Work Text:
It begins with a diary, like all things with Daddy do.
Trucy’s pissed it’s taken her this long to notice. The Law of Business Organizations by John E. Moye has switched spots on the bookshelf at least four times this week, and what the hell? Why? Daddy has probably never said or thought or otherwise even seen the words “frolic” and “detour” and “respondeat superior” for as long as he’s lived, so what could he possibly—
03/21/2018: I hope he dies.
Trucy snaps the book shut. Well, shit. Surely Mr. Moye’s publisher didn’t greenlight that.
Slowly, carefully, she pries the book back open.
03/21/2018: I hope he dies. For real this time.
I have never met a person more unwilling to be loved than Miles motherfucking Edgeworth. Like, am I being punked? Is Dick Gumshoe masquerading as Ashton Kutcher about to kick down my front door and lay it all on me? “Ah, pal, turns out Dahlia Hawthorne shawshanked her way out of prison, lint rolled Mr. Edgeworth’s pillow, and sent his clone on its merry way.” They might as well file my name under the “See Also” tab in the Wiki article for psychological warfare! FUCK!
I cannot for the LIFE OF ME understand how one person can possibly think the way that he does! Woe is Phoenix Wright—how stupid a man to think that a suicide note is a suicide note, and not some convoluted metaphor! I—
The sentence ends abruptly, until the next line:
Pearls had a nightmare. I just put her back to bed.
I don’t know how this is going to play out. I just want Maya to be okay. And I want Edgeworth to…not die, maybe. Just get a grip. Just live and breathe and learn how to face the music like the rest of us.
A knock at the door punctuates the diary entry, and at once, Trucy vanishes the not-textbook into oblivion. Daddy pokes his head around the door a second later.
“You ready?”
Trucy throws him a thumbs-up. “Let’s get ‘er done.”
And later, when they catch the bus back home, wallets heavier, reeking of smoke and booze and borscht, Trucy tightens her grip on the handle above her and leans over her father in the seat below and says:
“How long have you known Mr. Edgeworth, exactly?”
And Daddy gets this weird, wistful smile on his face, and says:
“Since we were kids. Why?”
“Eh, you know.” Trucy gestures at nothing. “Frolicking and detouring…and respondeat superior…and all that…”
“Uh…right,” Daddy says, and then he scratches at his neck and shrugs. “Church.”
He doesn’t have a clue. No, if he had even a one, Trucy wouldn’t have gone and stood in front of the bookshelf the following morning, long before Daddy ever wakes up, and eased The Law of Business Organizations off the shelf once more.
Pointedly, she avoids the March 21st entry, and starts at the very beginning.
04/19/2014: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge might be the best album ever created. Incidentally, it might be one of the only reasons I refuse to kill myself after this hellish week. That, and Larry is cooking me “Sorry the Love of Your Life Betrayed You and Tried to Poison You” chicken parm tonight. And this textbook…I guess. Not this textbook, necessarily, but what it stands for. Because if there’s one good thing to come out of this trial, it’s 1) that I’m a free man…of sorts, and 2) that I now know exactly what I want, and what I have to do to get it. That’s two things. Ugh. Whatever! My stomach still doesn’t feel right.
The next entry comes an entire two years later.
09/13/2016: My stomach still doesn’t feel right. At this rate, I don’t think it ever will.
Chief always told me she didn’t like the way I talked about Miles. She said it was unhealthy—that I could only think about him in extremes. “All or nothing”. I know what she is was getting at, but I don’t think it’s like that. It’s not like I stalked the guy. Yeah, he was a motivator for me, and a strong one at that, but he wasn’t the only one. I mean, there was what Mia did for me, and the trial itself, and, well…at the end of the day, I like what I do. Genuinely. I’d like it more if Mia hadn’t died for all of our sins, if she were still here, always, and if Miles wasn’t itching to strap me and Maya to the electric chair right then and there in the courtroom and what the hell was that all about, anyway? Can someone please fucking riddle me that? How did the starry-eyed son of Gregory Edgeworth turn so sour? I used to dream about the day I would finally see him again, and now that it’s here, I just want it to end.
