Negligence

   As soon as the water touched her skin, the stains of dirt and blood began to fall to the shower floor and they would disappear down the drain. She was trembling a bit still, shocked by what had happened earlier. She tried to clean herself with soap, distracting her from what she had in mind, but she just couldn’t stop thinking about it. She made the flow of water to run faster, for more water to fall on her. Her unconscious wanted to drown her, feeling that would be the only way they could keep on living. But of course, she didn’t drown in her shower. She just stayed there for several minutes, as if she needed to clean more from her body that only the dirt and the blood. When she finally closed the water, she stayed there against the wall, incapable of crying, incapable of feeling anything.

 The rest of that day she spent it home. She had no need or wanted to parade herself around town, not after what had happened. The images of what had happened invaded her mind every few seconds, and she wondered if she would ever feel safe and sane again. She lay in her bed hours and hours, without eating or drinking anything. Her phone rang several times as well as her cellphone, but she just didn’t answer. She knew it was office related and she hated to be disturbed by anything related to it on weekends, even in better days for her. Or maybe it was her parents that had the tradition of calling her every Sunday afternoon because they knew it was the slowest and most boring day for her in the week.

 When the phone rang again, she was tempted to grab it but finally decided against it. Talking may have resulted in awkward reactions, maybe then she would be able to cry or scream and it just wouldn’t be appropriate, as too many things would have to be explained. Instead, she decided to head to the kitchen and have some water. She felt dry and a bit dizzy but knew that she couldn’t hold any food. She went to the bathroom and tried to vomit but that was a failure. She just returned to bed and lay there for the rest of the day, in silence, without a single person to help her understand what was going to happen to her. Because the truth was that she was scared for her life, as she felt the every single thing had changed.

 She hated to admit it, but she did feel different. Later that day, she went to the bathroom and spent several minutes looking at her reflection in the mirror. She moved, looking at her every feature. And as much as she thought that the change had been physical too, she had no way to prove that. She looked exactly the same, maybe a little but paler but no other difference besides that. The poor woman passed her hands over her face several times, as if trying to wake up fro ma bad dream, but she didn’t wake up. Instead, she decided to go back asleep, something that scared her immensely as she had no wish of having nightmares.

 The following day, she woke up an hour early, with big bags under her eyes. She showered, put on her work clothes and then had a big breakfast with toast, scrambled eggs, a sausage and some orange juice. She was starving from the day before. It was then that she realized that wanting to be dead didn’t help anyone at all, less of all her. She had to keep on going and just live like any other person. What she had done had been definitive, but s many had done it before her and the world was not going to end because of it. As she had breakfast, she watched the news on her TV but nothing interesting had happened the day before or that morning, at least as far as the televisions news world was concerned. When finished, she just grabbed her coat and left.

 Some forty-five minutes later, she was arriving at her desk, leaving her coat on a hanger on one of the sides of her cubicle. The morning was cold and everyone had decided to put on their coats back on, even going as far as putting on scarves or gloves. The morning went on without a single accident or incident. There was always someone complaining about the low amount of paper in the copy machine or someone else commenting on the weather, but that day everyone seemed to be too cold to even speak as much as they normally did. When she decided to grab a cup of coffee, as she always did, she realized that something was happening on the ground floor. She could see people gathering from the twenty-second floor, where she was standing.

 Then, a couple of police patrols arrived and finally an ambulance. Maybe someone had fainted or had been… Yes, one of the paramedics rushed out of the ambulance as soon as his vehicle had stopped. The police were putting the yellow ribbon around the place to stop the people from coming in. In the coffee room, other people had arrived and were looking exactly at what she was looking at. One of them finally said “Oh my god, it’s a body!” and she realized that was it. There was a person down there, probably dead. Maybe he or she had jumped from one of the many floors of the tower or maybe something else had happened. Any way, their supervisor came and asked them all to go back to their desks.

 At lunch, everyone wanted to know what had happened and the most skilled people with gossip knew everything about it within a couple of minutes of being down there talking to other people that loved to gossip. Apparently, the one who had jumped had been a woman, by the name of Marcela Jones. Marcela worked in the twentieth floor, in a company that had something to do with electronics. The point was, she had just run for the window and fell to her death. So it was a suicide and as our woman heard this, she felt sick to her stomach and had to run to the toiled. For the rest of the workday, she felt very sick.

