Fresh Start at Life
Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious
A/N:
Chapter 54 (Torn)
Later that night Danielle called Trina to the table for a game of Go Fish. It was a strange moment because Jason had everyone on the balcony except for two of them. The look on Danielle's face was somber and concerning. The last eventful thing that happened was that Jason got a call from Beck.
"So Trina, have you heard from Tori lately?"
"What?" She looked over her cards, feeling slightly guilty that she hadn't given any thought to her father and step family. Her lips pressed together and her eyebrows fell into a flat line. "No. Tori blocked my Facebook anyway. The old one." She also wound up buying a new phone and hadn't transferred the contacts yet, so she hadn't spoken with Jade. "I'm pretty much done with them, anyway."
"Yeah." She furrowed her brow as Danielle pulled her card from the deck. "Do you have any sevens?" Trina glanced to the cards. She had a pair of aces, three twos, a six and a Queen. She looked up and shook her head, to which Danielle let out a grunt. "Dang."
"How about you? Have any twos?" The girl's eyes widened and she clicked her tongue. Trina smirked as her cousin tossed the last remaining two over. "Thanks!" Trina picked it up and combined it with the remaining group. Danielle rolled her head to the right and frowned as Trina set the group down. "Queens?"
Danielle's eyes widened and her lips remained in a frightening grin as she threw one more card out from her hand. Trina laughed and grabbed the card back. "I literally just drew that!"
"I appreciate the sentiment." She studied her cards for a second and pulled her gaze up. "Sixes?" Danielle looked towards her cards and flashed a smirk. Her sharp gaze flickered over to Trina and she shook her head. "Dang." She grabbed a card off the deck and sighed heavily. She looked towards the window where Jason and the other relatives sat around the table. Her heart sank and Danielle turned over her shoulder. "I wonder what's going on. You think Jason may be second guessing the engagement?"
"No. That's not it, trust me." She was relieved, but still concerned about whatever bad news had the entire family outside and evidently even Danielle knew about it. Danielle lowered her cards with a sigh and straightened her back. "Do you have any aces?"
She sucked in a breath of air through her teeth and grabbed her two cards. "Aw man…" Danielle laughed happily and grabbed the cards back. The card that Trina drew was now the first card in her hand, a King. "So, why can't you tell me what they're talking about out there?"
"Because they're discussing it. One of those things they're trying to come to grips on before talking to you about it I guess." Trina's brow furrowed and her lips pursed slightly. "Does Tori have other relatives, by the way?"
"She has grandparents, but they're almost as bad as ours." Danielle's shoulders fell and she shook her head as a pitiful expression grew over her face and struck Trina heavily. "They're really old fashioned people. In the years knowing Holly and Tori, they've always complained that Hollywood Arts wasn't a real school and it was a waste of time, they want to put Tori back in Sherwood and make her go through the years she 'missed'."
"That pushy, huh?"
"Yep. Like I said, very old fashioned. They hate everyone at that school, think of her friends less than I do."
"Sucks." The girl clicked her tongue and moved her fingers over one card. "Do you have any threes?"
"Go fish." Danielle reached over to the deck of cards and picked up the top one, staring at it for a moment.
"Out of curiosity, what would happen if Tori had to live with them? Could she take care of herself, being eighteen?" Trina raised an eyebrow and shrugged. She didn't want to talk about Tori, much less think of what would be the girl's fate if she lived with her grandparents-it was something so harsh that even she wouldn't want to wish on the girl.
"She couldn't take care of herself unless she had a good enough job, so she'd have to live with them. If push came to shove and that happened, she'd be thrown back into Sherwood and forced to retake those years. From what I know of her grandparents, they would probably keep her from being able to get a job or go to college until she got a confirmed high school diploma. Why are you asking?"
"Just wondering. Her grandparents sound terrible."
"I guess, but they're old. They have their own systematic set of beliefs-and you know how old people are set in their ways, they won't change their ideals."
"What about the friends she made at Hollywood Arts?" That was an easy question. She met Tori's grandparents once, and when Tori spoke of her friends the grandparents were thoroughly disgusted with them.
"Cut off. They don't like any of them and think they're bad influences on her. She would not be allowed to see them under any circumstances…" Danielle winced and clicked her tongue once more. Trina looked past her when she caught Jason and the others standing from the table. "They're coming inside."
"Hm?" The girl turned around and set her cards face down on the table. Jason opened the door and let the relatives enter, each member of the family had a long face and sad look in their eyes. When Jason entered, Trina dropped her cards and stood up.
