A Wave Of Desire

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Reef

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"Your honor, I would like to recall the defendant as a witness." Theo was already on his feet and ready to go. I know that he had been hiding the true way that he felt for long enough. He was dying to let that other side of himself out. He was desperate to be the ruthless Theo. The Theo that made people cry. He needed to let that side of himself out. And it was finally the perfect time for him. This should be fun.

"Miss Cartwright, please return to the stand." The judge ordered her, not in a very nice way either. He was definitely not happy with the outbursts that she had earlier.

"Sure." Brittney smiled and looked as innocent as she could while she walked past the jury. She truly thought that everything was going to go in her favor. Was she that stupid? Yeah, she probably was.

"Brine, please swear her in again." The judge ordered the bailiff, letting us all know his name for the first time since this whole process started. I found it comical. Not his name, no, it was a fine name. But his name was Brine. Brine was basically saltwater. And Brine the Bailiff was working for Judge Saltwater. That was what made that comical. However, I didn't show any disrespect because of that name,  like Brittney, who I heard scoff at the name. And I was betting she didn't even know what Brine was. She just wanted to make fun of his name. Dammit. Now I felt horrible about finding the combination of the two of them funny. I didn't want to be on the same page as that little bitch, not at all.

"Place your hand on the coral." Brine spoke as tersely as the judge had before. "Brittney Cartwright, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you by the Gods Poseidon and Neptune?"

"Yeah, sure." With a heavy sigh at her answer, Brine swam away from her and left her to her place on the witness stand.

Theo didn't need to be invited to start his questioning. He nearly ran to the position that he needed to be in and started right away.

"Miss Cartwright, how are you this afternoon?" He was still a little sweet and that was making Brittney think that she could do whatever she wanted to.

"Well, I wish I was back at home already, but I guess it can wait a little while longer. As you know, I am innocent after all."

"Are you? I mean, the others have said something completely opposite of your story. You seem to be the only one that thinks you are innocent."

"That simply isn't true. Ha ha ha!" That chuckle of hers was simply unnerving just now. "My lawyer believes me. My mother and father believe me. Everyone at school believes me. It's just these people here that are lying. The problem is, you didn't question anyone besides me when you were seeking the truth."

"Is that so? Hmm. Well, I will admit I didn't call them to testify. The only one of them that could even be here is your mother, and well, that is an unreliable source. But I did have someone go and talk to your classmates. Or well, former classmates, since you seem to have told them you were never coming back when you left the school that last time."

"That was a misunderstanding. I was upset about what happened between me and Ocean just the day before. That last day that I was at school was particularly hard for me. And on top of that, I was arrested and have not had a chance to go back since. They are all most likely very worried about me. I haven't even been able to call them and let them know that I am OK."

"Well, from these testimonies we have from them, I don't think that you have much to worry about."

"I'm sorry, what are you saying?" She looked over to her lawyer for a moment.

"Don't worry, Miss Cartwright. This evidence was presented to the court in advance and offered to your attorney. She was allowed to look at it, but she chose not to. That was a strange choice in my opinion. Especially considering her intense desire to prove your innocence. I wonder what could have made her act so completely unlike herself? I have never known a defense attorney to refuse to look at the evidence presented to them."

"W..well, maybe she thought that we could win without looking at them. It's obviously just a pack of lies that you have written yourself. I am sure that none of the names would match those from my school. And the statements are all made up. That or they're all in my favor so my lawyer didn't need to look at them. I am sure it is one of those two things." Brittney was actually getting nervous. Would you look at that. She did have a little bit of common sense after all. Just a miniscule amount, but still something.

"Well, let's read these, shall we. I am interested in knowing what they all think about Miss Brittney Cartwright. Hmm, ahh, here is the first one. This was a statement from a Miss Katie Hawthorn. She is on the swim team. You know her, right?"

"I do, and she has never liked me." Brittney crossed her arms. "She would definitely lie about me."