 She felt better once the day was over and she was on a bus home. But maybe the word wasn’t better, but less likely to do the same thing that Marcela had done. It was crazy but she had seen that woman’s face once that week and it hadn’t been at work. It had been in another place, one that she was trying to forget but that kept coming back to her mind. Worried by these visions, she remained in her room all night, again without eating. She was thinking about what had happened today and what had happened over the weekend. The two had to be related, especially after she had seen the news and realized the state of Marcela’s body. She felt like shit, thinking and thinking without really achieving anything. She felt guilty and sick to her stomach.

 But by the following morning, she knew what she had to do and it was maybe the toughest decision she had ever taken. Instead of leaving for her work, she decided to go to the nearest police station. There, she asked for someone to listen to her testimony, as she wanted to confess a crime she had committed. She felt awful, waiting for an agent to come to talk to her. She gone to the police station by her work, as they knew more about Marcela’s death that anyone else. Finally, a detective asked her to follow him to an interrogation room and then he asked if she could state her name and profession for the record.

 Her name was Linda Bloom and she worked as business consultant in the biggest firm in the city. She wanted to confess that on the night of the previous Saturday, she had assassinated a man, whom she blamed for the suicide of Marcela Jones. The detective was surprised but the first thing that he asked was about the relation between her actions and Marcela. Linda explained that Stuart Carter, the man she had killed, had brutally assaulted several women for the last few months in the city. She knew this because she had managed to escape and, after killing him with a hammer, she had seen some pictures in his house, from where she recognized Marcela’s face. The officer asked her for the address of the house where she had killed Carter and left her there.

 Hours later he came back, and she was officially arrested. They had found the body where she had told them that they would find it and also the albums of pictures the man took of the women he had apparently assaulted. They had no proof of this just then, but with time they would find out that the man was a monster and that the only person that ever stood in his way was Linda. She had been able to grab the hammer after she escaped his “studio” and just hit him in the head with it several times. She did it until he stopped moving and then just ran out, covered in blood and filth from the place they were in.

 Linda had to wait for a trial until all the evidence was gathered and, by the time they decided to convict her, at least six months had already passed. Although it was revealed that she was going to be the man’s last victim, she had failed to report the murder sooner and had neglected to tell the police about the pictures she had seen, which could have prevented Marcela’s death. Linda was condemned to five years in prison and that time was enough to make her loose all her will to live. She died behind bars only a year after entering the penitentiary.

Anna's diet

   The smell of chocolate filled the air, liquid chocolate being heated in large tanks. Some of them also had the smell of oranges, others smelled of strawberries. In the factory, they also created various candy and even flavored soft drinks. Temco was one of the largest companies in the country and it only dedicated itself to sugar-based goods. The amount of it that they used in a year, was worth a good contract and that’s why Anna was there, touring the facilities. She wasn’t especially fond of sweets. To be honest, she was one of those people that avoided eating many of the most delicious things. Some called it taking care of herself; others thought it was self-deprivation.

In any case, Anna represented a sugar company that had the capacity to provide several more tons of the precious good in order for Temco to produce more and even new products. Anna was a great saleswoman and the idea of growth always attracted people and companies that wanted to grow more and more. They signed the contract that same afternoon; after a nice lunch where they praised each other often and had no sugar at all. Anna liked to celebrate her contracts with champagne, which was the only time she allowed herself to step out of her strict diet. But maybe this time she shouldn’t have done. Somehow, the following morning when the maid entered the room to clean the bed, she found Anna still in the bathtub but dead.

 It was all over the news and many concluded, even before she got to the morgue, that she had fallen asleep and drowned in her own warm water and bubbles. But when the body was thoroughly examined, they found no traces of water in her lungs. Oddly enough, her hair was dry and she had only ingested the equivalent of one cup of champagne. They did a toxicology exam on the contents of her stomach and found out Anna had been poisoned. The police then took the case, as it had happened on one of the most prestigious hotels and soon Temco was also dragged into the storm by various reporters that had found out about everything before anyone else had.

 Detective Preston was in charge of the investigation and the first thing he did was talk to the CEO of Temco. After all, he had had dinner with Anna the same day she had died and maybe he could say something about her demeanor during that time. But the man did not remember anything strange, nothing that would be notable. He only said that he found strange she didn’t really ate much. She had ordered a salad with tuna and many vegetables but barely touched any of it. Preston visited the restaurant and talked to the young waiter who had served them. He also remembered the almost full plate of salad at the end of the dinner.

