#UGH. whatever doctors appointment tomorrow and apparently shes a really good doctor. hopefully it helps

[eggthew]

wish I could BREATHE

[alltheangstmygifttoyou]

Soulmate AU Part 8

A/N: Okay, so I’m going to try queuing this so let’s see what will happen. This part of the story is probably the most triggering for some, since it contains graphic molestation. I’ll summarize it in case you can’t bring yourself to read this part: Jester believes she has no soulmate but Jesse is convinced she does, when she goes to chemistry her teacher attempts to rape her but she uses her power and kills him. She talks to the authorities and gets sent back to bed by the end of the day but on her way there Jesse confronts her and forces Noah to reveal himself. Jesse blames Jester for what happened and Noah makes him shut up. Noah tries to convince Jester that he’s sorry and that what happened wasn’t her fault but she doesn’t believe him. She goes to bed worried and feeling more alone than ever.

Summery: Jester has no soulmate, but Jesse for some reason thinks she does. And Mr. Workshire takes advantage of her situation and is a horrible person.

Word Count: 4662

TW: rape, pedophilia, child abuse, manipulation, victim blaming, death, bees

Most people in the world had soulmates, some had more than one, but a rare few had none. Jester couldn’t remember ever getting writing on her skin, and she didn’t feel like trying to write just to get no response. She knew her brother had a soulmate named Malcolm who liked to ruin her plans with his friend Elena, a pretty girl who also didn’t have a soulmate. Jester made fun of her for not having a soulmate but really she was elated to meet someone else. Malcolm and Elena had found out a week ago that she didn’t have a soulmate and had been messing with her for it non-stop, mostly just rubbing it in. Jester supposed she deserved it since she did the same thing to Elena, who was not participating in the insulting much at all. Jester wondered if it was bothering her that Malcolm was making such a big deal over it, she supposed the only reason he was, was because he knew it bothered Jester. Sometimes she felt like the world was against her, and that she was destined to be alone, without a soulmate it felt like almost a fact.

Jester ate breakfast at a table alone like usual. On days where she didn’t have anything planned and Malcolm and Elena didn’t have anything planned she ate alone. She was actually thankful for the time to herself, she had been getting headaches recently and she wasn’t sure why. Sometimes it felt as if the world was slightly scrunched up on itself, like there was a tiny piece of her sight missing and her eyes just jammed the rest together. She had received what was apparently a second angry letter from Father that warned of a surprise vacation coming tomorrow. Jester didn’t know why she hadn’t written, or why she hadn’t remembered that he had written once in the first place. She assumed it had to be related to the head and vision problems she was experiencing. She would explain that to Father and hopefully not get a beating but a doctor's visit instead. Although if the doctor couldn't find anything then she was definitely in for a bad beating. But there had to be something wrong, strange vision problems didn’t just come out of nowhere. She ate her breakfast silently, until she heard two familiar voices arguing.

“I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about, now let go of me!” Malcolm shouted, clawing at Jesse’s hand, who was easily torn off as he probably had less than half of the muscles Malcolm did. Jesse rubbed his hand but turned to Jester with an icy glare.

“What did you do to them, why can’t they remember Noah?” Jesse asked and her head throbbed but she didn’t have any recognition.

“And who is Noah? Why does it matter if they can’t remember him? And most importantly, why do you assume I had anything to do with it?” She asked and Jesse’s glare narrowed.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Noah, your soulmate!” Jesse shouted and it was Jester’s turn to glare.

“That’s not funny Jesse, I don’t have a soulmate.” Jesse growled at her response. She had no idea what had gotten into him.

“We’ve introduced him to you twice now in chemistry, what is with you? And how’d did you get these two involved?” Jesse went on, although he mostly seemed to be talking to himself.

“I didn’t do anything to them, the only one acting weird is you Jesse.” She told him but he waved her off.