Trucy lets out a long breath as the passage ends. She thinks, vaguely, that her stomach doesn’t feel right either.
As she fidgets with the corner of the page, she reads and re-reads one particular line.
“I’m a free man…of sorts.”
Yeah, Daddy was once a theater kid, and the way he chooses his words reflects that, but the pain in them is palpable. And it sucks. Like, sucks so bad she’s itching to run to his room right here and now and hold him until he’ll never know sadness again. She’s only read three of these entries so far, but she can already tell that he only busts out the good ‘ol Law of Business Organizations when he is well and truly distraught.
It makes her wonder just why she’s seen the book in four different places this week.
Heart in her throat, she flips to the latest entry.
06/11/2024: Truce keeps talking about going to some school thing this summer in Albuquerque and it’s scaring the hell out of me. It’s only for two weeks but I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. Jesus. Being alone with Kristoph Gavin for two fucking weeks. I’d rather shit in my hands and clap.
I don’t know, though. When I really think about it, I’d rather be with Kristoph than be entirely by myself. At least I have an objective when I’m with him. When I don’t, though…when I’m aimless, when I wake up alone and cook alone and eat alone and exist in a dark house alone…I just don’t think I can do that for two weeks straight. That’s a one-way thought ticket to Neil Perry-ville.
Fuck. What am I going to do if she wants to go away for college? When she moves out for good?
Trucy shuts the book and urgently blinks away the tears in her eyes. This was the worst idea ever. She hopes Mr. John E. Moye steps on a Lego for giving her daddy the bright idea to use his textbook as a front.
“I love you,” she tells Daddy later through a soul-crushing hug. “If you ever die, I’ll kill you.”
“What? Where’s this coming from?” Daddy snorts a laugh and gently pushes Trucy off. He flicks her head. “What are you thinking about up there?”
God. She can’t even look at him.
“Sole proprietorships,” she says, voice thick, and she gestures vaguely in his direction.
“Can Daddy come stay with you for two weeks this summer?”
“Er…” Mr. Edgeworth stammers down the line. “Come again?”
“You! Daddy! Two weeks!” Trucy repeats, neck bent to the phone so she can stir the pasta sauce on the stove. “Cruising the Neckar and scaling the castle and—”
“Scaling? Scaling, dear?”
“Yeah, y’know. In lizard fashion and what-not.”
Mr. Edgeworth huffs a laugh. Good, that means she’s winning.
“You sound just like him,” he says, warm. “Tell me, is Mr. Harker wishing to visit my estate of his own volition?”
“‘Course not.” She licks the sauce off the spoon and hums. “I’m going to ABQ for two weeks in July and Daddy’s gonna be by himself and he’s spending too much time with Mr. Gavin and he’s losing sight of what’s important and he misses you and I know you miss him. So.”
“So?”
“So.”
Mr. Edgeworth is silent for a long while. And then:
“How will you get him to come?”
“You have to ask him. He won’t say no if it’s you.”
“Hm. You think too highly of me.”
Trucy laughs—loud, genuine. “Hey, buddy. You’re looking at the wrong Wright.”
On July 12th, 2024, Daddy leaves for Heidelberg several hours before Trucy leaves for Albuquerque. He doesn’t take The Law of Business Organizations with him, and so Trucy considers that an invitation.
And every night, long after all the other girls have gone to sleep, Trucy will tiptoe to the balcony and crack open the spine, and sing the slings and arrows of one Phoenix Wright.
She’s able to deduce that sometime after February 2017, Mr. Edgeworth “killed” himself. And apart from after he was disbarred, that was when Daddy wrote in the diary the most. She’s only half-glanced through the disbarred entries so far, because if she’s honest, she’s terrified of what he’s written about her. If at all.
The post “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death” entries have kept her miserable company the past few nights, and Jesus H. Christ, Mia Fey was right! Yeah, what Mr. Edgeworth did sucked major dick, and she’s pissed on behalf of Daddy even after all these years, but the way he fixates on Miles Edgeworth day after day, year after year, is damn exhausting. It’s unhealthy.
