Glass Cutter

Oliver thought I was stubborn, diffident, and meek, and he looked at me as being subservient to Delilah Weston.

I inhaled a sharp breath to argue with him, but the realization that I couldn’t truthfully do it hit me like a freight train. I was all those things. I wanted to be different from the people of Menlo, but I was so stuck in my ways that I was willing to look at the only other person from my mother that truly loved me as a monster. I had been so accustomed to viewing myself as less than Delilah Weston that, at some point, I had eventually just starting seeing myself as less than everyone. I never stood up for myself because I never wanted to face confrontation; and all I ever did was anything that Delilah ever wanted me to.

I was stubborn, diffident, and meek, and I was subservient to Delilah Weston.

The only thing I could do to keep from crying at this realization was run away from Oliver, down the four flights of stairs to the still busy Seattle street, and fall onto the sidewalk with my back against the brick apartment building and my face between my curled up knees.

“Amanda?” an oddly familiar voice called.

I peered up to see Dane Hawthorne walking towards me with a brown, paper bag in his one hand. I almost wanted to vomit at his sight.

“What’re you doing here?” he questioned, approaching me.

“Go away,” I mumbled. He was one of the last people I wanted to see then, especially when I was so close to drunkenly crying.

“What’s wrong?” He looked genuinely concerned, but I still didn’t like him even half as much as when we’d first met.

“I know you don’t speak Mandarin, or Spanish, or any other language in the world besides English, so I know you understood me. I said go away.” It might’ve come out a little harsher than necessary, but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere otherwise, seeing as my first comment only had him taking a few steps closer to me.

Apparently, my attitude still wasn’t enough to push him away because he just sat down next to me and peered at me earnestly, as if he really cared about why I was so upset.

“Have you been drinking?” he asked.

“What kind of question is that?” I snapped. “Does it even fucking matter?”

He shrugged. “I guess not. What’s wrong?”

I just rolled my eyes. “I said go away, Dane. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Well obviously something’s upsetting you—maybe talking about it will help. My therapist always tells me it will, but the jury’s still out about it. Maybe it’ll do something for you, though.” He offered me a sheepish smile.

I only glared at him. “Let me rephrase that; I don’t wanna talk about it with you.”

He furrowed his eyebrows at this. “What did I do? The last time I saw you, you just ran out on me from The Royal Lounge. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong—I just figured you met someone else. Why are you mad at me all of a sudden?”

“Because you lied to me. You told me you came here in August, and you failed to mention that you’re on probation for a domestic assault conviction. Like, really? You didn’t think that was important information to share with me?”

Comprehension seemed to flash across his gaunt features. “Who told you I had an assault charge?”

“It doesn’t matter who told me,” I muttered. “It just matters that it wasn’t you.”

He sighed and chewed on his cheek for a moment. “Okay, I lied about when I came here. It was actually August of last year; and I didn’t tell you about my charge because I wanted you to fancy me. What lass wants a bloke that was hitting his bird?”

“What lass wants a bloke that fucking lies?” I retorted bitterly.

“Well the plan wasn’t for you to find out about it. Who even told you?” He seemed disappointed, but I couldn’t have been sure that it wasn’t just my drunken mind wanting to see that.

“I said it doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. “Now go away.”

He sighed. “C’mon, Amanda. We got on so well. Let me help you feel better, yeah?”

“No.” I was only validating Oliver’s opinion of me; I was stubborn as a mule.

He rolled his eyes. “Listen, I was a different person some time ago, okay? I was a proper arse; but you’re not the only one that’s heartbroken, alright?”

My head jerked up at this to study his expression. “Who said I was heartbroken?”

“It’s all over your face, love.” It was my turn to roll my eyes again—as if he could really read my expressions like that. “You couldn’t hide the fact that you wished I was someone else when we were together.”

“Shut up, Dane,” I just grumbled. “What are you still doing here, anyway? I said go away like eight times.”

“Listen, love, I know what you’re going through.” He seemed almost desperate to make me believe that he was sincere. “I’m twenty-six, remember? And I really did get married when I was nineteen, so I really do understand what you’re feeling—and you’re angry.

“The whole reason I got in trouble here with that assault charge is ’cause I ended up falling in love with another bird after my ex, and I couldn’t get over the fact that the bird I was actually with wasn’t the one I actually wanted. It made me angry because the one I wanted just wanted someone else...so I decided to get revenge, and it almost made me feel better for a little bit.

“There—now you know the whole story.”

I wasn’t really interested in getting revenge on Oliver, but getting it on Delilah didn’t sound so bad; so my curiosity got the best of me, and I peered over to him, asking, “What’d you do to get revenge?”

“Well I’m not proud of it, but I’m not gonna lie either ’cause obviously you have a way of finding things out, whether I want you to or not.” He took a deep breath, exhaling loudly to drag out the moment of truth. “I got the bloke arrested. I figured if he was out of the picture, Rayne would want me.”