“The only connection here is Noah, so if it’s not you, and you’re not faking it like I thought… Ugh, normally Jester I wouldn’t care about your problems, but I know Mother and Father would throw a fit if they found out. I’ll fix this.” Jesse mumbled walking off, Malcolm looked at her with angry confusion, although that might as well have been his expression every time he looked at her. She shrugged at him and went back to eating. Elena’s arm brushed Jester’s back when the two walked away and Jester held in a shiver as much as she could. She seemed to be receiving more touches from Elena recently, she knew that was a bad sign but damn if Jester wasn’t enjoying it. It made her hope she had a chance, that maybe Elena didn’t hate her either. Jester had read plenty of books, she knew the enemies to lovers trope, she’d never say out loud how often she thought of it. How she was still thinking about it as she left breakfast and went through classes.

Chemistry was where Jesse returned to his strange ways, and where Jester’s head tried to tear itself apart. Her vision was jammed right where Jesse was, and she could hear almost static like ringing. Mr. Workshire came over and rubbed her back and she let him, despite how creepy it felt. She was barely paying attention when he leaned down closer until his mouth was right next to her ear.

“I look forward to our meeting after class,” his voice was husky and she hated it and had no idea what he was talking about. Another important thing she had forgotten. Jesse dragged himself and Elena and Malcolm to the front of Jester and she swore Jesse was missing an arm. She couldn’t stop blinking. At least Mr. Workshire left.

“Here he is Jester,” and Jesse’s announcement was definitely showing Jester that she was ill somehow because his arm just cut off. It was like it went behind a wall.

“What?” She asked, less from his announcement and more from the absurdity of her situation.

“Noah, your soulmate, is right here in front of you, what do you mean what?” Jesse asked and Jester’s head pounded. She didn’t have a soulmate, she didn’t remember anyone writing ever. She wanted to hold her head in her hands but that would look weak, so she focused on Elena instead.

“So you two suddenly think I have a soulmate too?” She asked, but Malcolm seemed as lost as she did. Elena’s face was closed off, she examined everyone without giving anything away. She was always better at concealing her emotions than Jester.

“They’re acting like Noah doesn’t exist, just like you are. He won’t say a word to me about it.” Jesse went on and Jester worried not only for her own health but Jesse’s as well. He was talking about someone no one else remembered or seemed to see.

“Jesse, there’s no one there, you’re gesturing to no one,” she spoke slowly, trying to convey that she was serious without looking directly at him and his half arm. Malcolm laughed and they all turned to face him.

“Jester-ing, that’s a good one,” Malcolm chuckled and Jester rolled her eyes. Of course she wasn’t taken seriously when she tried. Jesse also rolled his eyes and seemed to pull and then half of him was gone and Jesters head felt like it was on fire. She could feel herself sweating and swallowed down nausea.

“How the hell can you keep acting like you can’t see him when he’s right in front of you?” Jesse asked and Jester couldn’t stop blinking. There was only half of her brother there, no wall in front of him despite how much it seemed.

“Jesse, whatever you’re doing stop,” she told him, because it had to be him doing something, what else could it be? He growled and moved seemingly pushing something when suddenly Jester couldn’t see any of them anymore. Her seeing just hurt and all there was was blurry people in blurry chairs. She closed her eyes and covered them, disguising it as a massage.

“Alright class, get to your seats,” Mr. Workshire announced and Jester listened to Jesse groan before storming away. She uncovered her eyes and rubbed them, she could see the class again, but her head still burned. She stayed low during class, not answering questions and barely getting the lab done. When class was finally over she was ready to leave only to remember that Mr. Workshire and her had an appointment she couldn’t remember setting up. She had no idea what it could be about, she didn’t need any class help, and both of Father’s recent letters had been about her not writing to him. Nevertheless she packed her things up slowly and waited until he was ready to speak with her. The classroom was empty when he finally motioned her up to his desk. She walked up glad that the head pain had died down some. Mr. Workshire smiled at her and came around the other side and began massaging her shoulders. She waited for him to say something, give an indication of what was going on or what this meeting was supposed to be about, but he didn’t. Jester felt her shoulder relax despite the fact that every part of her was starting to scream “bad! Bad!”

“So what is this meeting about?” She asked, hoping it would distract him and he would stop. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as he leaned down next to her neck.