It’s…obsessive.
The way Daddy talks about him never changes and quite frankly, makes her feel a little uncomfortable, and for that reason, she skips several pages. But—
09/02/2018: I asked Maya to channel Chief and told her about everything. And I told her about FPs, and that Miles is mine, and that Dahlia probably was too. And then I told her she was right all along.
Trucy frowns. FP?
Idly, she skims through several future entries. And there’s that new word, over and over. FP, FP, FP. Well, great. Now she’s missing context.
She flips back one page.
On July 26th, 2018, amidst the diatribe on Miles Edgeworth, there is a single entry, all by its lonesome:
07/26/2018: What’s wrong with me?
And on August 7th, she finds what she needs:
08/07/2018: “Mr. Wright, I am very confident in providing you with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.”
She sounded like she was putting a dog down when she told me that. Like it was something terminal. I don’t blame her.
It’s kind of nice to put a name to something that’s been eating me alive for so long, though. Like, there are terms and everything, and it’s all shit I already have tons of experience in! Splitting, Favorite Person… Jesus, FPs. It’s real humbling to learn that actually, most people don’t twitch and salivate over one person all day, everyday. Remember the “reasonable man” from torts? Well, as it stands, I’m sure as hell not him.
Goddamn. Mia was fucking right.
Huh.
Trucy pulls out her phone and does a little research.
“Borderline personality disorder,” Google tells her, “is a mental health condition that greatly affects a person’s ability to regulate their emotions. Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder may include:
1). A pattern of intense and unstable relationships that rapidly alternate between idealization (‘This person is perfect’) and devaluation (‘I hate them’), otherwise known as ‘splitting’
2). Distorted self-image and identity
3). Intense and often disproportionate anger
4). Impulsive or reckless behavior, such as gambling, substance abuse, unsafe sex, or sabotaging success
5). Threats of suicide or self-harm, often in response to real or perceived abandonment
6). A chronic sense of emptiness
7). Periods of paranoia and dissociation marked by stress
8). Mood swings that last a few hours to a few days
And as her eyes find the final line, her heart sinks:
9). An intense fear of abandonment, often taking extreme measures to avoid being alone”
She sits with these words for a long, long while. And then, as the coyotes begin their nightly howl, she looks up one last thing:
“The term ‘Favorite Person’ refers to an individual that a person with BPD has deemed most important in their life. Often, the FP is a romantic partner, but can also include a friend, family member, mentor, etc.
While not always, the relationship between the person with BPD and the FP frequently swings unhealthy, as the person with BPD may fixate on the FP and seek their attention to a constant and unreasonable degree. They may feel aimless without the FP’s attention, and may take to extreme measures just to maintain it. Their emotions, goals, and motivations often center solely around the FP.
In other words, the FP is their entire world.”
“It’s not just trot, though. It’s, like, really obscure trot.”
“You know you like it,” Trucy teases.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Daddy assures. “It’s damn beautiful. Hey, me and Isangyeol are buddies now. Honest. It’s just…really funny. I think he kinda prefers when it’s obscure. Inflates his ego that much more.”
“I can hear you,” Mr. Edgeworth seethes in the background, and Trucy laughs so loud that her friend Cynthia comes out onto the balcony and shushes her. There’s a shuffling over the phone, and then, “Are you staying hydrated, dear? Having fun?”
“All’s well in Trucy-land. We went to the Breaking Bad house today and the crazy lady heckled us. It was awesome.”
“…Right.”
“I’ll never understand that,” Daddy chimes in. “She could make so much bank with that house it’s not even funny. Did you take a picture?”
“Just for you.”
“You’re the best. Have I said that recently?”
Trucy smiles, soft. “Love you too. Mr. Edgeworth, you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.” Trucy sniffs. “Vatican cameos.”
“Er…yes. Quite.” Shuffling again, and then, “Wright, why don’t you go, er, see if the dishwasher is done.”
