Renewed

"Nice isn't good enough."

“Pack your bags, Mrs. Ginger,” Mila hugged the cat close to her. “You and I are gonna be kicked out soon and replaced by a cute girl that already has that backstabber,” She pointed to me with narrowed eyes. “Wrapped around her little finger.”

“You should really look into acting, you’d excel.” I rolled my eyes, leaning on the kitchen bench as I watched the cat struggle to be released. “Problem is; I can see it,” I decided to confess because if I were going to confide in anyone, it would be Mila. “I can see where this is heading. I can see myself caring a little too much.”

“And that’s...bad?”

“It is when what she needs is a friend, now more than ever.” I sighed, the cat finally winning in her struggle and disappearing down the hall, probably to my room. “But there’s something about her-”

“She’s a case, Win,” Mila rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, arching a brow. “She’s kind of the ultimate case for you. A mystery wrapped up in the cutest package, even has the bow on top.” My frown had her settling back into the couch. “You so badly want to find out what happened to her, whether for you or for her, I actually don’t know. But she’s a case and once you get curious, God, there’s no stopping you.”

“So you don’t think I’m developing feelings?”

“I think...you need to work that part out. But what I do know is...well, you. I know you. And you are first and foremost a lawyer...then you’re kind of a human after that, I guess.”

“That’s kind of offensive.”

“You want me to lie?” She scoffed. Her eyes roamed over me for a moment. “Just...you don’t have to, like, decide how you’re feeling right now? You could just...see how this s**t plays out.”

It was the first time in a long time that Mila had somewhat of a...normal conversation with me. A conversation without her joking through every statement.

See, Mila had a habit of using humour as a coping mechanism though she’d never admit it. There were nights when I’d found her wandering around the house, mumbling incoherently in her sleep and every single time, when I woke her...there was a brief moment of pure and untainted fear swimming in her eyes. 

It no longer happened as much as it did when we first moved into the house but it still happened every now and then. She’d play it off with ease, always waving off my concerns and telling me they were unjustified. That she was fine. That nothing was wrong. 

But her humour stemmed from something deeper, I knew that. It stemmed from something she’d yet to resolve in herself and I knew her denial allowed her to live day-by-day blissfully unaware of what her past trauma was doing to her in the present. 

I met Mila in college through a mutual friend, a girl we left in our rearview mirrors halfway through our college years due to inconsolable differences but we’d gained each other and knew we’d benefitted from her in the best way. 

And it was true, I found out a year after meeting her that she’d thought she’d fallen in love with me. It was a drunken night when she’d told me and she’d laughed it off after explaining that she’d been sorely mistaken. She’d latched on this idea of me that was the complete opposite of the person that I turned out to be. 

I was quiet during college; reserved and studious. Mila thought I would be a project, a broken girl that needed fixing and she became fixated with that idea of me, only to find that I was simply...introverted. There wasn’t this past trauma that shook me so much that I reverted into myself, no, my aversion to huge social gatherings was simply...a personality trait. 

Mila fell in love with the idea that I was something that could be fixed and so when she found that there was nothing to glue back together...her heart accepted that it had been wrong. 

Now years later, we found ourselves living as sisters. I sponged some of her spontaneity from her and she’d certainly calmed down from her wild partying days which I often accredited to my influence. 

And yet, even after all these years, I was still not granted the knowledge of what had her sleep walking some nights. I still didn’t know what scared my best friend and it ate at me but I knew better than to force answers from her. Mila was not a girl that liked to be backed into a corner, she wasn’t as much of an open book as she so eagerly put out to the world. 

Her mystery was one I knew I would have to slowly work my way to find out. Mila was like the sands through an hourglass, it was a waiting game with her. I was only offered small portions of her until I was granted the whole at the very end. 

Looking at her in that moment, listening to her assess me in the way I so very much wanted to assess her, I was granted the very rare insight that my best friend knew me so much better than I would ever know her. Something in her was so permanently tarnished that she kept it locked away in a prison in her mind and she would never grant anyone the key to releasing it.

Maybe she was too scared to open it herself. 

Whatever happened to her, it was something that burned her to the point of no return. 

“We’re going out next week.” I arched a brow playfully.

“Do my ears deceive me?” Her eyes widened dramatically. “Did Winter Posey just...initiate a night out? Wait,” She scoffed before her signature smirk settled on her lips. “This has everything to do with Julissa.”

“She deserves a night out.”

“And you, her knight in pants-suit-armour, shall be the one to give her exactly what she deserves, won’t you?”

“When you put it that way, forget it, I’ll just kick back on the couch next week and watch reruns.”

“No!” She protested quickly and was up from the couch in that moment. “I didn’t say this wasn’t a good idea, please don’t revert back to your usual, boring ways.” She made her way over to me. “I think Julissa may be my favourite person, she’s totally gonna bring you out of your shell.”

“You’re acting like I lock myself in this house twenty-four-seven.”

“Going to work doesn’t count as going out, idiot.”