"Jason, what's going on?" Her heart raced through her chest as he took her by the hand and guided her to the living room. She sat in the recliner while her relatives sat around the sectional. Jason sat on the cushioned coffee-table in front of her and looked into her eyes with a flat-lipped expression. "What were you guys talking about out there?"
"Your dad, Trina." Her eyebrows moved in towards the middle and the corners of her lips sank. "I got a call from Beck, as you know, he wanted to know how the Christmas was going. He and Jade congratulated us on the engagement." A smile flickered on her lips, but the heaviness in her chest kept her from being overjoyed at their congrats.
"So…what's wrong?"
Jason took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Well, he and Jade would have told us sooner but they thought Tori was going to tell you-evidently she didn't." He reached over and took her hand in his. Gazing back at him, everything around her grew tense yet calm. "Trina, your dad's in jail." Her heart stopped and her eyes widened as her breath stuck to her throat.
"What? No, that's…he's a cop. Why would he be in jail? It's a mistake!"
"No mistake," George muttered. Jason looked over his shoulder and Trina whimpered at the thought of her father sitting on the other side of the legal system. "He's awaiting trial set for some time in February."
"On what charge?"
"Murder." Her uncle's one word struck her body numb, like an injection of Novocain. She moved her hand up to her chest and looked back to Jason. Tears welled up in her eyes as confusion and horror began to set in. George inhaled sharply and pat his knees. "Holly's."
She clenched her eyes and felt a shockwave of pain coursing through her veins. As much as she didn't want to believe it, she couldn't shake the possibility from her mind. Over the years her father's mental state had been slipping, it wasn't hard to see, but she never for a second thought he was capable of murder.
"N-No…That can't…" She felt Jason pull her into a hug in an attempt to soothe her. Her body shook with a sob and her hands closed around his shirt while her tears began to slide along her once dried cheeks. "He wouldn't!"
"They got a confession," Diane replied, "And a testimony from your friend Jade who confirmed his phone call to her and Tori. He called his supervisor at work and said he committed the crime."
"No one knows much about the case," Jason said with a quiet voice. "Obviously investigators didn't tell Beck and Jade much of anything, what they know is what Tori knows. Tori told them she'd let you know, so Jade didn't want to say anything about it on the possibility of you still grieving…"
"What did Beck say, then? To…bring it up?"
"He asked how you were taking it. I didn't know what he was talking about, so he told me." Trina choked back another sob and felt the outpouring of grief trembling through her. "It happened a week or two ago. Defense wants to try for the insanity defense, but you know that's a hard defense to prove."
Recognizing the legal term, Trina pulled back slightly and tried to wipe away the tears in her eyes. "Yeah." She stammered to speak and shook her head. In order to prove insanity, they'd have to prove the suspect was out of his mind or that he did not know what he was doing-or rather that he did not realize it was a crime. "H-He told his supervisor it happened? So he knew he did something wrong. They won't prove that defense."
"Probably not…With Tori being eighteen and the next of kin, investigators informed her. That's all law enforcement has to do."
"Yeah, they wouldn't have come to me because that would have been her responsibility." She didn't know what pained her more, that her father murdered Holly, or that she might never have known if Beck hadn't made the call to Jason.
In the end many civilians believe it to be the responsibility of law enforcement to notify and take care of victims or their families, but that is not their job. Their job is strictly to enforce the laws, apprehend, determine guilt or non-guilt, and carry out punishment.
Trina took a deep and strong breath, closing her eyes and struggling to push down the pain that was shattering her insides like a terrible storm. "I-I'll be okay. Just need to push through this…"
"I'm here for you." She opened her eyes and looked at him with a tiny smile. Jason looked to the relatives and nodded at them. "We're all here."
"I appreciate that…" While she had willingly made the decision to cut her father off, to cut her step family off, she never wanted this to happen. She hoped her dad might try to reconnect with her again, and she still wanted that to happen in the future, but it would be harder now. As for Tori, she understood Danielle's questions, but there was nothing further she could do.
Trina was uncertain whether to be angry at Tori or to pity her. The news was still a great deal of shock and she hadn't fully processed it yet. For whatever reason, Tori had chosen not to tell her, and that pissed her off greatly to the extent that she truly didn't want anything more to do with the girl. She felt little sympathy for her, despite feeling horrible that the girl lost her mother in such a violent way.
