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He didn’t think most third graders noticed these things.
That was what he thought as he sat outside of Miss McIntosh’s third grade classroom, smelling the scents of Richard Nixon Elementary. It was musty, old, like the pages of books from the public library, and the fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed and sometimes, when it was very quiet during tests, made it hard for Miles to concentrate. He didn’t like the lights, even though he liked the smell, but the lights were still preferable to the smooth, brown and grey speckled tile that his shiny black shoes always slid on.
Miles also didn’t like recess.
It didn’t matter whether it was indoor or outdoor recess to him, really. If it was outdoor, it meant that Miss McIntosh would force him outside and take his book away so he couldn't read. Outdoor recess meant sitting alone on the swing sets and watching other kids do weird things like chase each other around. Indoor recess meant it was rainy and cold outside and that it was far too noisy to even try to read, even though he was allowed to have his book.
Sometimes he wanted to cry because Miss McIntosh just didn’t understand. It wasn’t that Miles was shy or that he didn’t know how to talk to the other kids his age, it was that he had nothing in common with them. He didn’t even like most of them.
But defense attorneys didn’t cry, so Miles just kept sneaking back inside during recess to read his book even though he knew he would get in trouble and that Miss McIntosh would call Father again.
Sometimes, Miles thought that he wasn’t actually really a third grader at all.
He knew he was almost nine years old, but it was so lonely and no one actually understood anything he talked about. No one knew or cared about the kinds of things Miles cared about and he got picked on for it anyway, so he figured that it wasn’t even worth trying to talk about anymore.
It was why he was better off alone, even though he knew Father worried about him not having friends.
Boys liked playing kickball and tag at recess and girls used the playground or the chalk to draw pictures on the blacktop where the four square and hopscotch lines were. But Miles liked Law and didn’t really care much about most superheros or the kinds of things that other people watched on TV. And besides, he never really was home when the TV shows were on anyway.
He didn’t even care if it was their Law Unit in school right now. The stuff they were learning was stuff he had known by the time he was a first grader.
“Um,” Miles almost jumped out of his own skin when he heard the voice, dropping his large book to the ground where it landed with a loud “THUMP”.
Skittering back, he slipped, and then fell off the bench onto the ground, finding himself looking up into the wide eyes of one of his classmates. Miles recognized him from before, but he was too preoccupied with the way his bottom was smarting and the sudden fear that they were going to get caught inside to remember his name.
“Wow, I’m -- I’m sorry,” the boy turned a shade of pale and stuck out a hand, which Miles ignored in favor of pushing himself up using the bench and trying desperately to straighten his bowtie. “Um … You’re … I …”
“You’re the one from before,” Miles said, trying to recover from the shock as best as he could, willing himself not to blush -- If he wasn’t like other third graders, he couldn't act like other third graders.
Those eyes, still wide, lit up, and a grin spread across his classmate’s face. “Y-you remember me!” Miles noticed that his eyes were still a bit red and sore looking from when he had been crying before, but was quickly distracted by the sound of footsteps.
Scooping his book into his arm, Miles reached out and grabbed the other boy’s arm, yanking him into one of the closets where they kept their jackets when it was raining outside (or snowing, on those rare, extremely cold days -- sometimes mountain country was strange). The boy was apparently so surprised that he didn’t even make a noise as Miles made every effort to hide them, listening to the footsteps approach and then recede into the distance.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he cautiously opened the cubbie, glanced around, and then pulled his unwilling companion back out into the hallway with him.
“I’m sorry about that, but we’re not actually supposed to be in here,” Miles straightened his clothing again, only paused when he noticed the other boy staring at him again with wide eyes. It honestly made him a bit nervous, and he froze, returning the stare. “Did I … Do something strange again?”
“W-what?!” The boy blinked once, then twice, before he violently shook his head. “Oh! N-no! I just … I just … I uh, um, I wanted to thank you for before. My name is … My name is Phoenix!” As if remembering his manners, Phoenix stuck out his hand for a handshake.
Miles had never met another kid willing to shake hands before.
“I’m Miles,” he said, remembering the taunts of “Edgeworthless” from the other kids in his 2nd grade class. “And I was just … I was just doing my job.”
