The bright sun shines on Cinnamon's hair, causing a natural highlight to momentarily appear along her roots. She lets out a small yawn and stretches her arms. Her shoulder joints let out small cracks, but it feels good. Refreshing.

"Good morning, self!" Cinnamon chirps and smiles brightly. She yawns again, her eyes still full of sleep, but of light as well. "Time for nap numero-"

She's cut off by her phone ringing loudly. She yelps in surprise, accidentally poking her right eye with her finger. The dirt on the tips of the pads of her finger irritates her eye and she squeaks.

"Ow!" She drops her hand quickly and reaches for her phone. Some of her muscles or joints crack and pop slightly. She makes a strained noise as she finally brushes the tips of her fingers against the cool, vibrating glass. She notices that it's Alya calling so she swipes to the right, answering the call. She was always up for a talk with her kicked-out-cause-we've-been-here-so-long buddy!

"Ummm, hello?" Alya's voice calls from inside the glowing rectangle.

Cinnamon hiccups. "Morn-ning!" She yawns again. "You interrupted nap numero uno!"

Alya bursts out laughing. "Girl, you sound like you just woke up!" Cinnamon pauses.

"There's always time for a nice nap."

"Oh don't even try to defend yourself, we both know that you would have slept in all day and done nothing!" Cinnamon can almost see Alya's smirk, in fact, she can feel in her heart that her friend is.

"Drop your smirk!" Cinnamon complains. She wails in fake agony, placing a hand over her heart. She collapses back on her hand and throws the other hand upon her forehead.

"Ohh, stop with your theatrics! I can hear you slapping yourself! Girl, I mean that literally. Stop before you get brain damage." Alya's grin is evident from the tone of her voice.

Cinnamon rolls her eyes. "Uff - and I'm the dramatic one!"

"Yeah yeah yeah - and I'm...." Alya trails off.

"The traumatic one!" They both chorus. A brief laugh is shared between the two, ringing through both sides of the virtual call. Phones were such a funny thing - they connected two people but touched only one.

"So...." Alya begins.

"Whatever is it," Cinnamon cuts her off. "No!"

"But...." Alya sighs, clearly already disappointed.

Cinnamon furrows a brow. "Okay, so maybe, just maybe, you're trying to go somewhere with something. I don't know what it is but you're going into commercial-lady mode right now and I'm intrigued."

"Commercial lady mode isn't a thing, Cinnamon! I just know who my audience is and how to get them to do...okay. It is possibly a thing... but that's besides the point!" Alya rambles.

"So," Cinnamon huffs. "What is your point, exactly?" She lays with her phone in her hand, the cool glass slowly warming up as the call grew longer.

"...well I wanted to see you at McDonalds today so we could-"

"Do something stupid or talk about something about that...that night...right?" Cinnamon's heart pangs just thinking about it. How could anyone ever be so cruel? Why would people do something such as the thing he had done? Perhaps humanity was as terrible as some made it sound...

"And the steps moving forward, yes."

"...is that really necessary?" Cinnamon frets, swinging her legs over the bed. She picks up her phone and steadies herself, browning out momentarily.

"Yes, it is, if you're finally open to doing something we should do something!" Alya tuts, her motherly nature stepping in.

She waddles over to her dresser to pull out a nice sundress, an article of clothing she had semi-sworn off years ago. But just like that night, if she was going to commit, she would commit. Fully.

"Then it's a date."

✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎

After finally waking up, showering, and venturing out for a pretzel for breakfast, Cinnamon sits down to take a look at some lawyers.

"A lawyer who doesn't quite care when things happened, but just that they had happened will do." Mrs. Angily's voice rings in Cinnamon's ears. "If the lawyer first sees that this happened years ago, they might not been so keen on putting in their effort - they wouldn't want it 'wasted'."

Gosh, Cinnamon huffs silently. Got to get her out of my head before I actually become her...well I suppose having her mindset wouldn't be so bad...would it? A lot less stress, that's for sure...

Cinnamon makes some tea and brings her laptop over to a couch. She fluffs some pillows and hops on sassily, opening her computer and logging in. The old machine whirrs and the fans is noisy, she rolls her eyes.

"Stupid thing!" She huffs, flicking it with her index finger. It stops whirring as loud as it had before. Satisfied, she nods curtly. "Good! Finally, thank you!"

Still not quite sure what to look for, even with her therapist's guidance, she opens google and types in 'lawyers near me' hastily, not completely sure what else to put in the search bar.

Several websites pop up, but she scrolls past the first few. Her technology teachers always had said that not every site was dependable...

Her technology teachers also said that the second page of google was where everything with good information was going to be, but the memes said otherwise.

Teachers or memes....teachers or memes...

Cinnamon ponders the question for a while. If the situation were not as direly important as it was, she might have chosen the memes, but this time, she trusted her teachers.

She clicks to the next page of google, her finger pressing the pad, resulting in echoes across the room. The sharp sound reminds her of her college days somehow, but she mentally slaps herself to stay focused. How she wished to be problem free once again... at least then she wasn't facing a possible court case!

Google brings her to the second page of search results.

Cinnamon lets out a bored yawn, clearly not interested in looking this up, even if it was extremely important. "Isn't this what a consultant is for?" She moans to the creaking window, just several feet away from her. "Aren't they supposed to tell you what to do?"

A shrill creak is heard from the window, almost like a response from fate. "Thanks for the helpful feedback," Cinnamon mutters. She skims through titles and blurbs of the website before something catches her eye.

'Bruce Tanner...local lawyer Bruce Tanner recently won a case against ra...'

Intrigued and feeling hopeful, she clicks on the website.

What does 'ra...' mean? Could it... She shakes her head from side to side quickly, reminding herself not to get ahead of herself so early on. It was only the second page of google afterall...

But it might mean....oh what the hell, it's worth a shot! She clicks on the page confidently.

A gorgeously designed website pops up, simplistic but very aesthetically pleasing. It's, for the most part, dark, navy blue with gold heading and silver script.

"Look nice," She comments, nodding along as she scrolls down the site.

She looks up from the virtual files and to the clock hanging on the wall. She stares at it for a minute, something feeling a little off. Nothing major, but just enough to bug her, to scratch at the back of her mind ever so slightly. She blinks once she notices that five minutes has elapsed, and as she realizes she has only ten minutes to drive over to a McDonalds that was eight minutes away, she jumps up in surprise.

"Shit!"

✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎

The door to the McDonalds swings open as Cinnamon enters. She looks around for a mere second before she spots her friend Alya, flailing her arms around in line for the cashier.

"There's no need to look like a dying goose, is there?" Cinnamon teases, shooting an apologetic look to the woman behind her.

"The real question, I believe, is when is there not?" Alya counters.

Cinnamon cranes her neck to glance up at the menu. "Why'd we come here, again?"

...

"Miss Teskette," The policeman warns.

She glares at him, "What?" She growls, a deep throaty growl, signifying she was now truly pissed off. Her once soft and loving hazel eyes now hold anger, but more evidently, fear. What had she done? What was going to happen?

"You are under arrest."

✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