bruised face said it all. 'Do it. Incriminate him. It’s what he deserves,' Pepper seemed to be saying. And he was right.

I composed myself, and answered in a crisp, smooth voice. "Yes, your honor. I would like to charge Daniel Svenson with the murder of Anthony Kumshi."

I saw a hint of guilt and nervousness cross his face as he walked to stand at a podium beside me.

"Mr. Svenson, how do you plead?" The Judge asked.

"I plead innocent," he said. But not firmly. I detected a crack in his voice. Apparently, so did Lynn. She was shooting him dagger looks from across the room.

"Ms. Kumshi, do you have any evidence or witnesses?" the Judge asked. I felt annoyed. He was treating me like I hadn't even thought this through. I had.

"Yes. I call Pepper Rivera and Alex Markin to the stand," I announced.

Pepper walked over to me, pulling out his iPhone. Alex appeared on my other side, giving me a tiny smile that obviously said, don’t be so tense.

"And Mr. Rivera. What proof do you have?" the Judge asked, sounding even more annoyed. With Pepper's name and his bruised face, they probably thought he was some Mexican pimp.

"I was there as Daniel--I mean Mr. Svenson threatened Rhee--I mean Ms. Kumshi and confessed to the murder. He also tried to shoot Alex," Pepper said.

The Judge looked dubious, and he raised his eyebrows, and then asked, “Do you have any proof?”

Pepper nodded firmly. “Yes, I do. I was a witness and took a video of the whole scene on my phone.” He calmly handed the iPhone to the attendant.

The attendant hooked up the iPhone to the laptop and tapped the screen a few times, and suddenly a HD video of Daniel and me alone in a hallway filled the once-blank screen behind the Judge.

"I know you did it," I had said calmly.

"Yeah, so what?" Daniel had asked.

"I'm going to tell the police. About my dad's murder and you almost shooting Alex," I had answered coolly.

But that was when Daniel grabbed me by the front of my shirt.

"If you ever tell anyone about the two things--that I murdered your father and almost shot Alex, you and him will be buried alive, rotting in a grave no farther from here," Daniel had growled, and then slapped me across the face onto the ground. I began punching Daniel and giving him a broken nose when he suddenly flipped over on top of me and drove his fists into my face repeatedly.

That was when everything became shaky and Pepper had ran into the scene to protect me and gotten bruised and beat up by Daniel. The iPhone had recorded the white-tiled ceiling after that, but you could definitely hear Pepper's cries of pain, my screaming, and Daniel's cussing and punching, kicking, and hitting. I didn't know what happened to the recording after that--the screen suddenly went blank.

People were gasping, murmuring, and looking at Daniel and me.

I could see Lynn with her head buried in her hands, looking depressed and angry. They knew they had lost. Alex, Pepper, and I, however, were ecstatic. Or so it seemed.

*~*

I stood outside the courtroom, arms crossed. There was no way I wanted to be in the same room with the guy who’d killed my father. I kept Alex there instead to listen to Daniel’s antics instead. I felt depressed and...empty.

I understood that I’d been so busy with all this shit, I hadn’t had any time to process my father’s death. I had been so busy, keeping myself from landing in jail, that I didn’t do a reality check. My father was dead. It was like a splash of cold water. I no longer felt like doing anything. I was a horrible, selfish person with no direction. No one in this world cared for me anymore. I knew some of this wasn’t true, but what did it matter? I was my own person and I was going to make myself sad if I wanted. All the feelings began pouring through my mind until I felt almost certain that there really was no pint in living. I knew I had said the same thing when I had tried to commit suicide, but that was because I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. Now, it was because my father was dead. Even though he hadn’t expressed his love for me, there was an ache in my heart, a hole in my soul, where he was missing. Those cold, chilling thoughts ran through my mind until Alex dashed out, grinning.

“Rhee, he admitted to the murder! Of course, he still wants a court case, but we don’ have to show up if we don’t want to. In addition, he has 25 years of jail and no bail amount for first degree murder. Isn’t that awesome?” he stated, looking so, so happy.

“Yeah, great,” I mumbled, looking away.

His smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just that my father’s dead. Do you realize that no amount of punishment can change that?” I snapped.

Wordlessly, Alex put his arm around me and we walked outside to the back of the courthouse, where he wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my hair.

“I know what you’re going through. When my sister died, I tried to keep myself as busy as possible so I didn’t have to face reality. But now, I know. It’s happening,” he mumbled.

And that was exactly what was happening to me. Then I did the one thing I had to do. I did the one thing I could do. I let the happy mask peel off my face and I buried my face in the chest of the one person who loved and understood me and cried my heart out.