 Preston decided then to talk to the family. Surprisingly enough, Anna’s mother was not at all shocked or visibly sad by the death or her daughter. The father had died several years ago from a heart attack and the mother seemed to be focused on other things such as exercising, tanning her skin and also dieting. She told Preston that Anna’s diet was one much more strict than the one she was on. She was very adamant about respecting it and they had quarreled several times over it because the mother thought her ways were better. Besides that, she didn’t really provide anything new or insightful. It was obvious she didn’t really know her daughter besides those silly details. Maybe that’s why she looked absolutely oblivious to the whole thing, as if it had nothing to do with her.

 The detective then visited Anna’s house and checked every corner of the apartment. She had no alcohol and no drugs. The medicines she had were harmless and there was barely enough good food to feed an adult human being. The place was tastefully decorated and it was obvious Anna’s job was a very good one. Her clothes and shoes were pretty expensive and they filled a large room she had between the main bedroom and the bathroom. But nothing there could lead anywhere, neither to an accidental death nor to a reason to kill her. She did deal with multi-million contracts but she never handled actual money so why would anyone kill her? Maybe blackmail was the reason.

 Preston’s next stop was Anna’s office and it was the first time he met someone that apparently cared about the death of the woman. Her secretary sobbed and cried a bit as she opened the office were her boss had worked for almost three years now. She told Preston that Anna was not really a people person but that she wasn’t and ogre or anything. She saw herself as Anna’s friend and her only one as they had shared a couple of laughs and nice times, mainly attached to work. Preston realized that Linda, the secretary, was absolutely honest so he decided to ask her if Anna was dating someone. Linda only looked at Preston, which was enough of an answer for him.

 There was nothing interesting in the office. Many papers relating to contracts she had made with several countries around the country and the world. She was clearly very prolific and documented everything in detail. Linda gave him access to Anna’s personal agenda but there was nothing he didn’t know in there. He couldn’t discard the idea that maybe she did have a lover that no one knew about and that it had been him or her that had killed her. Maybe because of the money she had. Preston had seen her two bank accounts and it could be said that her mother was going to have a very nice old age with all that dough. It was amazing for Preston, who struggled every month, how much others made in a single month.

 It was better for the detective to head back home and just check every piece of the puzzle at the same time. He had checked with the hotel and they hadn’t found anything curious in her room besides her clothes and the bottle of champagne she had never finished. Besides, they confirmed that no one had entered Anna’s room besides her and the maid that discovered the body and there were cameras everywhere in the building so the theory of the lover had to be ruled out. Nevertheless, Preston still thought that people always have at least one private thing, something that they hide to others because it’s embarrassing or simply because they don’t want anyone to know everything about them.

 He went through Anna’s school records, as well as her college ones but nothing was found there either. She had been a great student, having failed no courses and always a teacher favorite. Someone might have not like that but it wasn’t enough to poison her. Anyway, Preston checked the hotel once more and everyone who had made any kind of contact with the bottle. But, as it turns out, the poison was in Anna’s stomach but not in the bottle of champagne. She had been poisoned earlier that day and died slowly at night in the bathtub. So Preston headed to Temco and talked to everyone who saw her and realized she had not accepted a single glass of water and they did offer Preston one at lest ten times. Anna was just a strange woman and it was becoming more and more difficult to understand her.

 Finally, Preston designed a theory were someone from a competitor company, also selling sugar, killed Anna to get to the contract first. Maybe this was all about the possibility of making tons of money. But as he looked for the other companies, no other was large enough to cover the amount of sugar that they had signed for in the contract. Temco was very big and at the moment, only Anna’s company was big enough to supply them what they needed. So competition was scarce, close to null. So Preston decided to check everything once more and then he realized he had forgotten about a key aspect of the night of the death: the dinner at a prestigious restaurant. He had interviewed the waiter but nothing more.

 He went there and asked for the tapes of the cameras that covered the area where Anna had dinner. He also asked them for the menu and everything they had to eat that night. He checked every ingredient in his computer, at home, until he realized about something: Anna’s salad had a very curious ingredient, a mushroom that grew wild in the vicinity and that people had started consuming only in the recent years. He looked it up and discovered that the mushroom was potentially dangerous if consumed with alcohol. And Anna had it with wine and then drank champagne in her hotel room. The forensic team agreed that, with her very poor diet, Anna’s stomach wasn’t able to process the mushrooms as most people could. They were only toxic if the gastric juiced were just weak enough, which was her case.

 So Anna had, in a strange way, killer herself. Preston was relieved to solve the case but just sad for someone who had taken such steps to be healthier and had ended up killing herself.