“Tell your friends you just needed some extra help on the lab today, anyone could tell you were distracted.” He whispered before sucking on her neck. Jester froze, her mind went blank. Her heart started beating faster in her chest and it felt harder, like it was trying to escape. His hands left her shoulders and went down under her shirt then back up. Jester felt her back relax into him and it wouldn’t straighten back up no matter how hard she tried. “Are you starting to get worried? Don’t, I’ll take care of you. I’m already helping you relax.�� He whispered in her ear and Jester held in a whimper. She couldn’t look weak, there had to be a way out of this.

“I changed my mind, I don’t want this,” she insisted and she felt him grip her stomach tighter.

“You don’t get to change your mind. I know you need this just as bad as I do. We whose soulmates abandoned us have to stick together.” He went on and it sounded way too familiar to what Jesse had been spewing. Jester tried to pull away with her legs but he held on tight. “If you struggle it won’t feel as nice,” and with that growl she struggled as much as her limbs would allow. Her arms wouldn’t listen and neither would her back, but that didn’t stop her from thrashing her legs. She felt them get heavier. In a split second decision she had to choose between reputation and being raped. Losing her reputation would lead to a bad beating, but she had dealt with those before, she could handle those. She wasn’t going to let herself be raped. She screamed and slammed her head back only managing to hit his chest. He held on to her tighter and she felt her legs getting heavier and heavier, but she didn’t stop screaming. There would be bruises on her stomach in the morning and that was all she was hoping to get away with. Yet, no matter how much she yelled no one came. She couldn’t move her legs anymore and her neck was getting heavy as well.  “Shh, isn’t this much better?” He asked and Jester screeched trying again to get someone to notice. She didn’t care that someone would see her crying. She just didn’t want what was going to happen next. When her neck finally stopped responding to her commands he resumed sucking on her neck. He groped her breasts and eventually tore her shirt off, ripping it slightly in the process. The whole time he kept a hand on her, and she realized he needed contact for his power.

Jester came to another decision point. She could use her own power and risk death, or do nothing and get raped. One was a certain and the other was only a possibility, a high possibility considering she had no weapons and no idea who or what she would be summoning. All she knew would be she’d be summoning something dangerous. He unclasped her bra and rubbed her nipples and she felt the itch under her skin rise up until it was gone and out in the world. A loud buzzing started from behind them. Jester felt Mr. Workshire turn and he shrieked and let her go. Jester collapsed to the floor and gasped in air as all her muscles burned back to life. However she didn’t waste another second getting as far away from Mr. Workshire as she could. From her new vantage point in the corner of the classroom she could see that there was a large swarm of bees surrounding and stinging Mr. Workshire over and over again. Jester didn’t hesitate to run across the room and slam the door behind her. Hopefully the bees couldn’t get from under the door, but that wasn’t a large hope. Jester looked around and spotted Malcolm and Elena down the hall.

“Elena!” Jester shouted out as loud as she could and with luck Elena heard her. The redhead turned around and began coming over slowly. “Fucking hurry!” Elena did and Malcolm followed behind her at a slower pace.

“What happened?” Elena asked as soon as she got over.

“No time, room is full of killer bees. Need you to set them on fire.” Jester explained, hoping that her plan would work.

“Where are your clothes?!” Malcolm exclaimed. Both girls ignored him.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Elena asked. Jester wasn’t really sure how to reassure her until she saw bees start climbing under the door. Elena followed her gaze and flame shot from her hand. The door caught fire and  the bees burned, melting into black goo. Jester opened the door wincing as it burned her hand and Elena shot flames at the rest of the bees. Malcolm gripped Jester’s shoulder and threw her to the ground. His hand stayed over her and he put his foot on her exposed chest.

“There’s a fucking dead body in there Jester, what did you do?” Malcolm asked, although it didn’t feel much like a question.

“He tried to rape me jackass, what the fuck was I supposed to do, let it happen?” She snapped back and he looked down to her bare breasts for a moment before lifting his foot off her.

“You’re going to have a hell of a time explaining this.” He grumbled and Jester scowled at him and wrapped her arms to cover herself.

