The folder that Dex gave me causes a big stir in my brother's case. His lawyer has enough grounds to call for a mistrial, as Dex had said, and the hearing is today for the judge to decide what happens next. It happens quickly; once the lawyer got the files, the hearing was scheduled just a few days after. So two days after the bizarre night in my living room and then lunch with Amber, I am sitting in the courtroom waiting for the results.

I wanted to be in the room as they decided the fate of my brother's case, but they made it a closed hearing, only for the lawyers and my brother. I was too nervous to sit at home and wait for the outcome though, so I'm sitting in the hallway of the courthouse with Sage and Javier as all three of us wait for the hearing to be over.

"You shouldn't get your hopes up too high about this, Yaz," Sage informs me slowly as my knee is bouncing up and down. I'm so nervous about what might happen today that I can't stay still. It took Javier fifteen minutes to convince me to sit down and stop pacing the hallways of the courthouse. "Even if he gets a mistrial, what makes you think that he'd take a deal if they offer one?"

"Maybe he's come to his senses," I suggest with a small shrug. "I don't know. He could just get probation or something. He could come home. I know that it's really optimistic... probably even too optimistic, but that's what I want to happen."

"I know," She sighs.

"We should do something to get your mind off of this. They probably won't be done in there for hours," Javier suggests, gently putting his hand on my knee to get me to stop bouncing it. My other knee starts to bounce.

"Javi's right. Maybe it was a bad idea to come so early, you're just going to be stewing in this for a long time until this hearing is over," Sage backs him up. "I saw a frozen yogurt shop just a few blocks away that we could try."

"He doesn't deserve it," I say under my breath as tears are starting to well in my eyes and panic is starting to take over my body more than I had expected. I knew that I'd be nervous about today but I didn't think that I'd have a full on panic attack here in the hallway of the courthouse sitting on a stiff wooden bench squeaked between my best friend and my boyfriend.

"What?" Sage asks me, not clearly hearing what I had said.

"He doesn't deserve it," I repeat, louder this time with a tremble in my voice. "Robby. He doesn't deserve to get out of prison. He stabbed a man, Sage. He robbed that store, he drove a knife into that man's body. He is guilty. He doesn't deserve to get out of this without any consequences."

"He made a mistake, Yasmin," Javier tries to defend my brother, but I just shake my head at him.

"No. He did this. But I want him to come home. I feel like a monster, rooting for Robby to get out of any jailtime today. I know that he should pay for what he did, but I don't want him to."

"That doesn't make you a monster, Yaz," Sage is quick to promise me. "That just means that you love him. And of course you love him, he's your brother. He does terrible things and makes the worst mistakes, but he's still your brother. He's always there for you, and in a personal sense, he's really great. In the grand scheme of things, not so much."

"She's right. You're not a bad person for wanting him to get out of jail, it just means that you love your brother. You shouldn't feel guilty about that," Javier agrees with her.

"Even if he comes home, I'll never look at him the same way again," I slowly start to realize. Whenever I see him now, or even think of my brother, I don't think about what makes him my brother. I don't think about the times that he'd lift me into the air to reach the really high apples in our orchard when we were little. I don't think about how he's been my protector ever since I can remember. I think about that old man that I'd met in the hospital with a gash in his chest. I think about my brother cruelly shoving that blade into that man's chest and then running away.

If he does come back home, I think that I'll always just see that old man's tired face whenever I look at Robby.

"I want to get out of here," I realize out loud.

"So frozen yogurt?" Sage starts to stand up, but Javier doesn't move. I think that he understands what I mean more than Sage does, because I'm definitely not talking about frozen yogurt.

"Not right now, I don't want yogurt," I mumble, putting my face in my hands. "I love Robby, but I need to get out of here. Not the courthouse, this down. This state. I don't know. Just out. I don't want to stay here and be the sister of Robby the Robber. I don't want to suffer through prison visits, or living with Robby and dealing with my father. I just want to get out."

"I know you do," She says slowly, taken by surprise at my sudden outburst. Just a few minutes ago, I was just nervous about the ruling of this hearing and now I'm having a total meltdown.

"Where would you want to go?" Javier asks me.

I hope that he doesn't think that I want to get away from him, because I don't. These past few days have been really nice with him. We've spent most of that time together, whether it be helping Amber pack up the rest of her things to leave for college or making out between two dead apple trees in my orchard. I don't want to leave him, I just want to leave this town.

I don't want to leave Sage either, but I'm not worried about her misinterpreting my claims. I know that she knows that I love her, and that it's not her that I want to get away from.

