In a moment, everything can change. I had heard the saying many times before. But never once had I ever thought about it. Not until the day of the execution. I didn't even really know the guy. Only knew that he was a face from a case that had been closed a long while back. Why I had gone in the first place, I didn't know. Didn't think I wanted to know. Duty was duty, though, so I had been there.
So had Claire. Maybe it was just because we were two prosecutors, maybe it was our desire to see justice served .I hadn't had an answer then, and neither had she. Lennie and Rey had been there, too. I suppose we'd figured we'd just go by the theory of strength in numbers. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. We returned to the city that night as changed people, though none of us knew it yet.
We figured it out soon enough. Claire and I had an argument of sorts that ended up with me in a bar alongside Lennie. He was drinking again, something that had startled me, but seeing as I had already gotten myself halfway smashed, I said nothing. Called Claire after a while to come and get me so I wouldn't do anything stupid. What felt like forever passed .She didn't come. I left.
Everything after that was a blur…most of it, anyway. Maybe I just didn't remember; maybe I just didn't want to remember .What I do remember is a phone call. A familiar voice. The words 'accident', 'hospital' and 'Claire'. After that, nothing. I sat in the hospital, waiting. Everyone else was there. It felt like forever before someone finally came along to tell us what was going on. She was gone. We had lost her. I hid my face in my hands and cried.
After that, I was numb. I went through the motions, feeling as if my whole world had fallen apart. I hadn't had the chance to apologize. "To hell with her," I'd said, and I'd never told her that I was sorry, that I hadn't meant it. Now I never would. Some said a lesser man would have fallen apart completely and for a long while afterwards. I laughed inside, because I felt like a lesser man, if only for that fact.
In a moment, everything can change. I'd heard the saying many times before. But it had never really registered with me until then.
And in that moment, I found myself wishing that it never had.