“Yes, sir,” Daddy says. “Bye, Truce. Love you lots. Don’t get eaten by coyotes or shot by the Breaking Bad lady ‘kay bye!”
And several seconds later, Mr. Edgeworth, gravely serious, says:
“Trucy, what’s wrong?”
“It’s fine. Non-emergency line, swear. Just wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
There’s a knock at the balcony window. Trucy turns her head, and Cynthia presses a sheet of paper to the glass which says:
WE ARE PLAYING UNO
Trucy nods and holds up five fingers, and then:
“How is he?”
“Wonderful. I’ve given him several headscratchers. He always does his best work when he’s stretching his mind to its utmost limit.”
“And when he’s not?”
Mr. Edgeworth sighs. “I know. Something has been very wrong for a while, but he just…” A pause. “We can talk about me all day long, but he doesn’t volunteer much about himself.”
Huh. Something’s real weird about that sentence.
“…Anymore?” Trucy guesses.
Another sigh, much longer this time.
“We…” he says. “We…disagreed on something, quite some time ago. Since then, he hasn’t been so forthcoming. If at all.”
“All or nothing, right?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “And that’s all I’m willing to say on the matter, for the sake of your father’s privacy. I’m sorry.”
“All good,” Trucy says, and she means it, because Miles Edgeworth doesn’t know about the loaded gun in her duffel bag, waiting to be split open on the balcony tonight. “Take care of him for me, okay? Love you.”
“I love you too, Trucy dear.”
With three rounds of Uno won and three nights left in ABQ, Trucy sets up shop for the nth time on the balcony overlooking I-40.
She takes a breath and steels herself. It’s disbarment time, and she is not allowed to wuss out. No fucking sir.
The first entry of this era comes about six months post facto:
10/08/2019: I went to Trucy’s open house tonight. Third through fifth grade are practicing shading in art, apparently. The third graders were given free reign to draw whatever they wanted, with the stipulation it was properly shaded, and it would be posted on the classroom windows during open house.
Trucy drew her family.
Yeah, the dark circles under my eyes popped quite well under the scrutiny of her 6B, as did Zak Gramarye’s handlebar. “I didn’t know you had two dads, Trucy,” one of her classmates said, and his mom looked at me like I had the plague. For fuck’s sake. You’d have to hold me at gunpoint to get me within breathing distance of Zak fucking Gramarye.
I wanted to take the drawing and rip him out of it right then and there, with little Johnny and his pearl-clutching homophobe of a mother as my witnesses. I don’t know if I’ve ever hated anyone the way I hate Zak. Not Dahlia, not Redd White, not von Karma, not Engarde, not Kristoph, and not even myself.
How could he do that to her? How could anyone?
Trucy presses a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. She will not wuss out. She will not.
As a kid, I always looked forward to sleepovers at Miles’ house. And once, I remember, so vividly, standing in the hall and watching Mr. Edgeworth spin Miles around in the kitchen. “Dancing in the Moonlight” was playing, and the pasta was boiling over on the stove, and Miles was stepping on his father’s shoes and they kept knocking magnets off the fridge with their shoulders and they were both laughing so loud I was sure they couldn’t even hear the song anymore, and I ran to the bathroom and cried so hard that I threw up.
I sat there for a long while, shaking, thinking about my own father. I thought about how much noise the recycling bin made when I took it to the curb on Tuesdays, and I thought about the way he’d sleep through all my school programs, and the negative space next to Ma, who clapped, and cried, and I thought about how he’d crawl into my bed every so often, and how my stomach would churn, and yet I’d say nothing and do nothing and be nothing, because I knew this was the only way I could get his attention.
“How could he do that to you?” Ma had asked, broken, when she found out. “How could anyone?”
By the time I came back down to Earth in the Edgeworths’ bathroom, “Summer Madness” was humming through the walls, muffled, and Miles was knocking at the door, asking if I was okay.
I tripped over the magnets on the floor when I got back to the kitchen. I spilled pasta sauce on the carpet and Mr. Edgeworth didn’t care.