"Portland," I say aloud. "I want to go to Portland and I want to take art classes and I want to learn how to be a real artist and not a pathetic daydreamer who just sketches things and puts them on my wall and visits your brother in prison."

"You're thinking about a lot of things right now," Sage warns me. "Let's just focus on Robby right now, okay? Let's focus on today. Just today. Finding out Robby's situation, and moving on from that."

I nod in understanding, because she's right. I just need to focus on today, think about Robby and this hearing. I'm freaking out about everything when I should just be freaking out about this one thing.

"I'm going to go get us some coffee while we wait, okay?" Sage offers after a short silence. She stands up from the bench and starts tossing her long dark hair into a messy bun to keep it out of her face.

I nod again, but I don't respond. I just sit with Javier in silence as Sage walks down the wide hallway of the courthouse on a mission to get some coffee.

When she's turned a corner, Javier slowly snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me closer toward him. I appreciate that he purposefully waited until Sage was gone because she still overreacts whenever me and Javier act like a couple in front of her. I know that she does it out of love and excitement for me, but there's a lot of squealing and giggling whenever we even hug or make eye contact for too long.

I know that eventually, she'll get used to the idea and cool off, but for now I would prefer to keep the coupley things to a minimum around Sage.

"So," He says as I lay my head gently on his shoulder and take a deep breath. "Portland, huh?"

"I know that it's ridiculous," I assure him. "It's just a stupid pipe dream."

"It's not stupid," Javier tells me. "I think that Portland is a cool city."

"It's not for me," I sigh. "Just not possible. Anyway, Sage was right. I should just focus on today's problems today, and I can worry about my future later. Right now, I just want my brother to be okay."

"Johnny is tough. No matter what happens, he'll be fine," He promises me, but I'm not sure how much I believe that. I mean, I do think that Johnny is tough, but I think that Javier is only saying that to make me feel better about the situation. There are a lot of people in prison that are tougher than my brother.

I try to think of something to say in response to Javier's claim, but a notification bing on my phone interrupts my train of thought. Instead of responding to Javier, I flip my phone over in my clammy palm and turn the screen on. Javier looks down at the screen too so that he can see what the notification is.

As soon as I see the Duolingo logo in the corner of the notifications bar, I try to lock the screen again as quickly as possible.

"What was that?" Javier asks me once the screen is locked again.

"Nothing," I say quickly, not wanting him to know what I've been up to with Duolingo, which is an app that helps you learn a new language. The app sends push notifications when I haven't been on recently, which I forgot about until just now.

"It said something in Spanish," He notes.

"No it didn't," I argue with him, looking away from him in hopes that he won't be able to tell that I'm lying.

"Are you trying to learn Spanish?" Javier asks me.

"No," I deny again.

"Yasmin," I can hear a smile in his voice and I can feel a blush starting to burn my cheeks. "It's okay if you are. That's actually kind of sweet."

"I'm not."

"Then what was that on your phone?"

I know that he doesn't believe me, so I finally give up the act and turn to face him. He is smiling a little bit, but he's trying his best not to. "So I've been trying to learn Spanish, but it's not because of you. I just have always wanted to learn the language is all."

"Really?" His smile widens.

"No," I finally admit the whole truth. "I just thought that it would impress you or something. I don't know. It's stupid."

"It's not stupid. I could help, if you really want to learn. But you know that you don't have to. I only speak Spanish with my mom, and you've met her. She speaks perfect English too."

"That's why it was stupid, I just wanted to surprise you, I guess," I mutter.

"It's sweet," He says again and then starts to lean toward me to give me a quick kiss.

Before his lips touch mine, the door to the court room starts swinging open and I spring to my feet. I almost head butt Javier on my way up, but he narrowly avoids contact.

Looking up at who is coming out of the room, I see a few people that I don't recognize. They walk out talking about their lunch plans, like nothing exciting happened in that room at all. Soon followed by them, Gabby exits the room as well. She looks unhappy until she notices me standing by the wall of the open hallway, and then she just looks absolutely pissed.

"How did you do it?" She asks me. Javier stands up and steps beside me, subtly nudging his shoulder on my own.

"Do what?" I respond in confusion because I really don't know what she's talking about. I'm actually pretty surprised that she's even talking to me at all.

"Get Dex to turn on me," Gabby elaborates. In her power heels, she stands a few inches taller than me and her hair is up in a tight pony tail that looks like it's about to pull her scalp off of her skull. Her slanted eyes are shooting daggers at me now and her fist is clenching her brief case. "Did you sleep with him or something?"

