“Come on, Bain, you said you wanted to do this,” Kinsey whines as the raft is being loaded with all of the crazy people that signed up to do this, and for some God unknown reason, here I stand second-guessing everything.
“I do. I mean, I did.”
“Jesus, you’re such a baby. Today is our birthday so get your ass in the raft.”
“I don’t want us to die.”
“Nothing is going to happen. Come on, you big baby,” she says, reaching her hand out for mine. I look down at it and then take hers and walk to the edge of the water. The guide helps her in the raft and then I follow. She sits there with the biggest smile on her face. It seems to spans from ear to ear. I’d walk across the earth to give her that, so I know I’ve made the right choice.
“This is gonna be so fun,” she says…
“Adams,” is the only word that I hear. It takes me a few moments to come back to reality. When I do, my dad is at the stand. He looks scared, even nervous. Which is not something I’ve ever seen from him. He is usually so confident and poised, ready to take on the world. But today, he is broken. As he begins to speak, my mom begins to sob sitting next to me. I wrap my arm around her and keep her close.
She turns away from the sight of my father and into my shirt. Her cries drown him out for the most part, but not everything. “It kills me every day to think that the gift she could have given the world was taken away. Her life was taken away like it was an ant walking on the sidewalk that you step on. So fast and with no warning. It was taken away at the hands of a monster who sits amongst us in this room.”
He pauses briefly composing himself, and my mom cries harder. Arion keeps a tight hold on my hand, now resting her face against the outside of my shoulder.
“My family and I were asked here today to speak on behalf of Kinsey, because she can no longer do that for herself. Now, I’m not her so I don’t know what she would say, but if it was up to me, I would kill Anthony Eldridge. So Judge Jenkins I am begging you with everything I am and everything that Kinsey was. Please punish this degenerate to the most severe standards.”
He turns and walks to us with fire in his eyes, the previous pain that was on his face no longer there. He opens his arms to my mom as my name is called and she falls against his chest. Arion squeezes my hand as I get up. “I love you,” she whispers.
I smile and head to the stand, my eyes locked on Anthony’s profile. But, he looks forward, never glancing in my direction. The judge asks me to make my statement and as much as I want to look at Anthony the entire time, to somehow make him feel uncomfortable or to feel the pain that she did, I don’t. It will only take my focus off of what I have to say and today is about convincing the judge into giving him the harshest sentence possible.
“Your Honor, thank you for letting me talk today.” She smiles at me and I take a deep breath, praying that I can hold it all together.
“My sister, Kinsey, was my best friend. She was an exceptional person. Very sweet, loving, caring, and just amazing all around. She was such a free spirit, I’ve never met anyone quite like her. She loved life. Every single second of every day was a new adventure for her. And now that Kinsey is gone from this earth that she loved, the world is not the same, especially through my family’s eyes. The way we breathe isn’t the same, the way we think isn’t the same, even the people that we are today aren’t the same as we were when Kinsey was alive. Everything is different, not only for us, but so many others. I mean, look at all of the people in this room today wearing her favorite color. Each and every one of their lives has been affected by her loss and the only person to blame is Anthony Eldridge.” I stop and look at him; he still stares off into the courtroom. It’s like he’s drugged or something. “Anthony went as far as to stage her death as her suicide. The way he made it look changed what people thought of Kinsey and that’s not fair for so many reasons. He portrayed her to be someone different than who she was. All along, I knew it wasn’t true. I knew there was no way that she took her own life. It had to be at the hands of another person, a disgusting individual. Anthony Eldridge is that miscreant. He is a sick, twisted person that has changed all of our lives for the worst. He murdered her, plain and simple. How, we will never know, as he hasn’t told us and she was cremated, destroying any evidence. Not knowing what really happened to her is absolutely heartbreaking. But regardless, Anthony has pled guilty, so I’m begging you, your Honor, with every ounce of the man that I am, and as Kinsey’s twin brother, to please sentence him to the fullest degree of the law.”