He took Phoenix’s hand, then shook it, watching the way the other boy grinned at him from ear to ear. “Well it was … It was amazing! I never knew lawyers could be so cool! All I knew is people make jokes about lawyers and pastors and rabbis, whatever that last one is.”
Though Miles wondered how Phoenix couldn't know what a rabbi was, he ignored that because someone had genuinely called lawyers cool. Someone other than him. It made his chest clench and he found himself smiling back. “My father is a lawyer,” Miles explained. “He’s a defense attorney. He taught me everything I know!”
“W-wow!” Phoenix’s grin didn’t falter. “That’s really cool, too! My dad is just a history teacher.” He paused, shuffling his feet, looking nervous. “D-do you want to sit with me at lunch today? M-maybe?”
It was the first time someone had ever asked him that.
“Um …” Miles trailed off, and then nodded. “Sure. I suppose so.”
Phoenix grinned. “Good! I …. I hoped you would! B-because I never thought anyone would help me! A-and you did …” he glanced to the book that was still clutched underneath Miles’ arm. “Can you read books that big? Wow, you really are smart!”
Even though he didn’t want to, he blushed and looked away. No one had ever called him smart besides for adults before. No one thought the fact that he liked to read big books and knew a lot of words was cool, but Phoenix … Phoenix apparently liked that. “Er … Thank you.”
“Not a problem,” Phoenix sat down on the bench and then patted the seat beside him. “So why are you hiding in here? I mean, I guess I don’t really blame you … Red Brick is kind of a bully … And the girls are gross …”
“I don’t like kickball,” Miles explained, sitting beside him and wondering what one talked about with other people their own age. He was reminded that he really didn’t have very much in common with kids his own age, but then again … Phoenix seemed every bit as weird as his hair. “Or soccer. Or any of the other games people play outside.”
“Me either,” Phoenix replied, looking at his knees as he swung them back and forth. “But I get picked on a lot because of my name. They call me really mean things …” he bit his lip, and Miles remembered them calling him “Penis” before. “So I usually just go over by the fence and play by myself in the tall grass.”
Miles didn’t admit to sitting on the swings, or to spending all his time home reading when there was a babysitter there (Which was a lot. Miles understood that Father was busy, but he still missed him sometimes.), but he knew how Phoenix felt being alone all the time. He remembered before in the classroom when he had been so scared that he was crying because everyone else was demanding he give back something he never stole. Miles had been angry … Angry because they were accusing a person of doing something bad without listening to him or looking at the evidence at all.
His father always said that no one deserved to be alone when they were being accused like that, and Miles knew what it was like to be alone anyway, so he had wanted to help Phoenix.
“What kind of games do you play?” Miles asked instead of telling Phoenix any of this, leaning forward on the bench and looking sideways at the other boy.
“Me?” Phoenix looked to him, still smiling, and Miles noticed that his shoes were velcro instead of having laces. “Oh, I play pretend a lot. I make up stories in my head and act them out.”
It sounded a bit weird, but it still sounded more interesting than kickball, and Miles was weird, too. Besides, the mention of making stories up reminded Miles of The Hobbit, which Father was reading to him right now.
Hiding in the closet before had made him feel like Bilbo hiding from the Elves.
“What kinds of things do you make up?”
“O-oh …” Phoenix’s face turned red, and he rubbed the back of his head, grinning from ear to ear. “Y-you know … I like to play Knights a lot. Or … Or … Um, I like to play Cops and Robbers, too.”
Miles’ brow furrowed and he wondered how someone “played” cops and robbers all by themselves. But maybe … “Phoenix?”
“Huh?”
Phoenix’s head snapped to him, and he looked eager. Miles had never had anyone want to talk to him like this before, no one to listen to what he said.
“Have you ever tried to play Lawyers?”
Blinking, Phoenix shook his head, and then he smiled again. “No, but if you want to, we can try to play Lawyers together later.”
Miles smiled, almost shyly, and then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s play Lawyers. I’ll show you how.”
o0o
Phoenix always liked the way that Miles’ house smelled.