"No."

"Then what was it?" She demands from me.

"I just told him that I thought that you were using him for sex, because you were, and he believed me."

She scoffs at me, looking even angrier now that I've answered her question. I don't know why she's getting so angry at me though. If she did all of those things that Dex said that she did and got in trouble for it, then I'm not so sure why that's my fault. It's her fault for tampering with her own case. "I was not," She argues with me.

"Well, that's what happened," I shrug, not really knowing what else she wants me to say. Does she want me to apologize for handing over the files to Robby's lawyer? Does she seriously think that I would side with her over my own brother?

"Whatever," Gabby sneers. "Your brother is a real piece of work, so even if it wasn't this time... he'll end up in prison some day for sure."

"He's not going to prison?" I don't hear her insults, only that she said that he isn't going to prison this time. This time is enough for me today. He is a piece of work, I have to agree with her on that, but I'm taking Sage's advice and taking this day by day. I'm only thinking about this time, not the next.

She rolls her beautiful eyes at me and then glances over at Javier, glaring at him too momentarily. When she decides that there is nothing left to say, she mumbles something under her breath and then marches away from us with her heels clicking on the floor. Other people are filing out of the court room and Sage approaches us with a drink carrier holding three coffee cups.

"They're coming out, do you have any news?" She asks eagerly when she walks up to us.

"I think it might be good," I say slowly, since Gabby didn't answer my question, I don't really know what's going on. I assume that it's good news though, based on Gabby's frustrations.

It's difficult to wait outside of the courtroom to wait for more people to file out to give me my answer, but I don't want to barge in there when I know that I'm not allowed to be in the room. Eventually, I recognize another face coming out of the room that is Mr. Holland, Robby's lawyer.

"What's happening to Robby?" I immediately ask him, the words falling out of my mouth like vomit as soon as he steps into view. Mr. Holland will know what's going on. Just after I ask that question though, I almost don't want him to answer me. I'm too afraid to know.

"Turns out those files that you gave me checked out, Miss Clarke. The DA's office had been bribing witnesses throughout this investigation in order to get a guilty verdict. The evidence against your brother was still pretty damning."

I start to deflate again. By the way that Gabby was acting, I thought that maybe it was good news. However, the way that Mr. Holland is sounding doesn't sound like I'll like the news at all.

"However," He continues. "The judge just wants this to go away and Robby was able to make a deal."

"A deal. That's good, Yaz," Sage excitedly nudges my shoulder. "What's the deal?"

"If he doesn't go public with the DA corruption, and if he gives them the names of his accomplices, he'll get 3 months in jail and then a year of house arrest," Mr. Holland finishes his explanation.

Again, I feel discouraged despite what may have sounded like good news. "He'll never go for that. He'll never give up the names of his friends."

"He's already agreed to it," The lawyer adds. "I came out here to give you the update, but I'm headed back in there now so that they can take Robby's statement. Your brother will be a free man in just 90 days. Considering the alternatives, I'd say that's a win."

He offers me a short, friendly smile, and then heads back into the courtroom. I'm stuck where I'm standing as I try to comprehend what just happened.

"That's good news, Yaz," Javier puts a hand on my shoulder and shakes a little bit as if trying to shake me out of my haze.

"That's amazing," Sage sits the coffee cups on the bench and then hugs me. Finally comprehending what's happening, I hug her back and a smile starts to spread across my face. Just three months in jail. At one point, I was worried that he'd be getting 20 years in prison, but that is now just dwindled down to three months. He can survive three months.

I know that he'll whine and complain about the house arrest, but he'll get over that too.

I just wonder what changed his mind about turning in the friends that he robbed the place with. The last time that I talked to him about that, he wouldn't budge. Maybe it was the fact that they had assaulted me at the gas station a while back, giving me that nasty black eye, that had made Robby turn on them. Whatever it was, I'm glad that it happened. I'm getting my brother back.

I hug Javier too, trying not to let my emotions get the best of me right now, because I think that I'm so happy that I might start crying. My eye liner would start to run, and I'd just look like an idiot.

"I have to call my dad," I finally mumble after our mini celebration in the hallway.

It's still relatively early in the morning, so I'm hoping that my father hasn't started drinking too much yet. He's hard to talk to when he's drunk and he probably wouldn't even remember what I said anyway.

Worrying about one thing at time right now though, I'm not worrying about my drunken father. Right now, I'm just glad that Robby is going to be okay, and that his life is not ruined. That is the one thing that I'm worrying about today.

Everything else that I have to worry about will just have to wait until tomorrow.