Jogging Partners Ch. 08

I put aside all thoughts of everything that had happened, the assault, my confrontation with Jennifer. That included my worries of getting through the court battles we would endure to see to it that the charges were pressed against Jennifer.

I let it all go and focused on one thing and one thing only, the woman sleeping soundly next to me. I laughed realizing how quickly she had drifted off after I first laid her down.

Now it was my turn... I closed my eyes, breathed in her scent and within minute's I was out cold too.

--------------------------------------------------

The next few months were anything but easy; in fact, they were probably the most stressful few months of my entire life. It mostly consisted of a lot of meetings with our lawyer, documents that needed to be taken care of, so on and so on. If I had not had Lauren by my side, I don't think I would have survived any of it... hell, I probably would have gone insane.

She was by my side supporting me every step of the way though, and finally, our stressful work paid off on the day of the final court date and as we had expected, Jennifer was found guilty. Jennifer was found guilty on all of the charges against her: aggravated assault, breaking and entering, destruction of property, and as the officer said, was also found guilty of a hate crime. The fact that Lauren was a transsexual was more of a motive in Jennifer's actions than the fact that I had left her for another woman, and so that counted as a hate crime.

Sentencing took place a few days later, she was sentenced to five years in a women's prison out in California, pretty far from home. When she got out, the restraining order would automatically kick into effect and hopefully she would obey the rules. For the sake of her own future, she would be wise to do exactly that, she'd be in a world of new trouble if she broke the order.

I will never forget the look on Jennifer's face as they escorted her out of the courtroom in handcuffs, for the first time, I no longer saw the wicked grin she had worn since all of this began.

For the first time, I actually saw fear and maybe even a hint of sorrow in her eyes, but I did not care.

Even if this taught her a valuable lesson, even if she came out of prison a better person and wanted to apologize to me... I did not care. I would not want to hear it from her, because no apology could fix things that had already been done.

The only thing that mattered to me now, was that a certain unwanted part of my life had come to an end at last, and now I could finally start a new chapter with the love of my life at my side.

Lauren and I could finally be happy.

We started searching for a house first, looking through certain areas of New Jersey. After a few short months we settled on a single home with three bedrooms, and a backyard, a beautiful house. Lauren seemed more than happy that we now owned our own house, and so was I of course, but mostly was just happy to see her content with the beginning stages of our new life.

After we had settled in to our new house, the next task presented itself to us...marriage.

That would prove to be a lengthy process, telling our families, making plans, settling it with the state, so on, and so on.

Regardless of how long it took though, we were both excited for whenever the big day would come.

As I sat in our backyard, watching Lauren play with a dog we had recently bought, I finally felt like my life was going in a good direction.

I could hardly wait for whatever the future had in store for us.

*

Note:

I know this chapter was not very long. But I did the best I could to make it enjoyable and to deliver a satisfying ending to this series. It may not be totally the end though. I'm going to start work on a new series that I have really been wanting to do, and either somewhere in the middle of that or after I finish writing it all, you may just get to see Tyler and Lauren again. If it happens, it won't be part of the Jogging Partners series, but probably a whole new series showing their lives after all of this. I'll keep everybody updated as to whether or not that's actually going to happen in the future, but there is a pretty good chance it very well might... just not for a little while. I'm excited to work on something new for a while. Until then, everyone enjoy your holidays.

Whiskey.