Maybe it was because it didn’t smell like dog, like Larry’s house always did, and there weren’t one million of those tiny candles (Miles called them “votives”) like at his house. Miles’ house smelled a lot like coffee and old paper and other nice smells that he didn’t know. But Phoenix liked it, and that’s what mattered.
Right now they sat at the kitchen table doing homework for Monday because even though this was a sleepover Miles was still responsible and wanted to make sure they had their work done. Not that Phoenix minded -- Since Miles had become his friend, he didn’t get as distracted easily and liked doing his homework more because Miles was good at explaining things to him. Better than Miss Mac, anyway.
Coming to Miles’ house was fun, even though Miles didn’t have a Nintendo 64 like Larry did. Phoenix liked to learn to play different card games (Hearts was his favorite) or play board games with Miles and Mr. Edgeworth and stay up late watching The History Channel. Besides, Mr. Edgeworth made really good Mac’n Cheese, and there was always ice cream at Miles’ house.
“Phoenix,” Miles said, putting his pencil down; his voice drew Phoenix’s attention. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Phoenix blinked and thought about it.
Of course a lot of people had asked him the question before, but Phoenix wasn’t really sure. He knew Larry wanted to be either an actor or an astronaut, but Phoenix had never given it much thought, mostly because he thought most kids didn’t end up becoming astronauts or actors as grown-ups anyway. If they did, there would be a lot more astronauts and actors.
“I don’t know,” he said after a minute. “I never understood why people ask us what we want to be anyway. I always thought it was kind of silly. We’re not even close to being grown up
people.”
He watched as Miles’ eyebrows scrunched together like they always did when he was thinking too hard about something. Phoenix had seen Mr. Edgeworth do it, too, so he wasn’t really surprised that Miles did it. Miles really loved his Father.
“I think that’s probably okay for someone like you,” Miles said after a moment. “I think you’ll figure it out.”
Phoenix smiled, and reached for the bowl of pretzels that Mr. Edgeworth had put in the middle of the table before. Chewing thoughtfully, he swung his legs back and forth, looking at the ceiling -- The Edgeworth’s had a really nice house with a pool and everything! Even the ceilings were nice!
“There’s no one else like you, Miles,” Phoenix swallowed, looking at his friend, who was staring back at him. “No one else wants to be an attorney. I think a lot of people in the class still think lawyers are mean people who defend bad guys. Like on television.”
“I don’t like the way TV makes defense attorneys look,” Miles’ frown deepened. “They’re always interested in making money, and I know in real life some of them are like that, but … I wonder why there can’t be a good defense attorney on TV just once.”
Phoenix thought for a moment, still swinging his legs back and forth. “Maybe it’s because grown up people have no imagination?”
Miles looked at him for a moment and then laughed. “You know, that just might be?”
From in the other room, Phoenix heard Mr. Edgeworth chuckle, even as he walked into the dining room where they sat. He always wore such boring colors, Phoenix thought, but they looked good on him. They made him look like a really nice librarian, or something, or a superhero, where the boring colors were just to hide his secret identity.
“Is the homework going well, boys?” Mr. Edgeworth looked down at the table, at his son’s work, before his eyes looked at Phoenix’s, as well. “It certainly looks that way.”
“Yes, Father,” Miles said, smiling up at Mr. Edgeworth, who placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“Supper will be done soon, and after that I believe I promised the two of you I would take you to see a movie?”
When Phoenix watched them, he thought that they seemed really close. Miles and Mr. Edgeworth were way closer than him and his dad or Larry and his mom. But maybe, Phoenix thought, that was because Miles did have a mom so Mr. Edgeworth needed to love Miles enough for her, too.
“I’m excited!” Phoenix said, his eyes locking with Miles’ for a moment as they exchanged a glance. “Thank you, Mr. Edgeworth, for letting me stay over!”
Mr. Edgeworth just smiled at him and then pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose. “It’s quite alright, Nicky,” he said with a small nod of his head. “Miles likes having you over, and you two always study so hard.”
For a moment, he looked to his son, who was looking at his paper again, back to doing homework. Something passed over his features, something soft, and though Phoenix didn’t understand it at the time, he would come to understand it many years later, when he had a child of his own.