Forgotten

   I had always liked to stay at nice hotels and now I had the chance to do it often do to my job. I paraded around the globe trying to sell them these products and in exchange I got to stay in great cities and beautiful hotels every so often. Of course, there were not five star hotels and were rather aimed at pleasing businessmen and not film stars or something, but I really liked them.

 One time, for example, I was sent to a rather small town but they put me in a big hotel with all the amenities possible. It was five stories high, had a nice view of the airport and even had a pool. So the first thing I thought, even during my meetings with various people that day, was when and how to get into that pool. I had planned to get to the hotel by six in the afternoon and just run to the pool as it closed at seven o’clock.

However, when I was picking up my things n my room, a hotel towel and so on, I got a phone call. It was someone from work but I decided to pretend I was busy or a heavy sleeper and not answered. Actually, I deliberately left my phone in the room as I left it for the pool, which was amazing. The water’s temperature was perfect and I had all for myself. Possibly that was because the hotel was nowhere near top capacity but I didn’t really care. I just enjoyed the moment and swam across the pool multiple times until I decided it had being too much. Strangely, no one had come to tell me to get out of the pool and I was sure it was eight o’clock, at least.

 I went back to my room and the phone was ringing again. I decided to pick up and realized no one answered. The number that appeared on the screen was from one of my bosses but no one spoken when I answered. I hung up and just lay down in bed about to turn on the TV but somehow I got very sleepy in a second and I fell asleep right there. I had a dreamless night and when I woke up I was slightly startled. I thought I had overslept but it was still two hours until I had to wake up to leave for my flight back home. But I couldn’t get back to sleep so I decided to check on the news. Nothing interesting.

 I decided to shower and use all the little soaps and shampoos I could and those I couldn’t I would put them in my luggage. Again, the water was perfect and I spent more than enough time in the shower but because I suddenly felt sleepy again. I had to close the water and lean against the wall to recover. I grabbed a towel but when I did the world had started spinning and I just fell hard to the ground. I did not pass out instantly. My eyesight was blurry and I could feel a presence and some distorted sounds. Just before I feel into a deep slumber, again, I thought I saw something and smelled a very particular scent.

 When I woke up, I wasn’t in my hotel bedroom. I was in another hotel bedroom, more likely a motel. The walls had stains on them, there was a smell of rotten food or something and I realized it was pitch black outside. I concluded I had been kidnapped and, of course, I had missed my flight. People would already be looking for me, as they knew at what time I supposed to be home. I hoped they were looking because that place really felt off. Something was not right and then I smelled the same scent I smelled before I feel asleep naked on the ground of the hotel bathroom. I realized I was now wearing some kind of robe. I checked it and realized it had the emblem of the hotel I had been staying in. Then, the door of the room opened and that smell invaded the small space.

 The door was close and there he was. A tall man, wearing a black hat and a coat. I had never seen him before but he had this look, like what someone would look like after escaping a mental institution. I decided not to say a word and just wait for him to day or do something. But he stayed there, standing up by the door just looking at him. When I tried to move, I realized one of my wrists and one of my ankles, were tied tightly to the bed. I was tied to them with rope. And I was very week suddenly so I decided not to fight against anything. Was this a crazy guy that kidnapped people and killed them far away or was he going to torture me in some gruesome manner that I couldn’t even understand? The thought made me tremble.

 And it was then that he moved, towards me. I saw his eyes more clearly and they are very red, as if he had never been asleep in his life. He was older than I had thought at first and, to be honest; he didn’t seem as deranged as I had thought he was. Still, he didn’t say a word. However it was me who started asking for him to release. The time for waiting for him to act had passed and now I needed to make him understand that maybe I was the wrong target or maybe I could convince him not to kill me. But he didn’t seem to care about what I said. He just looked at me with those red eyes and it was uncomfortable and I just started to get very desperate. I was weak but I pulled and cried from impotence.

This seemed to work on him because he blinked a lot, as if he had been woken up from hypnosis or something. I took advantage of his apparent confusion and started to beg him. I asked him to release me and I swore I would never tell anyone what had happened in that room and what he looked like. I told him I didn’t know who he was or what he was trying to do but that I respected him and wanted him to know I wanted to be respectful of him. All of this came like a waterfall of ideas that just ran out of my mouth as I thought about them. I was desperate but said anything in a very controlled way in order not to seem as crazy as I thought he was. Then, he turned his head and walked towards a table I had not seen before.

