She nudged me. “Biased. Again.”
“Never going to change. You did it. You put them behind bars.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She shook her head. “Well, the cops and lawyers did. Whatever. It’s done. I’m tired of being thatpoor little girl. I just want to move on now.”
I was so happy to hear her say that. No more making herself sick, worrying about whether people would believe her or not. It was time for all of us to put it behind us and think about the future.
Okay, it wasn’t going to be that easy, but at least we could move on from this part.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked.
“Lunch at yours, remember?”
“We don’t have to. We can do something else if you want?”
“I want to. Normal stuff now, okay? I want to do it all. I think I might even take up knitting. Or collect something.”
Laughing, I kissed the side of her head. Normal felt good. Iwasn’t sure about knitting or collecting, it didn’t seem very her. But whatever made her happy.
“Sounds great to me.”
“Oakley! Oakley.” A chorus of her name was shouted the second we were out of the building. Reporters thrust mics out in front of them, followed by camera men.
Oh, fuck off.
Our plan of getting out with as little attention on her as possible was—well, impossible now.
I pulled her close against my side, and she pressed her face into my shoulder to shield herself. They had a job to do, but I wished they would leave her alone. She didn’t need this to be any harder than it already was.
“Oakley, do you feel justice was served?”
“What are you going to do now?”
“How do you feel about the sentence?”
“Give her some privacy!” I snapped and then whispered in her ear, “Ignore them.”
Jasper held the back door of the car open for her, and I pushed us both through the crowd to get her in.
I slammed the door shut once we were in the back. Sarah had started the car by the time Jasper hopped in the passenger seat.
“Okay?” Sarah asked as we sped off, leaving reporters disappointed behind us.
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to this dying down,” Oakley mumbled.
She wouldn’t need to worry about that if she was going back to Australia.
Sarah reached to the back of the car and took Oakley’s hand. “It’ll be fine, sweetheart. There will be another big story soon enough, and they’ll leave us all alone.”
“I’m sure once they realise that you don’t want to tell your story or give a statement, they’ll get bored,” Jasper added.
“Yeah,” Oakley replied. “I hope so.”
“If you want to go back to Ali’s, that’s fine,” I told her.
She raised her eyebrow, and I knew I was about to be in trouble. She didn’t want to be babied, especially after just telling me she wanted a normal day.
I held my hand up. “Just checking.”