“I’m just happy to have Miles as a friend,” Phoenix said after thinking for a moment. “I’m glad he saved me from bullies.”
Miles’ eyes snapped to him, and he suddenly looked really embarrassed. “I … I just did what anyone should have done.”
It was Mr. Edgeworth who spoke up first, “What other people should do often isn’t what they actually do, Miles. I’m very proud of you … And very glad you made a friend.” He stopped speaking for a moment and looked toward Phoenix like he knew something that neither of them did quite yet. “Now finish up your homework so we can eat macaroni and cheese.”
He walked away, though he looked over his shoulders with a fond smile one last time.
“I like your dad,” Phoenix said when he was sure Mr. Edgeworth was gone. “He’s really nice, even if he doesn’t keep candy and soda in the house like Larry’s mom.”
Miles just blinked at him before he smiled and laughed a bit. “Well, Father says Larry’s mom is just trying to … to … placate,” he sounded the word out, “him with stuff. I think that means she’s not a very good parent.”
Phoenix had to agree since Larry always seemed a bit dirtier than he should and was surprised at the concept of bedtime; not that he would ever tell Larry that.
“Well, I think your dad is great,” Phoenix repeated emphatically. “He looks kind of scary when you first meet him, but he’s not actually scary at all.”
Phoenix remembered the first time he had seen Mr. Edgeworth, who had very scary eyes sometimes and looked very serious, but he soon learned that Mr. Edgeworth was actually a very kind person. It was just like Miles said -- Mr. Edgeworth did what he did to protect other people from bad stuff. He cared a lot about other people, especially his own son.
“Other people always think Father is scary,” Miles confirmed, “but he’s not as scary as some of the people he faces in court. Prosecutors are really scary. I’ve seen so on television.”
“Prosecutors are the other lawyers, right?” Phoenix asked. “The ones that want to send peope to jail? Even if they didn’t actually do bad things?”
Miles nodded, “Yeah. Even if they’re actually innocent.”
Phoenix didn’t think he could ever grow up to accuse someone of doing bad things, and he couldn't imagine Miles doing that, either. Miles had believed in him when no one else would, and even though people picked on Phoenix even more now, Miles still defended him no matter what.
Miles was his best friend and he wanted to keep it that way for the rest of his life, even if his Mom said that people usually weren’t still friends with people they liked in elementary school as grown-ups.
“Well that’s why you’re going to grow up to be a defense attorney,” Phoenix reassured his friend, who looked a bit sad now. “You’re going to make sure that no more innocent people get put in jail.”
Miles smiled at him.
“Yeah,” he said “You’re right. I am.”
o0o
He still remembered waking up alone, remembered when the nurses looked at him like he would break into pieces if they so much as touched him. He knew right away something was wrong when he asked about Father and no one would tell him where he went.
He knew to expect the worst when the police detectives came.
Miles wasn’t a stupid little kid, he knew what the detectives meant, especially because he had met other detectives before because of his father. They were homicide detectives, which meant someone had died.
When they came to question him, he knew, but he didn’t want to believe it, and he tried his best to be strong. It was the detectives who told him that his father was dead now, and Miles even managed not to cry until they had left the room.
Miles knew he had almost died when he heard the nurses and doctors talking about it while they thought he was sleeping. They said he had nearly been suffocated by lack of oxygen in that elevator, that it was a miracle he didn’t have any permanent brain damage. It was a shame his father had been shot, though … Poor thing … What was going to happen to him now?
He couldn't listen to them talk at all after that, because every time he did it made his eyes sting with tears and his throat tighten.
The detectives made it worse when they asked him questions and tried to get him to answer about what happened. Miles told them he couldn't remember clearly, that he knew that someone had screamed before he passed out, but no one believed him when he said it wasn’t his father’s voice, so after awhile Miles just started telling himself that he was the one who was wrong.
Sometimes, Miles wanted to see Phoenix or Larry, or anyone who wasn’t strange. He didn’t want to be treated like he was fragile anymore, but at the same time he could tell he looked sick when he saw his reflection in the window of his room. It was probably because he didn’t eat as much as he used to.
He was afraid.
Afraid the earthquake would come back.
