breathe --for a lot of people

[jason adam levito]

“I have reached a verdict that I believe the DA and the State will agree with.”

Jason looked up from the desk he was seated behind, his two lawyers sat beside him and his manager on the other side of him as he looked up at the judge. He was motioned to stand at the podium that was centered facing fifteen feet away from the judge in between the desks for the plaintiff, or in this case the DA and the State, and the defendants desks. He could feel the eyes of over one hundred people burning into his back. The sound of pens scratching on paper as every detail was being written about was almost pounding in Jason Levito’s skull. Photographers were not even allowed into the huge government building, but that didn’t stop the media from coming in her. As desperately as he needed it, Jason had begged for a closed court, but no, he was not granted that and here he was this courtroom open to anyone and everyone as he would receive the sentence that would change his life.

He tried to look at the judge but it was hard, he didn’t want to look at that man because he knew that within a few minutes, he could easily make or break him. He was already vulnerable enough, and that was easy to see. His eyes were distant and the look on his face was near impossible to read and that was simply because Jason was trying his hardest to shield himself and prepare himself for what was to come. He needed to be able to ready himself for the searing pain that could be thrown onto him, even if it wasn’t certain, Jason had to assume that his life would be crashing around him by the end of this verdict.

“After reviewing this case for many weeks, interviewing multiple people, and discussing every possible alternative I have come to a very simple verdict. Jason Levito, you have had many chances and because of your high profile status and your wealth you seem to believe that you are above the law. You seem to repeatedly return to my courtroom each time with a different sob story, and you have wasted your final chance.”

He could feel his stomach churning and suddenly a wall seemed to build up in his mind, he was going to need something to lessen the blow. He needed something to make it difficult to get to him, because if it hit him with its full intensity he wasn’t sure he would be able to survive. He was afraid that if what he feared would happen that he would literally forget how to breathe… He tried to brace himself to the way that this could hit him, but he still knew that he would be knocked down. He would be hit hard; he would be hit far past a full recovery.

“I have listened to your promises that you will improve your lifestyle, I have sent you to rehab clinics, I have made every possible thing to help you available but in the end you only have yourself to blame for what is happening in your life right now.” The judge looked at Jason from the judge box where he sat, above everyone else in the room, making him seem like he was high and mighty. The fact that he had the verdict of Jason’s life in his hands right then made him the most powerful person in Jason’s life, and not exactly in a good way. More like in a way that crippled him with fear.

“I have considered every possible option that will be best for your child. I have considered every possible option that I believe will benefit you, no matter how much you may protest it, I believe this course will lead you not only to sobriety but to happiness. If you obey my verdict exactly I believe your life will be once again in your hands and in your control.” Jason didn’t want to hear another word of this ‘motivational’ speech that this judge was giving. He wanted to hear the verdict because the longer that this was stalled the easier it would be to destroy him, and although the judge had no reason or motivation to spare his feelings. Jason felt he should have had at least some compassion. He wanted to know, he wasn’t patient, and neither were the reporters here, or the people that this would also affect.

Once again the weight of how many people here that were hoping he would lose this battle thus losing the rights to see his daughter hung heavy over his head. He felt like he was on trail for murder her, not for drug abuse that had put his daughter in danger only once over a year ago. He didn’t feel like this was right, how could the law take away something that was so true and that was meant to be? He didn’t understand, yes he needed help he was trying very hard to get better. He admitted himself into rehab and now he’d been sober for three months without breaking, yes the heat was heavy right now it helped motivate him but he wouldn’t turn to drugs again. Not after this he wouldn’t.

“The only way that I believe the law will correctly protect both you and your daughter is this.” Jason felt his breath hitch. The air that went between his lips suddenly became something he feared would sway the judge before him in a direction he hoped he wouldn’t take. Jason felt his heart pounding in his head, so loud in his ears that it was difficult for him to hear. He tried to listen, but what the man before him said next could not possibly have reached his ears. Not with the way that his pulse hammered in them. The words that he had said were expelled from his lips like the worst thing Jason had ever heard and he could only read them from the man’s pale pink lips. It was like he had mentally made it impossible for the sound to break through the barrier he set up, because that would destroy him right then and there.

“I am going to strip you of all of all of your parental rights.”

He could feel as half the courtroom couldn’t breathe alongside with him. They knew it was bound to happen, the whole world had been suspecting he would lose his parental rights but somehow it still shocked them. This didn’t happen to high profile celebrities, this kind of stuff happened to poor worthless people. Not people like Jason Levito. As he could feel the people who couldn’t breathe Jason felt the satisfaction radiate from those that had enjoyed hearing those words. The grim disgusting satisfaction from strangers and people he called friends alike.

“You will not have any custody of your child, or any child you father until your case has been reviewed again by this court. You will not be allowed visitation. You will not be allowed visitation with supervision. You are not to step within one hundred yards of your child or her mother, Ainsley Williams.”