“There are cameras everywhere in the building, I think it’s very clear what happened, section fifteen or not.” Malcolm didn’t answer her and Elena came over after putting out the door. Elena motioned to Malcolm and he stared at her from a moment seemingly uncomprehending until Elena came over and pulled his jacket off of him and handed it to Jester, who turned around to put it on. No one said anything for a moment, Jester trying to think of the best way not to get killed over this. “You two will come with me to alert a teacher right?” She wasn’t very hopeful, after all, the two spent all their time trying to stop her “evil deeds”. Elena came over and took her hand, and Malcolm came to her other side and together they walked to another teachers office.

The rest of Jester’s day was a blur of answering questions, reviewing video, and answering more questions. The police came, the principle came, for once Jester seemed important to the school. The video couldn’t deny what happened. Her Father was alerted and would be coming tomorrow to pick her up as the council had decided the school needed to give the children more family days anyway. By the time Jester was released it was already time for bed. They had Jester go alone, she could tell the faculty were more on edge around her now. Most of the time if someone ended up dead at Learn to Be it was a student, and every time whoever killed the other got the punishment, no matter the circumstances. But Jester wasn’t like other students from section fifteen, she had a family who cared, who was wealthy, high in the government, and would do anything to make life a living hell for the schools company if Jester didn’t get treated like the victim, especially since she told someone right away what happened. As she traveled down the barely used hallways she jumped about ten feet in the air when Jesse appeared in front of her around a corner, and he was missing a hand.

“Heard that you’ve had an exciting day, killed a teacher.” Jesse’s voice was cool and Jester ignored his words. She had been ignoring the fact as much as she could. If she could ignore it until she died that would probably be in her best interest. “Someone has something to say to you.” Jesse disappeared again and she felt like she might as well be cross eyed.

“Jester,” Noah’s voice was deeper when he spoke like that, and Jester realized she knew who Noah was. That she did have a soulmate. That he was the one messing with her head. That he was the person Mr. Workshire had been talking about before. That she had been planning on exposing him but because Noah had made her forget everything about her soulmate she had forgotten about it entirely. He was the reason she had forgotten to write to Father. Jester could feel her blood boiling under her skin and she didn’t stop herself from twisting into a nasty frown. Noah’s soft green eyes lowered and his long skinny arms hugged himself. Jesse seemed very pleased with himself.

“Took me all day to get him to spill, it actually took the news that you killed someone to make him agree to let you remember! So, how does it feel Jester, to know that your soulmate has been playing around with your mind like play-dough? Aren’t soulmates the best? Can’t wait to see you two get together and be all lovey dovey!” Jesse went on and Jester could feel her skin itch, her power wanting to be released so he would just shut his mouth. So Noah would pay for all the pain he’d put her through. To show that no one could fuck with Jester Quinn and get away with it.

“Do you really think today’s the day to be fucking with me Jesse?” She asked lowly, but Jesse’s grin didn’t lower.

“What are you going to do? Kill me too? Hit me? I’ll make sure Father beats your ass if you lay a single finger on me.” Jesse sounded as if he had won a prize and Jester looked at Noah. She had never really thought about using Noah’s power for herself before, it had never crossed her mind in any of the times they had met. She had just worried about how Father would use it. But she would kill for his power instead of her own. She had already used her voice to get over most situations and obstacles, having a power like Noah’s could solve this problem easily. She could just tell Jesse to fuck off and not tell Mother or Father that she had made him. But Jester didn’t have his power, and she never would. So she turned her attention to the real problem and ignored Jesse.

“Never, and I mean never, fuck with my memory again Noah. I don’t care what your self sacrificing reasons were or whatever. Never again.” She ordered and Noah nodded. “You’re also going to give Malcolm and Elena their memories back.” Noah nodded again at her order. “You also need to understand that I’ve spent almost ten years of my life without you, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I know I seemed pathetic when I was younger but I’m not eight anymore. I can take care of myself. So next time you think you know what needs to be done, talk to me about it instead of taking action.”

“That’s it, you’re not going to scream and yell at him? He fucked with your head to the point that you killed someone today! What the fuck is wrong with you, why aren’t you hurting him!” Jesse snapped and Jester rolled her neck.