Afraid of the elevators when the nurses tried to bring him to the lobby to meet his social worker (they had to send someone to take him down the stairs).
Afraid the day they told him he would have to testify in court.
The child psychologist they had sent to talk to him couldn’t make him feel better, and he didn’t like the way they treated him like he was stupid. He didn’t like how other people tried to explain what “dead” meant to him when he already knew.
His father was gone.
His father was gone forever.
Eventually, Miles didn’t feel much of anything anymore, and mostly he spent his time thinking about what had happened.
So when the day came to testify, he testified, watching the rest of the trial with less interest than he used to. The only thing he cared about with certainty was the verdict and …
And his father’s killer walked free.
He couldn't be consoled after that.
It was his first experience with the injustice of the system, his first time realizing that the world was not the perfect place where the good guys always won that he had used to think it was. It was the first time that Miles realized that the defense attorney could really be the bad guy.
For a long time Miles sat in a foster home after that trial, and no one made him go to school, though he read a lot. No one seemed to understand his desire to stop himself from replaying the events in his mind again and again and again … His health improved, though.
Miles figured his father wouldn’t want him to die.
Weeks later, Miles was adopted.
Another one of the memories that stood out clearly to him was the first time that he had seen Manfred von Karma’s face. He could recall clearly the way that the man looked, so cold and hard and terribly frightening, like a B movie villain (it hurt him to think that he knew what B movies were because his father had loved them). Miles knew his face, remembered him as the prosecutor from the trial the day his father died, though in time those memories faded, replaced by nothing, blackness.
All he could remember was the arrogant slant of those eyebrows, how fine those clothes looked, how pale and sickly the man was …
And that was when time started to move again, when he started to feel things again, though seldom were they good things.
Miles quickly accepted that things would never be the same when he was moved by his new … mentor across an ocean and forced to live in a lonely mansion where a spoiled three year old who barely spoke a word of English insisted on following him around constantly. Of course, if she were ever injured or otherwise upset, he was always held responsible for it by Master von Karma.
In those days, he was allowed a brief adjustment period, but he still remembered how he’d had his free will robbed from him. After awhile, he’d stop thinking of it that way, though. After awhile he’d start see this moment as Master von Karma showing him the light, liberating him from his past.
“You will study to be a prosecutor,” the man drawled, watching as Miles stood at the foot of his desk with his colorless eyes. “For generations the von Karmas have upheld justice by prosecuting the criminal scum of this planet. You have fallen under my care, so you, Edgeworth, will do the same.”
He wanted to protest, remembered how much he had wanted to be a defense attorney, but here speaking back resulted in being hit. Here speaking back meant he nursed a sore jaw or a sore bottom, or massaged a sore scalp from where he had been pulled around by his hair.
So Miles did not speak, he only let Master von Karma drawl on.
“Defense attorneys, Edgeworth, are the reason your father was not given justice,” von Karma tapped his fingers against his desk and considered Miles for a long moment, making the boy shiver under the scrutiny. “There is no one innocent. You must remember that, boy. Only in becoming a prosecutor will you ever have peace, will you ever be able to take revenge.”
And in that moment, in that one moment, it had felt like he had been shown the truth.
o0o
When Miles didn’t show back up at school after winter break, Phoenix knew something was wrong right away, no matter what Larry said. He had tried to call Miles’ house to talk to him, but no one had picked up, and one day the line was disconnected.
Phoenix was even more sure something was wrong when the teachers started avoiding the subject and his parents began acting weird. It wasn’t until the very end of January that Miss Mac took him and Larry aside and explained that something bad had happened.
“Now, the PTA agreed that they didn’t want the students knowing, but I’m going to tell you two because you were so close to Miles,” she eyed Phoenix from over the rims of her glasses, and he felt suddenly singled out, like she was only talking to him. “Miles isn’t going to come back to school. He’s moved very far away after something bad happened.”
Phoenix wanted to know what, but he was afraid to ask. Something about the way Miss Mac was looking at him told him not to, so he kept his mouth shut and tried to stop Larry from shouting out in surprise and distress.