“Rayne?” I almost shrieked. It couldn’t have been the same girl.

“Yeah, she goes to a bunch of shows here—you know her?”

“Oh, my god,” I murmured. It couldn’t be. “She was a prostitute, and she ended up falling for the guy that was pimping her, right?” It felt so weird to refer to Oliver as a pimp. I mentally gagged at the thought of it.

Dane laughed sort of bitterly. “What a small world. How do you know her?”

“I go to some of those shows here, too. How on Earth did you fall in love with her?” I actually really wanted to know what guys saw in her because I hated her. Guys were superficial, no doubt, but her looks weren’t that good, enough to dismiss the fact that she was a conniving bitch.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, love. She was just nice to me; but she wasn’t interested—and she’s still not. She tried ruining the bloke’s life once he left her, and even though it kind of worked for a while, he’s still not interested in her anymore, and she’s still not interested in me anymore, either.”

“How’d she try ruining his life?” I couldn’t wait to hear the story. How much more complicated could the jigsaw puzzle I called real life get, anyway?

“Oh, gosh,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “Well, long story short; the bloke’s from a small town up north and was seeing this lass from his area for a while. One of his ex’s started dating another bloke from this area that goes to the shows, and Rayne somehow managed to convince the poor fellow to try and come onto the new lass Oli was seeing. I guess it must’ve worked ’cause apparently nobody’s seen his bird around here for a while.”

“You can’t be serious.” Even Alex was in on ruining my life? At that point, who wasn’t?

He shrugged. “Birds fight dirty, love. I can’t say I’m entirely upset about it, though—Rayne’s ex is a proper twat.”

“Oh, yeah?” I mumbled, rolling my eyes and resting my chin back on my knees. I almost felt bad for failing to mention my involvement to Dane, but my drunk mind told me I owed him a few lies, anyway.

“He sings in this band, and he thinks that just ’cause he has his own house, and lives on his own, and actually makes money from his music that he’s God or something. His ego’s the size of Alaska, quite frankly. It’s a bit of a turnoff, if you ask me, but for some reason, Rayne seems to really like him.”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I just closed my eyes and felt the frigid Seattle breeze burn my skin. I imagined being a young girl again, listening to music with my father in our living room with the crackling noise emanating from his record player beneath the music. Things were so simple then. When had they become so complicated?

A part of me wanted to be mad at Oliver because everything seemed to get so messy once he’d entered into my life; but after a few moments of seriously pondering it, I knew I couldn’t have traded my time with him for anything in the world. I really did love him, and I really did thoroughly enjoy every second I’d had the pleasure of spending with him—and Delilah Weston, Rayne Filmore, Alex Ward, or anyone else, for that matter, couldn’t have changed my mind for anything.

Just as I opened my eyes again to see Dane gazing at me in my peripheral, the front door to Oliver’s friends’ apartment building was thrown open, and Oliver’s lanky frame came bounding out with concern written all over his face. His eyes immediately fell on us, narrowing at Dane’s sight.

“Go back to the sewers where the fucking rats belong now,” he growled, padding over to us. “I’m not in the mood to deal with your shit right now, Dane;” and then Rayne suddenly came running out behind him, her heels slamming loudly against the asphalt.

“Don’t walk away from me, Oli!” she yelled breathlessly. “I wasn’t done talking to you, damnit!”

“Rayne?” Dane chirped, completely ignoring Oliver as he jumped up from his sitting position.

“Well I am!” Oliver shouted back, turning to her. “And if you don’t get out of my face right now, bitch, so help me, God, I’ll fucking choke you. If you know what’s good for your fucking job as a whore, then you won’t test me. No john wants a bitch with bruises—got it?”

She backed up into the doorway and glowered at him, but she remained silent.

He turned back to Dane and me. “I’m leaving before I kill someone. I already said goodbye to Jona, so if you wanna join me, you’re more than welcome to. If not, well then I guess I’ll just see you some other time.” He looked pleadingly at me, like he was really hoping I wouldn’t say I was going to stay behind with Dane.

I inhaled a sharp breath and stood up. Without another word, Oliver and I were off walking side-by-side in the opposite direction of where his truck was parked. I almost half wondered if he was taking me somewhere to kill me, but that was just my drunken diffidence blossoming into drunken paranoia.


A few hours later, I stood beside Oliver, gazing out into Elliot Bay with a few, stray storm clouds over the horizon. We remained silent, both of our arms folded over the metal banister of the boardwalk, with nothing more than some stolen glances at each other every now and then.

He was the first one to break the silence; “I’ve been thinking of moving here.”

“I know,” was all I said.