A month prior to that night, the Twin Towers fell, and in two months, Manfred von Karma will murder the man who tangoed over the sauce stain with me and his son. The world was on fire, and all we could do was dance.
I wonder if Trucy knows how to.
Trucy shuts the book and stands.
What the fuck. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.
She feels like she needs to go run around in the fields with the coyotes for a while, or scream at the top of her lungs, or both, or neither, and just—
What the fuck?
She wipes at her eyes with frenzied fists and then puts her head in her hands. This doesn’t make any sense. How could someone do that to Daddy? Why?
This sucks. This sucks so bad. She should’ve never done this—should’ve never gone behind Daddy’s back. She should’ve just looked at the out-of-place textbook and shrugged her shoulders and called it a damn day.
To be honest, when she first decided to snoop through the diary, she thought it was going to be all about Daddy’s little crush on Mr. Edgeworth. And maybe, hopefully, a happy ending. But—
God, this is just fucking grim.
She sniffs, seethes, slides open the balcony door. She stashes The Law of Business Organizations in her duffel bag and hopes someone burns it by the time she wakes up.
However much Daddy thinks he hates Zak, Trucy knows, better than she’s ever known anything in her entire life, that she hates his father a thousand times more.
On her last night in ABQ, Trucy makes a promise:
This is the last time she’ll ever read the diary.
Yes, as soon as she gets home, she’s putting the godforsaken thing back on the shelf and then forgetting about its existence entirely. But for tonight, she just has to know what’s going on with Daddy and Mr. Edgeworth.
She has to.
07/24/2022:
IN THE COUNTY COURT OF PHOENIX WRIGHT’S APARTMENT, IN AND FOR LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
CASE NO: 1234FUCKMYLIFE
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA V. PHOENIX WRIGHT
FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022
11:00P.M.
WRIGHT: Say something, please.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I—I just—
WRIGHT: Miles.
WRIGHT: We’ve wasted so many years dancing around this.
WRIGHT: Please.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You can’t—
MR. EDGEWORTH: You can’t just ask this of me.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Out of nowhere.
WRIGHT: It’s not out of nowh—
MR. EDGEWORTH: How could I know that?
MR. EDGEWORTH: How?
MR. EDGEWORTH: All this time—
WRIGHT: All this time what?
MR. EDGEWORTH: …We’ve drank too much tonight.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Let’s talk about this in the morning.
WRIGHT: Let’s not.
MR. EDGEWORTH: What do you want me to say here?
WRIGHT: Say yes!
WRIGHT: …Please.
WRIGHT: I know I’m not crazy.
WRIGHT: I know there’s something here.
WRIGHT: And I know that it’s been around for a while.
MR. EDGEWORTH: …
MR. EDGEWORTH: You aren’t crazy.
WRIGHT: I know.
MR. EDGEWORTH: But—
WRIGHT: No.
WRIGHT: No.
WRIGHT: Why?
WRIGHT: Why are you talking yourself out of this?
MR. EDGEWORTH: Because we haven’t discussed the logistics at all.
WRIGHT: Then let’s discuss!
WRIGHT: Right now!
MR. EDGEWORTH: You aren’t being fair.
WRIGHT: Fair?
WRIGHT: Buddy.
WRIGHT: We can argue about fair all day long.
MR. EDGEWORTH: …
MR. EDGEWORTH: Then let’s.
MR. EDGEWORTH: We live nearly six thousand miles apart.
MR. EDGEWORTH: We see each other, at most, three times a year.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Who is that fair to?
WRIGHT: Plenty of people make it work.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I don’t want that.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You don’t deserve a half measure.
WRIGHT: But—
MR. EDGEWORTH: Further.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Say we did this.
MR. EDGEWORTH: That wouldn’t change the fact that I don’t have free time.
MR. EDGEWORTH: This is my free time.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Right here.
MR. EDGEWORTH: These three times a year that I’m able to see you and Trucy.
WRIGHT: I wouldn’t—
MR. EDGEWORTH: And Trucy—
WRIGHT: Miles, come on.