"You know my mom was killed in a police chase." Her breathing trembled as she looked towards her fiancé. "I-I would never wish that on anybody, even Tori. I feel horrible that Holly was murdered-and by my own dad, but…I don't know how to feel about Tori right now. I just need time…"
"I understand."
"One day I'd like to see my dad again." She shook her head and let out a soft gasp for air, stifling a cry. "Not right now, right now I want nothing to do with him…just, maybe in the future that will change."
Sonya walked over to the chair and reached around, hugging her. Her aunt's eyes were misty, but her hug was warm and comforting. "Trina, you're probably not going to be required to testify, but if you want to go to California-"
"No, not right now." Her expression grew stern and her eyes fell to the floor. She couldn't stand the thought of being in a courtroom with her father whether it was in the witness stand or the audience. "I need to think before I even decide to do that."
For her to be in the audience, that would mean her father would have to see her while he's testifying to his crime. Maybe it would make him feel guilty, or perhaps he'd be uneasy.
Her stomach twisted into a knot and she moved her hand to her forehead, groaning as her temples pulsed. "I feel nauseous."
"Do you want to lay down?" Jason asked.
"Yeah, I need to lay down a while." She took another deep breath and leaned back into the chair. The more she thought about her father's crime, the more the room would spin.
This changed nothing about her future goals and plans, she already determined that. It only made communication with her father harder, and gave her a sense of uncertainty over whether or not she would ever want to give him a chance. No matter what she felt towards her step family, David did the one thing that was the hardest to forgive, he took someone's mother away from them.
That act alone, surely, would take some time for her to get past. She wished the best of luck to Tori in life. She was okay with knowing the chances of talking to her again were unlikely and out of her control, but she wasn't going to wish her a life of misery. Maybe Holly could finally get some peace in whatever the afterlife held, her life on earth could not have been that pleasant with the parents she grew up. It became easy to understand the woman's behavior through them.
As hard as it was to admit, and as harsh of a thing to say, neither Holly or Tori would likely cause Trina any great misery. It was possible then that she could have peace with Jason and in her life, more so than it would be with their harsh personalities weighing heavily on her.
"But death? I would never have wished something like that on them." She wanted to know why David did it, but in her heart she already knew. Nobody was to blame except for him losing control. In that moment of anger, or whatever it was that caused him to lose control, it was entirely his doing.
When Jason led her to the bed, she grasped his hand and laid down, gazing up at the ceiling. "Lay with me a while." She pressed her lips together and watched as he walked around the bed and moved beside her, throwing the covers over himself. She turned onto her side and curled up beside him. "Thank you for being here…"
"I wouldn't be anywhere else right now."
She took a deep breath and moved her head into his neck. Her body trembled until he moved his arm around her. "As his daughter…I'm angry and hurt, I don't want him to go to prison but I know he has to. As a student of criminal justice, someone who wants to be a CSI, I want him to pay the penalty. He needs to go to prison." Her voice trembled and softened. Jason. "As somebody whose mother was taken by a criminal…I want justice for my stepmother and for Tori."
Jason softly kissed her forehead, warming her with his gentle kiss. Her fingers curled up around tufts of his shirt and her lips trembled to the salty touch of her tears. "I know, Trina. I know." Her eyelids closed over and the pounding of her heart slowed. For now this was all the comfort she needed.
She wanted to focus on her engagement and talk about whenever they were going to set the wedding date-Aunt Diane was already going nuts with wanting to help plan. This was a shock, but a comfort as well. "Have you told your family yet? About our engagement?"
"Which relative?" He responded jokingly and Trina smiled at him. "If you mean my Uncle or Dad, then no. If you mean my cousin, yes."
"I mean your mom, silly." She wiped her eyes and looked up at him.
"Oh, I haven't had a chance to call her yet. I will, but I should warn you, she likes to be a big part of my life since I found her. She might want to be involved in helping plan the wedding." Trina chucked nervously and snuggled closer to him.
"I'm fine with that. At least I don't have a scary mother-in-law. Just the uncle-in-law and father-in-law I have to worry about."
"For now, probably. If they still try to force me a certain way, I'll have to fully separate us from them." She frowned and lifted her shoulders up. It wasn't her place to say what he should do in that regard, especially knowing his situation wasn't so simple. Cutting them off might be necessary.
Only time would tell what was to come.
Hard hitting news, but surely everything will be fine. David's got a few years in prison though, justice will be served.