“I don’t think I can fix Menlo for you, Amanda, no matter how badly I want to. Stealing the Weston family fortune isn’t gonna change anything. Nothing will change it.” He sounded so discouraged, and all I wanted to do was make him feel better; so I reached across the railing and took a hold of his hand.

“At this point, Menlo isn’t even the problem, Oliver,” I mumbled.

“What d’you mean?”

“Even Rayne was in on trying to fuck our lives up. She somehow convinced Alex to start hitting on me, and that was the only reason why he ever befriended me.” I shook my head at my naivety. I felt so foolish.

Oliver just scoffed. “Honestly, I’m not surprised.”

I just nodded. I had been astonished earlier in the night upon first finding out, but at that moment, I wasn’t so much anymore. People were just awful sometimes—including myself. I really should’ve just come to expect it.

“I don’t even care about getting even with anyone anymore,” he went on. “Maybe I should just move away, go to Australia with Jona or something. God knows your life would be so much simpler if I left it.” He hung his head in defeat at this.

“Don’t say that,” I murmured, furrowing my eyebrows at him. “People have made things complicated in my life, but you’re not one of them.”

He just shook his head. “You never were good at telling people the way things really are, Amanda.”

My frown deepened. “I’m not just saying that, Oliver. You’ve never done anything except love me—that’s not very complicated.”

He was quiet for a long while. Nothing but the sound of distant waves in the sound filled the silence. It was peaceful, though. I actually appreciated it, for once.

“So where do we go from here?” he finally asked, his voice soft in the February night.

I shrugged. “Anywhere—as long as we’re together.”

He jerked his head in my direction, a large grin on his face. “You mean that?”

I smirked back. “Yeah, I need someone to help me with my chemistry homework again.”

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me with my back against his front. “And you’re not very good at French, either.”

I just smiled.

Silence lingered between us once more, until he asked again, “So where do we go from here, then—together?”

I shrugged once more, still simpering. “I don’t think it really matters, to be honest—as long as we’re together.”


After cuddling on a bench overlooking the sound for some countless hours, around three o’clock in the morning, Oliver and I went back to his friends’ apartment building. By then, Dane and Rayne were nowhere to be found. In fact, almost everyone that had been present was nowhere to be found, except for the four tenants of the building—Jona, Lee, Matt, and Vegan—Vegan’s fiancée, and Jordan. When Oliver and I came back to them, they were all lingered on the rooftop, cheeks flushed with cold, beers in hand, and circled around a white patio table in the corner by a speaker.

Jona was the first to notice our arrival, and his face immediately lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning. “I was sure I’d never see you again,” he greeted, directed at me.

I just smirked sheepishly, somewhat embarrassed about my earlier outburst. “I’d never let you leave without a proper goodbye.”

Oliver sat down in the last empty patio chair and wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me onto his lap. The warmth radiating from his body was enough to almost heat me from the freezing, winter temperature.

Jona grinned. “So what’s in store for you two now?”

Oliver shrugged behind me. “Who knows? I’m so sick of planning the future and then being pissed off when it doesn’t work out the way I’d wanted.”

I smirked at his truth. “What about you?” I asked Jona in response. “You gonna find yourself a nice, Australian girl and settle down?”

Jona just laughed. “Nah—not for now, at least. I think I’m gonna spend some time with my mom first, maybe go back to university or something. Maybe I’ll actually make up my mind on what I wanna be when I grow up.”

Everybody snickered at this.

“I think you could probably be an astronaut,” Jordan chimed. “You got that beefy kind of build to make you big and strong.”

“My mom tells me I’m just big-boned,” Jona lightheartedly defended.

“Be a neurosurgeon—the world could always use more of those,” Lee offered, clinking his can against Matt’s, who was wildly giggling.

“Is there a major for royalty?” Erica asked in turn. “You’re such a diva—somehow finding a way in with the royal family would definitely suit you.”

“Hey,” Jona whined. “Be easy on me. I’m sensitive.”

“Sensitive and old,” Matt chided, still sniggering. “Be the first person to major in grandfather education. How old are you now, anyway—seventy-seven?”

“I’m twenty-seven, fuckface,” Jona retorted, rolling his eyes with a smirk still on his face.

“Same thing,” Matt mumbled, grinning.

“What about maybe working at a record company?” Vegan suggested seriously. “Shock Records is a pretty good label. You’d probably enjoy something like that.”

Jona pursed his lips, thinking pensively.

“Yeah, then you can get us signed!” Jordan chirped excitedly. “How cool would that be—getting a gig in Australia, out of all places?”

Jona smirked. “Easy there, cowboy. I haven’t even gotten to Australia yet. For all I know, my plane’ll crash over the Pacific.”

“Yeah, but when you do get to Australia without your plane crashing, you’ll remember us,” Jordan answered happily.

“I could never forget you lot,” Jona replied,simpering. “Besides, you all are coming to visit me in the summer, remember?”