WRIGHT: Truce loves the hell out of you.
MR. EDGEWORTH: And I love the hell out of her.
MR. EDGEWORTH: More than she will ever know.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Which is why this could not happen without a discussion with her first.
WRIGHT: …
MR. EDGEWORTH: …Phoenix.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You have me.
MR. EDGEWORTH: And you will always have me.
MR. EDGEWORTH: But I’m unable to give you the attention you deserve right now.
MR. EDGEWORTH: And Trucy, too, for that matter.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I’m not saying no forever.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I’m just saying that the timing isn’t right.
WRIGHT: And when will it be?
WRIGHT: Can you riddle me that?
WRIGHT: I’d rather have a half measure than nothing at all.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You’d be miserable.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You don’t know what you want.
WRIGHT: Huh.
WRIGHT: I seem to recall derailing the course of my entire life for you.
WRIGHT: I think I know exactly what the fuck I want.
MR. EDGEWORTH: And there lies your fault.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Every choice you make is centered around another person instead of yourself.
WRIGHT: My—
WRIGHT: My fault?
MR. EDGEWORTH: I didn’t—
WRIGHT: I can’t fucking help it, alright?
WRIGHT: This is just how my brain works.
WRIGHT: And I’m sorry it’s not perfect and rational like everyone else’s.
WRIGHT: But it’s trying its best.
MR. EDGEWORTH: …I’m sorry.
MR. EDGEWORTH: My wording was poor.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I just don’t want you to revolve your life around me.
MR. EDGEWORTH: At all.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I would like nothing more than for you to live for yourself.
MR. EDGEWORTH: And, for the record, it’s not you against the world.
MR. EDGEWORTH: Some of us have to tap a certain object four times or stare at a certain spot and think a certain thought without blinking or everyone they love will die.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You know this.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You’ve seen me do it.
WRIGHT: There you go.
WRIGHT: Always have to have the last word.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I’m just trying to level with you.
MR. EDGEWORTH: To reason.
WRIGHT: And always have to talk to me like I’m stupid.
MR. EDGEWORTH: You aren’t.
WRIGHT: No, I am.
WRIGHT: And there’s no reasoning with me.
WRIGHT: After all…
WRIGHT: I’ll never be the “reasonable man”.
MR. EDGEWORTH: I’d hate it if you were.
No.
No, this is how he said it. He was holding my hand to his chest, and he was crying behind his glasses, and he whispered it. Soft, solemn:
“I’d hate it if you were…”
And I don’t think anything has ever hurt more—him standing there, wanting me, and I wasn’t allowed to have him.
The reasonable man would have sat with that conversation, and then assessed the risk.
The reasonable man would have taken the necessary steps to prevent any foreseeable harm—to guarantee he would not be hurt.
The unreasonable man, though—
“He’d be here, right?” Miles asks, and he points at the map pinned to their latest little conspiracy board.
And Phoenix shifts, sighs, shakes himself out of it. Says:
“He’d be there.”
“I thought so.” Miles huffs. “Idiot.”
“Idiot,” Phoenix agrees.
“Are you ready?”
“Let’s get ‘er done.”
“‘Er” being going out to dinner, and a nice one at that, because Miles just loves to get all dressed up and straighten Phoenix’s tie and guide him to their table with a hand at the small of his back and fucking torture him out of his everloving mind.
He orders their wine and their food in German, and Phoenix kind of understands it, after all these years.
“Sonst noch ‘was?” Miles asks as the server fills their glasses.
Phoenix frowns. “Uh, again.”
Miles smiles, soft, and says it slower:
“Sonst noch ‘was?”
When Phoenix doesn’t answer, Miles amends his question:
“Sonst noch etwas?”
“Etwas—oh. Do I want anything else?”
Miles nods.
Often, Phoenix thinks. Always.
“Not tonight,” he says instead.
The wine is great, and the food is fantastic, and the winding walk by the Neckar after is the cherry on top.
The wind skims at the water. And across the way, the castle watches on. Stoic, benevolent.
