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"When do you plan to actually tell me how you feel seeing Vanessa Cooper as the prosecution attorney in every session?"

The question, formed as a reproach, bursts from Emma Harris' mouth. The fellow attorney has stormed into Emily's office without even knocking. It's not something she typically does; normally she always enters with special care in case her cousin is with a client. She acknowledges she's in a bad mood and it bothers her enormously that Emily isn't being honest with her. Emma knows well that her cousin tends to keep her feelings bottled up, preferring to cry curled up in her bed rather than spill all the shit that corrodes her inside, but not telling her how she felt during that encounter with her ex-partner doesn't sit well with her.

"Good morning to you too," Emily answers without looking up from the folder in her hand. "You need to get laid more."

Emma raises her eyebrows and twists her lips. Emily always tells her the same thing when her darker character surfaces. In most cases she's right, though this time—Emma has gone a while without sex and doesn't deny it—her cousin is wrong.

"Thanks for caring about my sex life," Emma spits sarcastically. "Don't change the subject."

Emily Harris releases an impatient sigh. Right now she's reviewing some notes because the second session of the trial is in an hour. She knows that if she doesn't answer Emma, her cousin won't let her get up from her chair. Her cousin is so protective of her that, sometimes, she becomes a pain in the ass.

"There's not much to tell. I already told you that Emilio Johnson was the opposing lawyer and apparently he had an accident. I didn't know she would be there representing the opposition until I arrived at the courthouse."

Emma runs her hand over her face. In a gesture that tries to disguise her concern, she pretends to wipe her chin and settles comfortably in the chair across from Emily.

"Please, it's me, tell me how you feel about it?" she asks cautiously.

Emily wishes she could say she's fine, that she really doesn't care about unexpectedly running into Vanessa, though she'd be lying. When she saw her ex-partner at the door of the courtroom, talking with a tall, tired-looking man, Emily felt the ground open beneath her feet. They hadn't seen each other since that afternoon when everything ended, and a wave of memories hit her hard. For a few moments, she stood completely lost in front of the woman who had known how to cut her open with a precise movement.

Flashback

"How could you do it, Vanessa?" Emily rages in the middle of her living room. Her eyes are swollen and a look of pain crosses her face.

Vanessa Cooper sits on a stool, looking at her with confusion, not understanding why her girlfriend gives so much importance to something like that.

"Honey, let's not mix our relationship with work," Vanessa's voice sounds calm. "I'm sorry, it wasn't something I planned. It just came out when the judge rejected my plea."

"It just came out?" Emily repeats incredulously and presses her eyes in a gesture of desperation. "You used information I told you after making love that morning, damn it, Vanessa. And now you say not to mix one thing with the other. You betrayed me."

The other attorney shakes her head and stands up. The sound of her heels echoes on the wooden floor, the one Emily recently restored and that they both love. A shiver runs through Vanessa, a bad omen telling her it will be the last time she walks across this living room.

"I didn't do it to screw you over, Em," Vanessa's voice is now more subdued, fearful. "They were pressuring me at the office, you know that. I was losing, you were literally beating us. And I... I used what I knew without realizing it would cause problems."

Emily Harris, having just turned thirty, feels a hand squeezing her heart. She lets out a hysterical laugh while tears soak her face. She's had many flings in her life, especially during her university days, but she has never felt the love she has for Vanessa. When she met her in court, Emily found her attractive. Vanessa, with her tanned skin and Latin features, was a woman difficult to ignore. However, it wasn't until one night when they met after a trial that their relationship began and, although they thought it would be a one-time thing, they were both wrong. Vanessa was a charming woman; she invited her to dinner several times before they started spending weekends together. Sex with the attorney was spectacular, hot, passionate. Emily had never had such a connection with anyone. They continued dating until they both realized they were in love and decided to take the relationship to the next level. Emily introduced her to the Harris family, Vanessa to the Coopers, and even, after some time together, they traveled to Colombia to visit her country of origin.

It's no secret to Emily that Vanessa's career is very important to her; she has fought hard to get where she is and feels proud that all those sleepless nights have paid off, but what she never thought possible was that her girlfriend—competing with a colleague from her law firm for a promotion—would use crucial information about her client in a trial where they faced each other. It was low, it was underhanded, a knife in the back. Emily lost, Vanessa got a promotion amid applause and champagne glasses, though it was clear that Attorney Cooper would also end up losing something. Emily.

"Do you have any idea what it feels like to be betrayed like that?" Emily raises both hands when Vanessa approaches her and tries to speak. "Do you know?"

Vanessa still isn't aware—though she's beginning to think that what she believed was a trifle has serious consequences—she notices the sadness in Emily's eyes, the slight trembling of her body warning that she's also furious, and the tears soaking her face scream that the pain she feels is unbearable.

"Please, Em, you have to understand, I..."

Emily laughs again while angrily wiping the moisture from her cheeks.

"Get out of my house, Vanessa," she says and walks to the door. "I'll send your things over."

"Don't do this," Vanessa begs, stunned and with a broken voice.

"I can't and don't want to be with a woman with whom I thought I would share my entire life and who hasn't hesitated to use something to her advantage, bringing me down. It's cruel and underhanded," Emily says calmly, as if Vanessa were a young inexperienced girl who needs everything explained in detail. "If that's your way of handling a relationship, of loving, then I've chosen the wrong woman."

"Emily?" Emma brings her back from that painful place in her memories.

"I won't deny that seeing her shocked me, but I'm better than I thought, I'll be fine," she pauses. "Really," she affirms again in the face of her cousin's distrustful look.

"Promise me that if you need to talk, you'll come to me," Emma Harris asks.

Emily smiles and extends a hand across her desk to reach her cousin's.

"You worry too much about me; I'm supposed to be the older one who takes care of you."

Emma bursts into laughter.

"You already do, but each of us has our role and mine is to try to draw out everything you insist on keeping quiet."

Emily nods; she won't deny the truth to someone who's right. She looks at the time on her watch and realizes that time has flown by and she can no longer continue reviewing her notes. She stands up and puts the folders in her briefcase.

"I have the day off," announces Emma, who has finished the few things she had to do at the firm. "I'll go with you to the courthouse."

"Okay, but afterward I'm heading to the club, I have training this afternoon," Emily explains, and the sparkle in her eyes could light up an entire city.

"I'll go with you and when you finish we'll go to dinner," says Emma, also standing up. "I'm craving a hamburger, though I'll end up having a salad."

Emily sighs and shakes her head in a gesture of incomprehension. She'll never understand how her cousin—and people in general—limit themselves from such pleasurable things for the absurd reason of fitting into a dress two sizes smaller than they need. Emily is very clear that life—at least consciously—is lived once, and she isn't willing to waste it.

"I'll have a double," she states as they leave her office together.