Oliver gently squeezed my thigh at this and murmured, “You gonna be coming with us then?”

Everyone turned their attention to me at this, seeming to look hopeful that I’d answer affirmatively. I’d never left the state of Washington before, let alone the United States Of America, but seeing the sights of Australia with Oliver and his friends sounded like a fantastic idea.

“’Course,” I finally answered, grinning. “I’ll be there.”



Just last month, in February, Carl Weston, head of Weston Law & Associates, LLC, officially declared bankruptcy.

Though originally based out of Seattle, the company has had a big impact here in Menlo. Founded in 1992 by Weston himself and partner Terrance Dennings, the firm has seen much success for over a decade. Even Mayor Donovan Graham had served some time working there from 1999 to 2006, before establishing himself into politics.

Weston Law & Associates, LLC, is known for its mass prosecutions in the northwestern counties of Clallam, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Mason, Pierce, Skagit, Snohomish, Thurston, and our very own Whatcom. The very famous case of Washington State v. Chao Zhong ¹, circa 2008, was actually prosecuted and won by Weston himself.

¹ In 2006, Zhong was accused of raping and murdering a dancer from The Vault, a gentleman’s club located in Olympia, and was convicted in 2008. The controversy came when the defense postulated that Zhong was an undocumented immigrant from Shenyang, China. Often, undocumented immigrants will go free, regardless of their crime, if their home country will not take them back. This almost happened with Zhong, but Weston fought a loophole in Zhong’s Visa, proving that Zhong was actually in the state of Washington legally and could therefore serve out his prison sentence of twenty-five years with no chance of parole.

However, Weston Law & Associates, LLC, has not seen success in quite a long time. The last case the team won was by Dennings in 2011, a prostitution misdemeanor against a twenty-one-year-old woman, who only served ninety-three days of her yearlong sentence at Washington Corrections Center For Women due to overcrowding.

Since then, both partners and their staff of two additional assistants have failed to make any of their cases stick. Their most recent endeavor was against a then eighteen-year-old man from Menlo and a twenty-two-year-old man from Seattle for possession of heroin, a class A CDS offense ². The case looked promising, but Judge Tomlin Marino threw it out after just a year due to lack of evidence.

² In October, two years prior to now, an unidentified informant had shared that both men would be selling heroin on the corner of South King Street and 16th Avenue in Seattle. However, upon arresting the men, no heroin or any other drugs were found. Text messages were presented as evidence from the prosecution, but the defense, attorney Roger Wildon of CMS Law Firm, LLC, also based in Seattle, claimed that the messages were only being misconstrued as intent of distribution. Without the younger defendant testifying against the elder that drugs indeed were being the sold, the case was thrown out and both defendants remained without criminal charges.

Since then, Weston Law & Associates, LLC, has not taken another case. The questions concerning why that is and what happened between then and now remain up for debate. In a statement issued on March 8th, Weston stated that he and Dennings had decided to take some time off for family, but numerous sources argue that both Weston and Dennings had taken no such action to ever do so.

When asked about what happened with the finances, Weston responded that “there’s just no more money in prosecution.” However, upon further investigation, questions of embezzlement have begun to surface. Weston Law & Associates, LLC, had many clients with trust accounts, and once declaring bankruptcy, the clients should have gotten their money back. Within the past month, though, no such advances have been made, and so clients are now asking themselves, Where is the money?

No answers have been given. All staff of Weston Law & Associates, LLC, have exercised their right to remain silent, Weston himself even specifically stating, “I plead the Fifth,” when asked about it last week.

The unknown location of the money brings forth many other concerns, though, such as who will now sponsor Mayor Graham’s coming campaign for re-election and who will provide funds for the research program, Project TRIGA ³, that John Mace has spent the last six years carrying out at Tannet-Owen Station, the sole provider of Menlo’s electric power. Weston alone accounted for more than 75% of Mayor Graham’s campaign funds and almost all of Mace’s research project funds.

³ Project TRIGA, a reference to a reactor originally designed by a team of physicists for General Atomics, Mace’s research project, was started to study the different effects of nuclear fission and fusion. The objective was to have reached a consensus on which reaction would be better for the town and to establish this power exclusively by the year 2025.

Additionally, some people are bringing up the fact that if Weston and Dennings were indeed embezzling, then all of their investments were not in fact theirs. If they are found to have in fact been embezzling money from their clients, then numerous townspeople argue that they—and not Weston or Dennings—are actually the sponsors and should therefore be entitled to the profits that Weston and Dennings were receiving, mainly regarding Weston’s profits from Mayor Graham and Project TRIGA.

The bankruptcy of Weston Law & Associates, LLC, has brought forth some mayhem for Menlo. What will become of Mayor Graham’s campaign, and what will become of Project TRIGA? Even more so, what will become of Menlo, our small town in Whatcom County, Washington, USA, with all the aftermath?