 From the table, he took something and took his time doing something to it. I thought that he was going to start torturing me for sure but then he turned around and I realized he held a needle in his hand. Before I could even think anything, he jabbed it on my leg and, once again, I fell into a deep slumber and only felt him go away, maybe out of the room and the scent of rotten food fill the space in my mind. This time I did dream. It was about my childhood and the first boy I had ever kissed. My mind kept repeating the memory like a damaged DVD player or something. I felt anxious and then I woke up and I happened to be back but not in my hotel room but in my home. The first thing I did, after I realized I was still wearing the hotel robe, was to call the police.

 Sure enough, I had disappeared for a whole week. I almost fainted again when they told me. Apparently, I just remembered one day out of seven he had me in his custody. I told everything I could to the police, all bout the guy’s look, the smells, what I could remember about the motel and about the syringe he had jabbed in my leg. They made me go through several medical tests and so on in order to know more about he had injected in me. It apparently was a very strong liquid that made anyone go limp in a heartbeat. So they thought he might be a doctor of some kind, maybe even a veterinarian. But I had never met either, not close at least.

 My mind was just so full of things, of cut memories and of fear. Because I knew he could’ve done so much more to me than he did. He didn’t kill me, torture me and the rape tests came out negative. I had been kidnapped for some reason and the person responsible had done nothing to me. The police did their job, I can’t complain about that, and they found absolutely nothing. They just couldn’t get anywhere with what I knew and with the other few evidence they had. Not even security cameras had registered him into my room and no one anywhere had apparently seen such a man. I got fed up with it all when a psychologist insinuated that maybe I had imagined all of it. Never trusts shrinks, am I right?

 I decided to go back to my work, my home, my life. I was very scared to be alone at home so I bought a dog and a cat and just tried to get by, without ever thinking about what had happened that day. My trips are less frequent now and I just have fun the few times I leave for business. However, I never sleep well in hotels and I tend to spend a lot of time in the bar area. I drink so I can sleep faster and just make the night go more smoothly for me. Since what happened, I can’t stop thinking that maybe I knew him from something, maybe I had met him once and now I didn’t know. But a hypnotherapist didn’t help, as I thought. I’m just never going to know what exactly happened and why and maybe that’s the worst part of it.

Hate crime

   Rose was now terrified to come out of her house. She just couldn’t even think about it without having a serious breakdown. That’s why she had moved with her parents, in order for her to be under their watch every day, at every time. Just after the attack, she had attempted to kill herself in the hospital but she had failed due to the attention of the nurses and that she wasn’t in any real danger. But at home, anything could happen. Her mother was scared the moment Rosa asked if she could help making dinner. At first she would only let her do silly things, like break the leaves out of a lettuce or open a can or a bottle of something. No knives or other pointy objects.

 But after a year, Rose’s state of mind had improved except for her fear of the outside world. Inside, in any day, she would laugh at TV shows, share stories with her dad, gossip with her mom and even talk on her computer with some old friends. Even her former boss was thinking of letting her into the company again, working remotely of course. Because she just couldn’t take a step outside. Instantly she would start screaming and fighting anyone who helped her try some more steps or pulled her back in.

 You see, Rose had been attacked a year ago and she had been left seriously affected by it. Not only was she raped, but she had also being kicked, punched and dragged into a dark corner of the world by two men. It was understandable the amount of fear she had inside and it was remarkable that she had been able to get better, as much as she had been, on her own on such a short amount of time. Other victims took much more time and some never recuperated from their attacks. Rose did because she had always been a fighter but somehow the outside world was now her most dreadful fear. She couldn’t even stare at the windows, day or night. She just thought of it all again, even felt it all again and she did not wanted that to happen ever.

 Her parents understood her situation; after all it had been them who had taken care of her since she was a baby. She had always been such a happy, free kid, the kind that would ask for money and then go alone to the nearby store and buy some candy. She would play with many of her friends in the park, even leading them in many of their games. She had always been the leader, the one people looked at for guidance. It had been like that in school and in college but now there was no trace of that Rose in her. Her fear had finished of that vivacious and strong women for another that was also strong but not so much compared to the past. She had been struck off many things that day and now she couldn’t even have a real life on her own because of her fear.