"Let us just read her statement. 'Brittney is the meanest girl I have ever met. She lies to and manipulates everyone to get what she wants. She is an entitled princess who thinks the world is her toy.' Wow, that is harsh." Theo smiled at Brittney, it was clear he was trying to piss her off.

"She hates me. Of course, that was harsh. You need to talk to someone that doesn't hate me."

"Well, let's see, how about Mr. Ethan Bowman. He was the student council president. He should be trustworthy. Would you accept his testimony?"

"Oh yes, Ethan is a really nice guy. He likes me and we've been friends through all of high school. He wouldn't lie about me at all." She was grinning, definitely thinking she was about to be vindicated here.

"Alright, well I will read his statement then." Brittney smiled at the prospect. I couldn't wait to see her response to his words. I had read all of those statements, so I knew the theme of them all. "Brittney is the meanest, nastiest person I have ever met. She thinks that she is perfect and that everyone loves her, but that is just because most of the school is afraid of her. If someone doesn't follow the Brittney regime, she will turn on them so bad that they're likely to get hurt. Everyone knows that she somehow had something to do with Ocean getting hurt. She had very publicly called him out for weeks before this all went down. She tried to win him back after she dumped him. Which was very crappy of her, in my opinion. She broke up with Ocean in the hospital, and then the same day she went and hit on Makai. There was a video of it going around and everything. It was funny, in all honesty, seeing Makai turn her down like that."

"No. That simply is not true. Ethan would never say that about me."

"I will move on. Let's see, here is a Miss Celia Peters, a sophomore that has had dealings with you. 'Brittney made my life a living hell. When I was a freshman, I showed interest in the senior boy who was the number one swimmer. Brittney was a junior at the time and she was dating him. Just because I told another girl that Gavin was hot, Brittney tried to turn all of my friends against me. She almost succeeded too. I lost a lot of people that I cared about, and only a few good ones stuck with me. They knew what an evil bitch Brittney was. Ever since then, we've all hated that horrible girl.'"

"She tried to steal my boyfriend at the time. Of course, I was going to be angry with her."

"Hmm." Theo just glared at her. I know he was waiting to see which statement was the one that was going to tip her over the edge.

"Shall I keep going? I think I will read at least one more. Hmm. This one is from Mr. Daniels. 'Miss Cartwright was recently suspended for trying to cause a fight in the lunchroom. I ended up suspending all the people involved with the fight, including Ocean, Makai, Ben, Ryan, Brittney, Victor, Matthew and a few others. I would need to look at the official report to check the rest of them. The incident was later discovered to be Brittney and some people that she had enticed to beat up a few of the boys. She was apparently not happy with Ocean and Makai. She was trying to intimidate them and threatened them with violence.' That doesn't sound very good for you, Miss Cartwright. Let me look for another one. There has to be something here that is in your favor."

I watched as Theo looked over the stage of pages before him. He was flipping the pages repeatedly and doing his best to find someone that she would be happy with. The problem was that she had no allies in all of the entire school.

"Hmm. I think this one might be the best one of them. This is Renea, she was your friend, right?"

"Yes, that's right. Renea was my best friend. She would never lie about me like that, not like the others." She was happy that she was about to get some positive feedback.

"OK, here we go. 'I used to think that Brittney was the best. She was nice to me. She was pretty. She was popular. Everyone wanted to be around her. Well, that was before I got to know the real Brittney. She was not popular, it's just that people were too afraid to not include her. She wasn't nice at all. She was always saying mean things about me behind my back and making everyone else not like me. She would do that to everyone that she hung out with. She made us all hate each other so that only she would be the center of attention when everyone was together. She cheated on every boyfriend that she had. She was a major slut that toyed with her school boyfriends while dating college guys all the time. She was just a mean and nasty person that manipulated everyone. I regret all of the time that I ever spent with her, but I was too afraid to not spend time with her at all. I was constantly worrying about what she would do to me if I told her what I really thought about her. I knew that she was evil, I knew it all along, but never once thought that she would try to kill Ocean. I just hope that Ocean heals soon and comes back to school. We're all worried about him."

I think that might have been it.. I think the shit was about to hit the fan now.