“Sometimes I get a drink with Clarice.” I mumbled softly.

“Where she talks about her boring as hell husband and their boring as hell marriage and part of you is sitting there wishing you lived her boring life, God, she’s a bad influence.”

“Her life is stable, what’s wrong with that?”

“You’re twenty-six, you’re hot, the very last thing you should want is stable right now, Win. You’re more than some stale ass marriage that will definitely end in divorce. Trust me, her s*x life will fade to nothing within the next year or two.”

“She has someone to go home to every night and know that they’re completely committed to each other, I think it’s nice.”

She leaned against the counter with me and scoffed. “Nice is not enough. Excitement...that’s the goal, Win. Imagine waking up and being excited to spend another day with the same person every day because they’re just that f*****g perfect. Nice isn’t good enough. You want fun, you want new every day, you want...excitement.”

Excitement would have to wait for another day because the rest of my day was spent behind a desk at work with piles of paperwork stacked upon it. 

It was that very day that, for the first time, I took inventory of my life. What I had, what I wanted and what I always dreamt of having. It was the first time that I realised I strayed so far from the expectations I had for my life. 

Here I was, working in a firm that prided itself on winning cases for corporations that solely cared for money, to hell with who they hurt along the way. It was a far cry from the environmental lawyer I had set out to be. It was a far cry from the person I wanted to be. 

There certainly wasn’t a lot of excitement in my life and up until that point, it hadn’t bothered me all that much. But Mila had put a thought in my head and it had lingered, festered and now I couldn’t break away from it. 

Maybe that’s why I enjoyed Julissa. Because she was new, she was a break from my norm and I didn’t know I needed that until now. Maybe it wasn’t feelings developing, maybe it was a yearning for what she could bring into my life. She was a mystery to herself and to me and that excited me in a way nothing had for a long time. 

“You haven’t touched your lunch.” Clarice peeked her head in and eyed the sandwich settled on my desk. 

“Do you still get excited to see Drake when you go home?” I found myself asking my assistant, perhaps crossing professional boundaries. 

“Oh sweetie,” She rolled her eyes, tucking her blonde strands behind her ear. “Drake and I have been together for long enough to understand that we don’t have to hype each other up to see each other anymore. It’s comfortable, you know? I know he’ll be home when I get there and it’s easy. Excitement was great, but stability feels a lot more...secure. I know nothing's gonna change.”

She was older than me by about five years. As far as I knew, she’d been with her partner since high school, it was a long enough time to warrant her response but something about it broke my heart on her behalf. 

She sounded so...dejected as she spoke. Like she’d conformed to the life she had and there was no going back. A forced acceptance to the love she thought she deserved. 

I offered her a small smile and she sent me one back in return before heading back to her desk. I watched as she pulled her phone out and I figured she was probably messaging Drake to inform him that her boss may have crossed a line. 

I ran a hand through my hair only to spot one of the partners walking by, reminding me of the favour I needed to ask of him. 

I slipped out of my office and caught him just as he was about to jump in the elevator.

“David,” I stopped him abruptly.

David Pugh was an older guy, I would argue that he could argue the tail off a donkey. The man was seasoned in the profession to the point that I would never consider facing off with him in a trial. 

“Winter,” He smiled, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “What can I do for you, dear?”

Dear, it was his pet-name for every woman in the office. It peeved me more often than not but I wasn’t about to voice it, not when I needed this man’s life. 

“I was wondering if you may have time for a pro bono case,” I bit my lip lightly watching as he narrowed his eyes slightly before tilting his head to the side in question. “It will probably be the most interesting case you’d be working this year.”

I ushered me to continue and I relayed Julissa’s story to him, explaining the complexities of what she was facing and I watched his eyes widen, his shoulders slack in dejection and the perk up again when I brought up a new piece of information. 

I explained that she was a classic tale of abuse but she simply didn’t have the corroborating story that most other survivors had. She couldn’t fill in blanks but I was sure there were other women out there with stories very similar to her own.

“Pass my information along to her and I’ll sit down with her and her mother to discuss whether it would be smart to take this to trial or not,” He concluded upon hearing everything I had to say. “I’ll be honest, it doesn’t sound like she has a strong case but I want to hear exactly how much she remembers. There could be something missed. The Devil’s in the details.” He winked before eyeing the elevator again.

“Thank you,” I gave him a smile that I knew probably looked too joyous for what he just said. But he was willing to try. That’s all I could ask of him. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

I retreated back to my office and sent Julissa a message explaining to her how my conversation went with David.

Feel like bumping into each other accidentally at the bakery?

Her reply lit up my entire day because I hadn’t caught her that morning.

As I looked at my desk once again, seeing what life had equated to, I shook my head slowly. 

Mila was right. Nice and comfortable shouldn’t be enough. 

Excitement. 

Excitement is what I wanted. 

And I hadn’t felt excited in a long time, I couldn’t remember a time before Julissa that I felt a yearning for life the way I did now. 

See you soon.