Chapter 56 The same Routine
Christmas came and went quietly. They exchanged small gifts, watched movies, pretended this was normal.
On New Year’s Eve, they stood on the roof at midnight, watching fireworks bloom over a city they were separated from.
“New year,” Lily said. “Think it’ll be better than the last one?”
“Bar’s pretty low,” Aiden said.
“True. All we have to do is not get trapped in a mansion for a year and we’re ahead.”
“We’re not trapped,” Ariella said. “We’re strategically waiting.”
“That’s just ‘trapped’ with better PR.”
They laughed because the alternative was crying.
At 12:01 a.m., Aiden kissed Ariella. “Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.”
“This is the year it ends. The trial, the waiting, all of it. This is when we win.”
Ariella wanted to believe him.
But she’d learned that wanting something didn’t make it true.
In mid-January, the motion was finally decided: trial would proceed in March. No more delays. No more continuances.
Three months.
“We can do three months,” Ariella said.
“We’ve done five already. Three more is nothing.”
But three months felt eternal when you were living in suspended time.
They fell back into their routine, dinner, conversation, pretending normalcy into existence. Building a relationship from the scraps of time between crisis moments.
“Tell me something true,” Aiden said one night.
“We haven’t done that in a while.”
“I know. So tell me.”
Ariella thought about it. “I’m scared we won’t know how to be together when this is over. That we only work in crisis. That peace will break us more than war ever could.”
“That’s my fear too.”
“Really?”
“Really. We’re so good at surviving together. But what if we’re terrible at living together?”
“Then we learn. We figure it out.” She took his hand. “We’ve survived everything else. We can survive happiness too.”
“You make it sound like a battle.”
“Maybe it is. Maybe choosing joy after trauma is the hardest fight of all.”
He kissed her. “Then we fight. Together.”
“Together.”
In February, Marcus brought final news: “Trial starts March fifteenth. Jury selection the week before. This is it.”
“This is it,” Ariella repeated.
After five months of waiting, three months of lockdown, a year of fighting, this was it.
Justice. Or the closest thing to it they were going to get.
“Are we ready?” Aiden asked.
Ariella looked around the mansion that had been their prison and their shelter. At Claire, who’d found strength again. At Lily, who’d grown up too fast but survived it. At Aiden, who’d become her partner in every sense.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re ready.”