~Julian~
I slipped in through the court room doors, trying to be as quiet as I could and sat down about three rows in. Fortunately no one really noticed me and those who did, didn't recognize me as I had my hood up so no one would see my face.
One of the few people who noticed me was the prosecutor Jackson Payne, or Jackie as I always call him. I met him about fifteen years back when I decided to go to Law School. Because why not? Really I was just bored. He was one of the few people who knew who I was and we were pretty good friends. He is the one who said I should come to the trail just to freak out Chad Everett.
Chad Everett was a senior at the high school I've been going to the last three years and he is probably the biggest homophobe I've ever seen. Yes I'm gay and I'm not ashamed to yell it. In fact I have on many occasions. Anyway he and his group of jerks often harassed me and tried to beat the gay out of me. I say tried, because they were the ones who were usually beaten up by the end. Plus even if they did hit me, I would be healed within an hour or so, unlike them. About a month ago, two months into summer vacation, Chad followed me home from the grocery shopping and shot me in the back of the head.
Fortunately Daniel, my best friend and royal guard, was out with my son, Kasey, so Kasey didn't see what happened. Daniel had actually come home with Kasey about ten minutes later and took him inside before helping me into the medical room we have. After he took out the bullet and I started healing, he then got the groceries and put them away.
About a week later the news had found out about what happened, as Daniel had contacted the police when he was sure I was healing right and Chad was arrested because of the video footage we had. You see we have a security system and cameras that covered all around the outside, and inside, of my house so it caught him shooting me. Now all I have to do it wait and see what the ruling is.
"I have one more witness your honor." I heard Jackie say, and realized I had spaced out for however long. I looked at the front and saw Chad's lawyer, Mathew Grant, stand up from their table outraged.
"Your honor, we were never given any notice that there was any other witnesses!" He exclaimed.
"Yes, well I wasn't sure if he was able to make it. Seeing as he was shot a month ago and has been healing since!" Jackie exclaimed even louder before calming himself and turned and faced the judge while everyone in the court room whispered to each other about me. "Your honor, if I may I would like to call Julian Cheshire to the stand."
"Yes may." He said, ignoring Mathew's objection. Jackie turned around and nodded to me. I stood up, pulled the hood from my face, showing the bandages that were wrapped around the back of my head, and headed up the isle to the front. As I passed people, I could hear their whispered, but didn't care to pay attention as I knew what they were whispering about. I stepped up to the stand and after I did the oath thing, I sat down on the bench.
The next ten minutes or so Jackie asked me what happened and other things like that. When he was finished Mathew stood up and walked toward me. I wasn't looking forward to this bit, because I know he was going to ask questions that had no real relevance to what happened a month ago to try and confuse the jury and make them think Chad wasn't at fault. I wouldn't be surprised if he went so far as to try and say that Jackie and his team falsified the tape or some crap like that. "So, Julian, you say that my client shot you in the head after following you home a month ago?"
"Yes."
"And why do you believe he did that?"
"Because he is homophobic and I am gay."
"And yet you have a son, am I correct on that?" He asked, smugly as though he caught me in some lie.
"I do not see how that is relevant to the fact that he shot me in the head." I said calmly, although I so wanted to punch him for bringing my son into this.
"Well it is, if in fact you are not gay, then how would him being homophobic cause him to shot you?"
"I am gay and just because I have a son doesn't make me not gay. As far as anyone is concerned I could have figured out I was gay after I had my son." I said smirking ever so slightly at him knowing I was angering him for not falling for his trap.
"Mr. Grant, unless you ask something that is relevant to this case, I will have to ask you to return to your seat so the jury can decide." The judge said and I saw Jackie smirk at Mathew's back.
Fortunately he stopped with those questions, unfortunately though he spent the next fifteen minutes asking even more annoying questions that didn't have all that much relevance. Luckily after about half an hour on the witness stand, I was able to leave and returned to my seat to wait for the jury's decision. Which surprisingly only took like another half an hour for that to happen. "Have to decided?" The judge asked once the jury was seated again.
"Yes we have." The first juror said standing up with a piece of paper in his hands.
"And what would that be?"