“While Noah fucking with my mind did not help the situation I don’t blame him for someone else trying to rape me.” Jester explained although the words felt bitter in her mouth. It would be hard to get past this in her reputation, she hadn’t even let herself think about it mentally or emotionally. Noah’s head snapped up and his eyes were full of tears.

“Is that your excuse for murder, sounds pretty flimsy to me. With all the makeup you pile on and how much skin you show I’m sure anyone who can get past your disgusting personality would take that as an open invitation.” Jesse scoffed and Jester’s fists tightened. Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them away. Noah whipped around on Jesse and his so soft features from before were curled in rage.

“Shut up.” Noah commanded and Jesse’s mouth slammed shut. Part of Jester wanted to snap at Noah to let Jesse go, but she really did want her brother to shut up. Besides, it didn’t really hurt Jesse to be silent for a few minutes. Noah didn’t seem to have any awareness of her inner conflict as he was too busy raging at Jesse. “No one asks to be raped! I don’t understand what’s wrong with you, Jester is your sister and all you’ve done since I’ve met you is try and hurt her. You make all these claims that she’s such an awful person but the only person I’ve seen act awful is you!” Noah was breathing heavily after his rant and Jester had the urge to put a hand on his shoulder, but part of her warned her to stay back. She didn’t want to be scared of her soulmate, but he hadn’t given her much choice.

“Thank you for your defense Noah, but you’re not going to change Jesse’s mind about me. He’s hated me since sometime in Basics.” Jester mumbled, but she wasn’t sure where to go from there. After everything that happened she wanted to go to sleep more than anything. She wasn’t sure what else to say to Noah or even Jesse. Everything was in chaos but still at the same time. Someone was dead because of her, she had almost been raped, but here was her brother confronting her in the hall to make her life worse. She had no idea how Father was going to react, would he blame her? Would she still get a beating? Was this hit to her reputation too much for him and he was finally done with her? Her mind drifted to ways Father would kill her. He’d get away with it no matter what she was sure of it.

“Jester, are you okay? I mean I know you’re probably not because of everything that happened, but I mean you can talk about it with me if you want?” Noah sounded so unsure as he asked, as anyone in his position should. Jesse rolled his eyes at them and pointed to his mouth with a jerky hand. The soulmates ignored him.

“What’s there to talk about really?” There was plenty she had to think about, should she try to make it work with Noah, what about her feelings for Elena, would she live to see daylight in three days? But to talk about it? She never had the opportunity to talk about these things with anyone. It was too dangerous. No one could know about Father and his plans, no one could know Jester’s actual feelings. She had trusted Noah with a little information, that her Father was a bad man in a position of power trying to gain more power, and what had happened? Noah messed with her mind, played with her memories, the memories of the people around her. She had gotten hurt again. No, there was nothing to talk about, just for her to contemplate when she was back in her room, alone.

“I’m really sorry about hurting you, I wasn’t trying to, I swear, I just thought it would be safer if you, you know. Didn’t remember me.” Noah went on again, he didn’t seem to want to end it yet.

“Well it wasn’t, now you know.” Jester's response had Noah wilting in on himself. She heard him mumble under his breath but she didn’t hear what. Jesse opened his mouth though and started walking away, so Jester had an idea. She hoped her brother would be okay, despite the things he said. She couldn’t blame him for hating her. Mother had been poisoning his mind against her since birth, and with Jester following Father’s orders all the time it made sense.

“You’re not alone Jester,” Noah began again, and Jester resisted the urge to scoff. Noah was looking down at his black tennis shoes, there was a tear that his big toe could probably fit through. “When I was seven, I killed my babysitter, Maddie if you remember. She wasn’t attacking me or anything, just insulting my mom, implying she was going to die soon. That she didn’t love me. The usual terrible things. I told her to die. She went out into the street and stood there in her dark clothes until a car hit her right in front of me. It was a hit and run. I hated myself for a long time for it, I had been screaming for her to get out of the way, but at the time I didn’t know the difference between my regular voice and my power. It’s hard to live with, but you can. At least you can reassure yourself that you had no choice, you were being attacked.”