These things that came from the judge’s mouth were like bullets into Jason’s temple, the problem was they wouldn’t kill him, just cause him pain. They could only tear him apart. Jason’s strong shield dropped and he felt that barrier that he had tried to use to brace the blow crumble and even that hurt him. His face fell and as he thought he forgot how to breathe. Suddenly his lungs were useless and he could only stare, wide eyed at the judge. He knew this was coming, he knew but still it hurt so badly now that it was real. His whole body changed as those words were spoken, he went from carrying a strong, unbreakable confidence to looking absolutely broken. The look on his face was completely lifeless yet still so filled with agony it must have been unbearable.

“In addition you must surrender yourself within eighty days from this date to be incarcerated for five years for violating your probation on five counts.” Jason stared at the man, that same lifeless and agonizing stare. His eyes closed and he tried to remember how to breathe because he could feel the edges of his vision turning black, he felt like he was suffocating. Like he was drowning in this courtroom although there was no way his head wasn’t above the surface. By closing his eyes he felt like maybe he could block out the things he’d heard, maybe he could make the pain stop. There was no stopping this.

It seared and coursed through his body, ripping and breaking his will and his strength. Suddenly he felt like there was no meaning to his life, because without Amber what would he have to live for? Cammie? Yes of course, he loved her, but would she be able to stay with him through this? To watch him burn at the stake he lit with his own hand day after day? Would she be able to wait five years for him to come home again? Would he even come home after those five years or would his heart fail him because right now that was what he believed would happen.

His heart would give out; this was too much, too much heart break. Once again he felt those words rip through him and suddenly the people who were getting their fill of satisfaction were like a noose hanging above his head. The judge said a lot of things that Jason could not understand and suddenly he was being instructed to raise his right hand. It was like his tongue would not allow him to speak and instead it blocked his airways, making breathing and speaking utterly impossible and unimaginable. He was asked to repeat things that he couldn’t even comprehend, and could barely say. He didn’t know what it was he swore, and he also didn’t know to what god he had been forced to swear to.

He felt hands grasp his arms and begin leading him down the isle between two sections of rows filled to the highest capacity of people. Everyone, absolutely everyone stared at him but Jason could see nothing. His eyes were searching the faces but he was blind, nothing at all but blankness displayed to him. Blank faces. He must have looked completely devastated or maybe worse because he could hear some people murmuring to those closest to them, wondering aloud if Jason was going to be okay. The answer was no, he wouldn’t be okay. It wasn’t possible.

People stared at him, in shock mostly; even some of the people who had wanted this to happen couldn’t bear to look at him. It was worse than watching a man die because this man was still alive. Jason was still alive as much as at this moment he didn’t want to be his body still worked and his brain still commanded his lungs breathe for him. He tried to remember how to walk but it was difficult, he tried to remember how he let this happen but he couldn’t think of it for the life of him. All he could see with his blind eyes and all he could hear now was Amber.

He saw her smiling to him and he heard her laughter. Then the happiness and the promise of his young daughter, the girl that meant more than the world to him was shattered. She stared at him with big, beautiful icy blue eyes coated with tears. Her cheeks were red as the blood rushed to them while the tears slid like rives down her face. Her beautiful lips puckered and the sound of her sobbing uncontrollably. He wanted to die, he wished his heart would stop beating, he wished that the camera’s wouldn’t be in his face as he was forced out of the court house. His lifeless picture soon to be plastered over magazine covers, news paper articles, the internet, celebrity news shows; everywhere. People would say he got what he deserved, people might pity him but none of that would change this.

He lost her and with that he lost the last bit of his sanity. He believed that having Cammie would have helped him; he thought it would lessen the blow and make his recover both easier and faster. He thought that Cammie would help make it possible for him to fight back for Amber soon. He wanted to, he wanted to believe that with Cammie he could find the strength, but something in him knew he was too weak. All he wanted was Amber, and now he was the antagonist in her life story. He had become like his father yet worse because amber had four years of memories with her father. Her father the monster.

Jason had one night of a memory; Amber would grow up and realize that those four years were dangerous. Those four years had been the worst thing that a child could have experienced because her father was a public danger. Her father was the biggest threat in her life because he was ‘sick’ he couldn’t be allowed to live free because he was a menace; he was looked at worse than some murderers.

He could literally feel burnt as each flash from each camera crashed against his skin. As the loud yelling and screamed questions were thrown to his deaf ears as he was led by body guards to his car. Not his car, he had had his license taken from him. Now he had to have a chauffer and he was forced to be chaperoned almost everywhere because the media attacked him more now than ever. He wasn’t sure if any one else was led to the car with him but he could swear someone grabbed his hand before he was pushed out of the doors of the huge courthouse. It took him so long to realize it, but at least he did, which meant his senses were returning and so was the possibility that maybe his strength would too.