None of this surprised Phoenix, even when Miss Mac dismissed them back to play with the other kids during indoor recess. Larry, immediately forgetting what she had said, ran off to chase the girls as soon as it was apparent Phoenix wasn’t going to get up and go anywhere. For the rest of that recess, Phoenix sat in the corner, trying very hard not to cry and failing.
Just because he had known didn’t mean it didn’t hurt him, and during all of lunch and for the rest of that entire day, Phoenix didn’t want to talk to anyone.
That wasn’t actually true, though, Phoenix thought when his mom tried to get him to go down to the corner store with her later that night. He did want to talk to someone, just not any of the people he had around him. Phoenix wanted the one person who had made him feel wanted when everyone else had started to hate him.
Phoenix wanted his best friend.
Phoenix wanted Miles.
Two days later, his dad had a “talk” with him about it while they were doing the dishes together.
“Phoenix, is this about Miles?” Phoenix looked over his shoulder at his father, damp towel in hand as he dried one of their plates to put away.
“Is what about Miles?” He smiled at his father, not wanting to confide in anyone how he was feeling; he knew Miles wasn’t coming back and that he would never see him again.
He knew it.
He just wanted to be sad about it for a little while.
But his dad gave him a look, and Phoenix placed the plate on the counter to stare at his toes, trying to avoid feeling like he was going to melt into the tiles. He didn’t want to tell the grown-ups about anything, but … But …
“I just miss him,” he said at last. “That’’s all.”
Phoenix’s dad dropped the subject, and Phoenix was actually glad. He knew his mom would have kept pushing him until he was crying about it and he didn’t want to cry. Mostly he just wanted to be left alone.
Time passed and Phoenix learned to deal with it.
By the end of the third grade year, he had bounced back like kids are wont to do, even though every month he wrote a letter to Miles that he couldn’t send and stored it in an old shoebox underneath his bed. He remembered Miss Mac telling them about journaling and how helpful it could be to some students and realized that the letters were his journal, his way of talking to someone who he knew would never judge him.
It helped him feel better when he and Larry had fights so he had to sit alone at lunch.
It helped him feel better when his parents decided he should go to summer school so he had “distractions” instead of sitting around the house.
That was, until his mom had found the shoebox while cleaning and looked through the letters while Phoenix was at summer school. He returned home to find her looking at them and tried to snatch them away from her, wanting to keep his secrets to himself.
He didn’t get why grown-ups felt like they had the right to know everything.
“Phoenix Wright, you stop that this instant!” she grabbed his wrist, and he looked up at her, his eyes angry.
“Mom, no! Give them back! It’s none of your business!” Phoenix struggled against her hold and managed to worm his way free. “They’re my letters and you can’t have them!”
His mom slapped his hands so that he dropped the letters he had and took him by the shoulders to force him to sit at the kitchen table. “You look at me this instant, young man,” she said, and he looked up at her, shaking because he was so angry and trying not to cry. “Why are you writing these letters?”
“Because they help me feel better,” he said. “They’re like a journal. So please don’t make me stop writing them, Mom!”
She blinked at him, then bit her bottom lip, which is what she did when she was worried. “Phoenix … If you want a journal, I can just buy you one, you don’t have to …”
“It’s not the same,” he shook his head. “Mom, a normal journal is just like talking to yourself, and that’s stupid. What’s the point of talking if you’re not talking to someone?”
His mom sighed, then shook her head. “Phoenix … I really think you should talk about your feelings to adult people. Maybe they can help you stop missing Miles so much.”
Hearing those words made Phoenix start crying, even though he didn’t want to cry in front of his mom when he was so angry with her, but it felt like she had hit him, even though she hadn’t. “I don’t want to stop missing Miles!” he shouted, fists balling at his sides. “I just know something really bad happened to him and that I’m the only one who really cares! And no one will ever tell me what it is because I’m just a little kid!”
Phoenix squirmed away from her again, slipping off the kitchen chair to gather his letters and his shoebox, still crying. “If I don’t remember him, no one will!”
His mom was so shocked that she didn’t grab him and Phoenix ran off to his room, still clutching his letters. After counting them to make sure they were all there, he promised himself that when he grew up and had kids, he would never be the kind of grown-up who lied to kids just to make them feel better.