Jason’s jaw tightened.
The judge turned to me. “Mrs. Mitchell, are you comfortable continuing today?”
It was a simple question. Maybe the first simple question anyone in that courtroom had asked me.
Was I comfortable? No. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my wrists. My shoulders were bare under the cold courtroom light, and every scar felt newly exposed, as though memory had a temperature and mine was freezing.
But comfort had never changed my life.
Truth might.
“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “I am.”
Daniel reached for a folder from the table. It was not thick. Not dramatic. Not the kind of heavy stack of paper people imagined when secrets came undone. It was a slim blue folder with a white label on the front.
Jason saw it and went still.
That was the first real sign that he understood.
The color left his mouth before it left the rest of his face.