"We the jury find the defendant, Chad Everett, guilty of attempted murder." He said and Chad shot up out of the chair. Behind him his father and mother were sitting and his mother was crying into his father's chest. Chad started yelling and the guards had to go over and grab him.
"I should have made sure you were dead!" He yelled somehow breaking free from the guards and ran over to where I was seated. He wrapped his hands around my neck and started trying to strangle me. That didn't last that long, because I kneed him in the nuts and forced him onto the ground with his hands behind his back. I made sure he wasn't able to move and waited while the guards rushed over and took him away. As they dragged him away he was screaming about next time making sure I was dead and all that, while I rubbed my bruising neck. Not that smart seeing as the judge was still in the room and all. Dumb $$.
About half an hour later Jackie and I were walking out of the court house. We would have left earlier, but the guards, and Jackie, thought it was best to wait until Chad was long gone so he didn't try to kill me again. Jackie believed he might have tried to push me down the stairs in front of the court house or something. As we were walking down the stairs, many news reporters rushed over and started asking questions. Jackie was trying to keep them away so we could go, but I decided I wanted to say something. "Hi." I said turning to the news reporters and they started yelling questions.
"Julian, do you wish that you weren't gay so you never would have been shot?" One of the reporters asked as they all put their microphones up to my face.
"No I don't."
"But you do understand that because of the fact that you were gay you were almost killed?"
"Yes I understand, but I'm not nor will I ever be ashamed to be gay. Nor should anyone else. It's not something that we can change so why try and fight it? Why not just accept it and be proud of who you are?"
"So you think that people should be proud to be gay?"
"Yes...in fact..." I trailed off looking back at Jackie, who rolled his eyes and handed me my megaphone. I stepped back from the reporters, put the megaphone to my mouth and turned it on before yelling as loudly as I could. "I'M GAY!"
I handed Jackie back the megaphone and followed him to the car, laughing at all the strange looks I was getting as we walked down the rest of the stairs. We both got in the car and Jackie switched on his tinted windows as I started unraveling the bandage from my head as they were only there to make them think I was still healing from the shot. "You are so weird, Julian." Jackie said as he drove toward my house and my only response was leaning my head back and laughing.
"You just realize this?" I asked once I was finished laughing and saw him roll his eyes.
"So you decided to move?"
"Yup. I would rather not having Kasey be around people like Chad, so Daniel and I decided to move to England. I'm heading there tomorrow, seeing as it's Friday now and the new school year starts on Monday, to enroll in the high school for my senior year while Daniel stays back here with Kasey to pack our things. I wanted to have time to get to know the town as I haven't been there in over fifty years, plus I probably need to clean up the house and land we own there. I'll be a week late for the school year, but nothing happens the first week anyway. I would bring Kasey with, but can't as I wouldn't have anyone to watch him while I'm at school."
"I thought you had Malcolm."
"I don't have a way to bring him and install him into the new house so he will be arriving with Daniel in three weeks." I told him and he nodded keeping his eyes on the road.
"Is there any other reason you are moving to England?" Jackie asked looking at me and wriggled his eyebrows.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Jackie?"
"Oh come on, Julian, we both know the whole reason you picked England is because the five royal families live there and your mates will be from each of the families."
"Oh yeah...I completely forgot." I said, slightly sarcastically and he rolled his eyes at me before looking back at the road.
The rest of the half an hour ride we didn't talk and soon found ourselves pulling up in front of my house. "I guess this will be the last time we see each other for a while." He said as I got out of the car.
"It won't be THAT long, Jackie." I said smiling at him before closing the door and heading into my house. I heard his car driving away as I closed the front door and walked into the kitchen where Daniel was feeding Kasey lunch. "Hey, Daniel." I said walking forward and kissing Kasey on the top of his head while he smiled at him, his sandwich almost spilling out of his mouth.
"How did it go?" He asked handing me a sandwich.
"Like you don't know." I muttered taking a bite of the sandwich and his response was laughing.
"Nice show, Jule." He said and I smiled over at him. "You have everything packed for tomorrow?"
"Yup. Hey, Daniel, I'm going to go take a nap." I said quickly finishing up my sandwich, messing with Kasey's hair and headed up to my room yawning.