 She saw Victoria once a week. Victoria was a psychiatrist specialized in this sort of cases and she was very interested in Rose as she was the only patient of hers that had improve so much in some areas and so little in others. With special gadgets and experiments, they would try for Rose to be more acceptant of the exterior world but all of that always resulted in a huge failure. No matter if it was a blindfolded test or a session trying to confront her with the attack, it was always a traumatic experience. Rose trusted Veronica so she would often ask for forgiveness for her behavior but Veronica always hugged her and told Rose never to apologize for what happened or its results. None of that was her fault and she should only be thinking on getting better.

 And Rose did try. She started cooking cupcakes at home, as a therapy to get more and more relaxed. Her boss finally passed her proposal to work from home so she decided to change her life altogether and asked her parents if they would be with her on the creation of a small business selling her cupcakes and other desserts. They started selling for the neighborhood but soon expanded to have a proper store in their garage. This had made Rose very anxious because the store had been a success and many people came in, making her nervous. But her mother and her father helped so she would always be in control of herself, selling her delicious goods and making a life for herself.

 However, she wasn’t going to live alone or anything. Her parents and her had thought of several ways to move out to a small apartment but it was more problems than conveniences. For one, she wouldn’t be able to tend the store from a small apartment, she would be alone most of the time and, most importantly, there was no way to get there without her having a mental meltdown. The thought of blindfolding her or transport her asleep but it was all too complicated. She decided to stay at home and just be creative with her business. A friend from work decided to join her in the business, as the demand had risen dramatically. Her father was in charge of the numbers and her mother of the promotion. It was a truly good family business and that made her happy.

 Her happiness, however, didn’t last for a long time. A man arrived one day to the store and he said he was with the police. Rose and her parents talked to him in the living room and heard some news that left them without words: Rose’s attacker had finally been arrested and they needed for her to identify him. Trying not to panic, Rose started breathing slowly, obviously trying hard not to lose it right there. Her father explained to the men that she wasn’t going to be able to go to the precinct or to any courthouse for that matter. He explained his daughter’s situation and the men said nothing more. He just shook their hands and left. That was a very difficult night for Rose: she didn’t sleep, not even for a couple of minutes. She kept thinking about it and trying not to scream, trying to think about anything else other than the policeman’s visit.

But the police called again and even came back with a lawyer, the attacker’s lawyer. They said that if Rose was not going to be able to go to court and properly accuse him, then they could reach a settlement for compensation or at least bargain in some way. It was Rose’s mother who kicked them out of the house. She yelled at them that they were rats and that they had no shame in coming to a house to tell someone to shut up instead of helping the real victim. When the police called again, they told them they had done it all when she had been attacked, everything had been filed and properly done but the police explained they had to sue him, as they previously had not captured him.

 The family called for help, a brother of Rose’s father who was a lawyer. He helped Rose by making the police release a picture of the man they had in custody. That way, she got to confirm it was one of the men that had attacked her. Yes, because the police thought it had been only one but she knew the other one had stood there, watching, doing nothing at all. For now, Rose’s uncle did everything he could to avoid her the pain of seeing him face to face. The trial’s date was set and for Rose it was a torture to wait until then. Her uncle guaranteed her presence via webcam, having been authorized to do it like that. But Rose wasn’t even sure she could do it that way either. Just thinking about it made her tremble and have goose bumps. Her body ached everyday and she had no energy to make a single cupcake.

 The day of the trial, she cried and almost lost control as she told her story to the jury. The most difficult part of it all was answering the questions; especially those that questioned that things had happened as she said they had happened. Being doubted was the worst feeling, being treated like a crazy person or a liar. She repeated the words the man had said to her and had to be excused for a moment while she collected herself again and waited for the resolution, which didn’t happened until the next day. The trial wasn’t long as the evidence was all against the man. Everyone knew he had lied and had made family and friends lie for him.

 The judge stated that this crime was a hate crime. They had investigated the man further and discovered he had almost beaten her wife to death and had even attacked his own sister after finding out she was a lesbian. The man was sick, letting his hate for everyone that live a nice life driving him to make the most awful things. He was sentenced to life in prison and Rose heard that live, feeling confused. Because she knew that it hadn’t all finished there. Her fear, her panic at the exterior world was still there. What good was this all if was still as scared as before? The fact that her attacker was in jail didn’t make things suddenly better.

 But one thing Veronica and her parents agreed was that they were grateful she was there to live on, to make an effort and keep on living. Because many died and didn’t get the chance to try again, to transform their lives. She couldn’t really consider herself lucky but she had the opportunity of being someone again, in time. She reprised her business, which grew with time. She wanted to be better and knew that someday, she would be able to go the park and just sit there and breathe.