My mouth sticks. The words are there, the sentences formed, but I can’t say them.
So I shake my head at McMillan. “Okay, then,” he says. “Let’s go back down. Judge Richey will have my ass if we’re late.” He glances down at his phone before he looks at me sheepishly. “Sorry.”
My mouth works again, but only to give him a small smile. Only to say in a weak voice, “Nothing I haven’t heard before.”
I learn of Donovan’s arrival long before I see him. I’m sitting on a bench in the hallway, waiting for the trial to start so they can call me in. The energy in the building changes, even around the corner and all the way down the hall from the front doors. The rustling turns to murmurs, which turn to a clear declaration of his presence in the courthouse. Donovan is here, and I will finally see him in person.
My parents sit on either side of me. Mom holds my hand and Dad sits closer than usual. Like he’s protecting me. Normally it would annoy me that they were being so clingy, but right now, it’s all I want. I look over at them every few minutes, try to memorize their faces because I don’t know what they’ll look like after I get up from the stand.
The prosecution team heads down the corridor, a cloud of business suits and stony faces surrounding Donovan. They slow down as they pass us and then they stop. Mrs. Pratt edges her way out of the middle. She wears a cheap red blouse and tan slacks that hang loosely at her hips. Makeup doesn’t cover the bags under her eyes, but she looks better than the shadow I talked to behind the screen door. Her hair has been done and she’s smiling. She steps aside to let Donovan through and I stop breathing.
I stand, slowly. Dad puts his hand on the small of my back, pushes me toward this ghost. I close my eyes to match him up with the photograph I’ve committed to memory. I open them and he’s still there. My arms and legs are cast iron. I’m afraid that if I move, he’ll disappear again. I saw pictures of him, video from the first couple days of the trial, but it’s nothing compared with him standing here in front of me. He’s truly here, truly alive.
He’s so tall, much taller than me. The dreadlocks are gone. His hair is shaved close to the scalp with clean edges, just like he used to wear it. His suit is new and his shoes are so shiny, I could probably see my reflection in them. He’s the version of my friend I couldn’t imagine, not even after the last few months of knowing he was back. I search his exposed skin for scars, visible marks to indicate any abuse he may have endured, but that’s stupid. His pain would be on the inside now. The types of wounds you can’t measure just by looking.
I wrench my cast-iron arms from my sides because he isn’t real if I don’t touch him. I know I probably shouldn’t, but I have to. My fingers brush over his sleeve, his collar, but I stop myself before they can get to the cleft in his chin—because he flinched. Like he doesn’t know me.
A part of me wilts. I never thought Donovan could be uncomfortable around me. Even now, after four years apart, I never thought that. I look at him, stare at him, will him to look into my eyes. I don’t know if we still have the same connection after so many years have passed, if his eyes will tell me anything at all. But I have to try.
“Hey,” I say in the softest tone possible. “Hey, Donovan. It’s me. Theo.”
It works. He’s looking at me and then I wish he wasn’t. His eyes are the deepest, brownest pools of sadness. I swim in them. Wade through the depths of hurt and anger and confusion. Each wave is deeper than the next. Murkier, harder to see through. But when he looks away, I know one thing for certain: Donovan didn’t run away.
I reach both arms out to him and then I stop. Because he doesn’t move at all. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say anything—of course he doesn’t say anything. I should probably just walk away, compose myself before I’m called inside. But instead I step closer and wrap my arms around him like someone who has never been taught to hug, like someone who doesn’t know you’re supposed to let go. I hug him until I think my ribs will crack and his spine will crumble and my arms will snap like twigs. I hug him so hard and I whisper, right in his ear: “I’m sorry.”
He just stands there. Paralyzed in my arms. And I know I have to let him go. But I can’t. Dad steps forward to pry us apart, his hands gentle as he pulls back on my arms. I stare at Donovan, try to look into his eyes one last time, but he’s gone in a second. Swallowed up by the prosecution team like a human tornado.
I watch them walk down the long corridor as Dad gently squeezes my arm, as Mom murmurs, “You’ll see him again soon, honey. Do you want some water? Maybe you should go to the bathroom before—”
I don’t catch the rest because I’m breaking away, running, trying to reach Donovan and his lawyers before they get to the door of the courtroom. My flats pound the concrete floor, the slap of the soles echoing against the walls. People milling about the hallway stare at me like I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I have to talk to McMillan before it’s too late.
“Mr. McMillan!”
Nothing. There are too many people ahead of me in their huddle, too many footsteps and voices bouncing along the hallway. And there’s no way I’ll be able to get through. Most of them are much taller than me. I’d have to fight my way through a wall of navy and gray and black suits and I’m smart enough to know that’s not happening.
“Mr. McMillan, I need to talk to you!”
Everyone stops. My voice echoes through the silent hallway like I’m speaking through a megaphone. McMillan is at the front of the pack and something tells me he’s not the guy you summon by screaming in a courthouse. But what other choice did I have? Let them walk through those doors without knowing what could be the most important piece of their case against Chris? Let Chris take a lighter sentence because I loved him once upon a time?
Love doesn’t change the fact that he was too old. Too old to be talking to me. To both of us. He was too old to spend his free time with a couple of thirteen-year-olds.
A murmur spreads through the group in front of me, and then the suits at the back are stepping aside and McMillan emerges. He looks peeved, to say the least. No half-moons this time.
“What is it, Theo? We really have to get in there now,” he says, his eyes flickering toward the courtroom door. “Judge Richey—”
“There’s more.”
It comes out so calmly, like it’s an afterthought. Like this hasn’t plagued me for months, like I haven’t already broken down exactly how my life will play out after this. I think it’s McMillan’s face that keeps me calm. Even when he’s not smiling—when he looks so annoyed—I feel safe with him. It will be hard to get it out now, but it would be even harder if I went into this at the last second, totally alone.
“What do you mean?” His eyebrows sink down toward his nose, but his eyes are still open and honest.
I’m doing the right thing. I am.
“I have more to t-tell you,” I say, looking down at my flats. “I have to talk to you before you g-go in there. It’s important.”
“Theo, this—”
“It’s about Chris Fenner. There’s more.”
I’m shaking.
Because if Chris was capable of raping Donovan, then what he did to me could be rape, too.
McMillan looks at me for a long moment, then says something to the man behind him in a low tone. The suit looks surprised. He must be shocked that McMillan is taking me so seriously. But he just nods and moves toward the front of the huddle.