“Well, what say you, Mr. Harker?” Miles asks, hands clasped over the rail that divides them and the river. “Have I imprisoned you long enough?”
Phoenix huffs. “Hardly.”
“Trucy will be happy to see you.”
“Nah. You kidding? She’d knock off with her friends for all eternity if she could.”
“I’m not sure of that. I think she worries about you more than you know.”
“Yeah…” Phoenix looks off. “I know she asked you to babysit me these last two weeks.”
“Imprison,” Miles jokes.
“Right. My bad, Count.”
“Don’t be upset. She just didn’t want you to be by yourself. Or, otherwise, with Gavin.”
Phoenix gives a long, exaggerated groan. “Man, the moon’s, like, reflecting off the water and shit.” He points at it. “Can’t talk about Kristoph Gavin over something so beautiful. Come on.”
Miles laughs. “Right.”
“And I’m not upset. ‘Course not. It’s just funny. It’s just like her to know that being alone for two weeks would’ve made me absolutely miserable.”
“I’m happy you were here with me instead.” Miles throws him a smile, melting in its warmth. “Truly.”
“Me too…” Phoenix says.
Tomorrow, though, when he’s back home in L.A. and Miles isn’t there with him, it’ll hurt like hell. When will he see him next? Two months? Six months? A year?
“I’ll miss you,” Phoenix admits. And then, very, very deliberately, moves close enough that their arms brush. “Miles.”
“…Can’t imagine why,” Miles mumbles, and he’s not looking his way, and Phoenix can feel him trembling.
“Eh, you know.” Phoenix gestures at nothing. “Frolicking and detouring…and respondeat superior…and all that.”
Miles does look over then. Sharp, lips twitching.
“What on Earth are you talking about?” he asks. “Are you studying for something?”
“Hm?”
And then he says it. Really, truly says it:
“Those are business law terms.”
Phoenix scratches at the back of his head. Business law?
What the hell would Trucy be spouting business law terms at him for? And, y’know, now that we’re on this train of thought, what made her decide to ship him off so suddenly? She was so adamant about it that she practically packed his entire suitcase. It was weird.
And all the shit she’s been saying lately is weird, too. “How long have you known Mr. Edgeworth?” and “If you ever die, I’ll kill you”. And then, right after that, she said—
“Sole proprietorships…”
Miles arcs a brow. “…are businesses owned by one person.”
Phoenix’s stomach falls out from under him.
Holy fuck.
“Oh,” Trucy says, coming to a halt at the bookshelf where Daddy is. “Hey. You got back before me.”
Daddy nods, stiff. “I did.”
Oh, fuck. Now what the hell died here?
Trucy tightens her grip on her duffel bag and studies him. He hasn’t seen Mr. Gavin already, has he?
No, no, it’s something else. He can’t even look at her. Shit, this isn’t about Mr. Edgeworth, is it? No. No way! Not on their little Heidelberg honeymoon! And great, that would make this all her fault, wouldn’t it? And now Daddy’s gonna damn her and disown her and then die after, and—
And there’s a gap in the bookshelf.
And Daddy got here before her. And there’s a gap in the bookshelf.
And he’s looking right at it.
Oh, holy fucking fuck.
Daddy blinks once, twice. He looks at Trucy meaningfully. Then, slowly, he takes a little notebook out of his pocket and opens it up.
“Respondeat superior,” he begins reading, monotone, “otherwise known as vicarious liability, is a legal concept used in determining whether a principal can be held liable for misdeeds committed by their agent. Common relationships under this concept include: employer and employee, as well as parent and child.”
“Daddy—”
“A detour,” he continues, flipping the page, “occurs when an employee, acting within the scope of employment, takes a minor departure from their duties. A frolic, on the other hand, is a major departure from duties.”
“I think we should—”
“And finally,” he says, and his hands are shaking, and his voice is starting to crack, “a sole proprietorship is a business owned by a single person.”