“Is that why you stopped writing?” Jester asked, although she was sure that she already knew the answer. He nodded. Jester tried not to feel angry, but it wasn’t like she had control over how she felt. Only how she reacted to the feelings. Of course he was scared of himself afterwards, but it wasn’t like his power worked through writing. He seemed to have gotten control of it now so why didn’t he contact her again? He had left her alone with her family, not knowing if he was dead or alive. She didn’t feel as guilty about liking Elena. He hadn’t been in danger at all, Jester was in danger all the time.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, but I can’t reassure myself about anything. I had a choice and I made it. I made the decision to kill that man, you didn’t. I appreciate that you’re trying to cheer me up, but I just want to be alone right now.” She tried to keep the simmering flame out of her voice, it was hard to tell if she succeeded since he was already doing sad eyes.

“Jester, you didn’t really have a choice…” Noah tried again and Jester sighed through her nose.

“Yes I did. It’s over. I don’t want to talk about it, or anything else. Good night.” She told him and walked past him and towards the dorm. He didn’t say anything else, but she didn’t hear footsteps to indicate he walked away either. She brushed those thoughts to the side. She needed to come up with a suitable explanation to Father if she wanted to live, and a way to keep Jesse’s mouth shut about Noah’s power, or just about Noah in general.

[canaryatlaw]

ugh, today was a lot. Up at 8:45 as usual because I basically have court every morning at this point. today I had all of our cases in one of the courtrooms, which ended up being 2 of my cases, 2 of my work buddy’s cases, and 1 of my other coworker’s cases, so 5, and the clients were coming on like, several of them so it was a little crazy, when we were waiting to be let into the virtual courtroom they’d put me in a breakout room with all the clients and like 2 of their advocates, so that was kind of fun haha we were enjoying ourselves all talking. got in after not too much of a wait (these court coordinators deciding they like me or at least are willing to send me in early is really a godsend) and did all 5, no big surprises mostly everything went as planned. by the end I was joking with the judge because I’ve had a LOT of cases in front of her lately and she’s usually pretty serious, but she’s a good judge and that often requires being pretty serious, so I appreciate that while in her courtroom. she’s been friendly recently though so that’s nice. when I got off I did any follow up that was necessary and then had to catch up with things on clinic, because I was the supervisor today with my work buddy as back up, he’d been the supervisor yesterday so the idea was I’d take our court cases and he’ll assign the morning volunteers to any cases that came in and ones from yesterday that needed follow up. and honestly thank god for my work buddy doing like a solid half of the work because with him doing so it was completely crazy, I legit didn’t have a minute to breathe, constantly just having to work on things, so I can’t even imagine how bad it would’ve been without his help. even between the two of us, like two cases kinda slipped through the cracks that we now have to deal with, tomorrow is a court holiday so we’re off (we generally get all court holidays off because our office is in the courthouse, but I don’t think anyone wants to change that now that we’re not in the actual office, so I’ll take it. but yeah, basically it was a whole exhausting mess. I was able to wrap it up around 7 or so, and started watching Chicago Fire (I’m running out of episodes before my favorite character apparently leaves the show and I’m very distressed about it). I had a “message request” on twitter from a reporter for one of Chi’s newspapers, I looked her up and everything and she’s legit. she was saying she was working on a story about people deciding whether or not they want to travel for the holidays, and she saw I had tweeted yesterday that I’d bought my flight and wanted to know if we could do a call at some point and talk about it. I answered sure, but that I’d rather do it online through email/messages/whatever so if we could do that that would be good. I’m not like, concerned she’s going to twist my words or anything, but I guess I’d feel like I have a better handle on things over messages that I can review and change before sending, as opposed to just a discussion when what comes out comes out. but I’m fine to talk, I know some people reading it would be looking poorly on people who did choose to travel and that’s kind of why I said yes because I knew I could give a solid answer talking about my family that I think will be damn hard for anyone not to empathize with (I’m not going to like, go overboard on emotions or anything, but I mean I’ll discuss what happened and how I feel about it. so yeah, that’s a little random thing, I doubt it will have any like, actual effect on my life so I said sure why not, it’s not the first time I’ve been written up about in a newspaper, though this is probably a bigger one than in past times. but yeah, I just chilled for the rest of the night trying to decompress from everything. I have to get up at like the same time as normal tomorrow because I have a 9:30 neurologist appointment, it’s a follow up with the original one, and I’d complain that it was set for my day off but I had to pick the date in August and I knew it would be the only day where I could guarantee I’d be free in the morning, so the waking up sucks but I’m just going to take a giant nap when I get back. I’m bringing the paperwork from the other neurologist about like labs and stuff to get done and I’m hoping this doctor can point me in the right direction for getting those done, I knew I could do it up by where the other neurologist is but that’s up in Evanston and I’d really not haul my ass up there if I didn’t have to. so hopefully that will go well. and yeah that was pretty much it, around like 11:15 or so I went to shower and start getting ready for bed and now of course it’s 1:31 am and I’m tired AF so I’m going to go to bed now. Goodnight friends. Hope your week is going as well as it can right now.

[canaryatlaw]

okay, well today was fine.I think I slept slightly later, until like 9 lol because I did have court but still had a bunch of client follow ups to do, so I did that for most of the morning, waiting to be able to file some cases. When I walked out of my bedroom I didn’t even notice but my roommate was oh hey it’s snowing so I looked out the window and it was indeed snowing, which is a bit unexpected this earlier but not totally unheard of. It stopped around noon, I think. But yeah, wasn’t clinic manager today but I was on back up duty, so I ended up handling the hearing for the case I was seeing through (I’m not gonna like, trash a random person online, but like I’ll just say I’m very glad his case is done now), and then other one which was a bit trickier, ever since the whole pandemic started, the number of cases we’ve had where one parent is refusing to either give the child visitation with the other parent, or refusing to relinquish the child bad to the parent they had usually been living with, it’s all really sad, and I felt for this guy today, and like I really would’ve loved to have helped him, but paternity hadn’t been established in the case, so even though the kid has been living with him for the last 3 years they can’t claim she’s denying visitation because he basically has no rights to the child (paternity is either established by a) being married when the child is born, b) if the dad signs the birth certificate or VAP (voluntary acknowledgement of paternity) while at the hospital, or c) file a parentage case in domestic relations court (basically a custody case). So I strongly encouraged him to do that ASAP and hopefully he can make an emergency motion in that case for return of child and they’ll have the actual info to be able to do something about it. I wish our family department wasn’t so small. there are so many worthy cases I’d want to send them but we only have a few attorneys and they’re pretty much always swamped with cases. ugh. but yeah, I spent the rest of the work day getting some stuff done, for a while I couldn’t log onto my remote desktop for my work computer which has like, at least half of the things I need to work on, so that was obnoxious but we got it to work eventually. I was considering trying to go out to get quarters and stamps today because I reaaaaaaaally need stamps because I have so many letters to mail out and my laundry is like, more than overflowing at this point, it’s basically become a mountain. sigh. but it looked like the bank I was going to try for are potentially closed, which is weird, but I decided I would do it tomorrow after my doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, and get dropped at the right bank. but yeah, finished up my work and put some chicken nuggets in the toaster oven for dinner while attempting a bit of an experiment. a couple years back now (like, 5) I was making something that included a caramel sauce, and the recipe just consisted of equal parts cream, butter, and brown sugar, bring it to a boil for like 2 minutes ago. I had like 1/4 cup of cream left so I figured I’d try that with the same amount of butter and brown sugar, set up with a candy thermometer so I could make it go really high and almost burnt and hard haha and that seemed to work pretty well. once it had cooled a bit a lot of oil had separated to the top, so I strained that out, apparently caused by too much butter I would think, which makes sense when the original recipe was for a caramel sauce. but good things to know. For most of the rest of the evening I watched Chicago Fire, then switched over to the news for a few minutes and watched a few minutes of Jimmy Kimmel before going to shower and start getting ready for bed and now I’m here and oh it is late and I have an appointment in the morning with the new neurologist (after court, anyway) so I would very much appreciate and love/prayers/good vibes, whatever you’d like to send. I just am really praying we can figure out what’s going on because this is really the only path forward we have right now and I need help on this very badly. sigh. okay, going to bed now. Goodnight friends. Hope your Monday didn’t suck.