Trucy swallows. Swallows again. Then:
“Well…” she says, small, “I think the Wright Talent Agency would constitute a partnership…”
Daddy stares ahead, unaffected.
“Trucy,” he says, holding out a hand, “could I have my diary back now?”
Without a single word, Trucy unzips her duffel back and pulls out The Law of Business Organizations.
Daddy grimaces at the cover. “Dude, there’s a stain on the front. How could you have an appetite while reading this?”
And all at once, Trucy thinks about “Dancing in the Moonlight” and magnets and pasta sauce and Zak Gramarye’s handlebar and churning stomachs and one-way thought tickets to Neil Perry-ville and FPs and splitting and half measures and the reasonable man and a free man of sorts and just breaks down and sobs.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” she spits or screams or both. “I just—I can’t—it just kept c-changing places on the shelf and it made no sense ‘cause you wouldn’t know business law if it hit you in the face and then I read one word and then I just had to know ‘cause you’re so miserable all the time and I want you to be happy and I’m sorry and I love you and I’m sorry.”
“Truce…” Daddy mumbles. He brings her in for a hug. “What the hell…why are you the one crying here?”
“‘Cause your life fucking sucks!” she screams, punching him in the shoulder. “And I want to kill everyone in it!”
“No you don’t.”
“No I don’t!” she agrees. “But I wanna kill your stupid fucking dad so bad it’s not even funny! And I mean that one!”
Daddy stiffens, but continues to rub her back. “It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t matter!”
“And he died over a decade ago, so…”
Trucy pulls back, looks up. “For real?”
“For real.”
“Well, good. Good! Great!” She holds up her hand for a high five, and with a stupid little smirk, Daddy returns it. “Rest in pieces!”
“And in pain,” Daddy adds.
“And in fire and flames,” Trucy finishes. She holds her’s and Daddy’s hands together like that for a long, long time. And then, “Why would you hide your diary in such a dumb place?”
“Uh, ‘scuse me, I guess. Wasn’t expecting a teenager to have any interest in a business law textbook.”
“You can read mine now, if it makes you feel any better.”
“Yeah.” Daddy snorts. “No thanks.”
Trucy sniffs. And, before her brain even finishes the thought, she says:
“Let’s burn it.”
“Hah.”
“I’m serious.”
Daddy’s expression turns forlorn. He thumbs at the pages. “This was my first legal textbook. Mia bought it for me…”
“And Mia Fey bought Charley,” Trucy says, pointing at said plant, shadowed in the corner, “and Charley’s leaves are turning brown for the first time ever.”
Daddy winces.
“Let’s burn it,” Trucy says once more, urgent this time, “and then let’s get up early tomorrow and go for a walk, and let’s say ‘good morning’ to strangers, and let’s listen to the wind between the pines, and let’s smudge our shoes on sidewalk chalk and feel bad after ‘cause, damn, that was some kid’s hard work, but we didn’t mean to step on it, it was an accident, we’re only human.”
Gently, she pries The Law of Business Organizations out of Daddy’s hands and throws it aside, and then takes him by the shoulders.
“Let’s prank call Mr. Gavin. Let’s laugh our asses off about it. And then, let’s call him for real, and let’s tell him all meetings for the next two months are hereby cancelled.” Trucy rubs at his shoulders, and she wonders, truly, wholly, why anyone would ever want to hurt this man. “Let’s buy a dartboard and pin a picture of your dad to it, and then mine. The other one—the wrong one. The ‘eat shit and die’ one. And let’s see Mr. Edgeworth three times a year, and let’s all be unreasonable men who live too far and love each other too much. And, sometimes, let’s cook alone and eat alone and spend time in this house alone and learn to be okay with it, ‘cause we know it won’t last forever. And then—and then—”
Trucy saws her own words off, breathless. She runs around until she finds what she’s looking for, and with one click of the CD player, “Dancing in the Moonlight” fills all four corners of the house.
Slowly, Trucy bows. And then she extends a hand to Daddy.
“Let’s set your diary on fire,” she says, and she’s smiling, and, more importantly, so is Daddy, “and let’s dance.”