The polished wooden bench I wait on outside the courtroom is a contradiction. It looks inviting, begging passersby to sit for a spell when it is in fact cold, hard, and uncomfortable.
It’s less crowded than the revolving door of family court. Jason holds my hand and strokes the back of it with his thumb. Andrew and Rose sit on another bench down the hall. Everyone else is inside for the opening arguments.
My heart skips along. I take some deep breaths, but my heart beats faster and faster. Jason squeezes my hands and searches my eyes. He kisses my cheek softly and my heart slows a beat.
“What was I thinking?” I ask, kneading my hands. The anxiety is higher than it has been in months, making it hard to capture and box up. The Terrible Dogfish is about to swallow me whole and I have no way avoid it.
“You were thinking you want your parents in prison, paying for what they did to you,” he reminds me.
“Right.” I scan the hallway, tapping my foot. “Maybe for Mother’s trial, I won’t be so anxious.”
The door to the courtroom opens and a petite female sheriff’s deputy with short, black hair comes out. “Sara Parker?”
I stand and she re-opens the door, gesturing for me to go first. She follows with Jason behind her. Everyone in the room stares at me. The short walk from the door to the stand is interminable. Each step seems to take me further from my destination.
I allow myself one glance at my father. He wears a dirt brown suit, white shirt, and yellow tie. His hands clasped together on the table in front of him and his lips are held together in a grim expression.
He doesn’t deserve more attention from me than that. What he deserves is to spend the rest of his life behind bars in an orange jumpsuit. I hear rapists and child abusers become an alpha’s prison bitch. The once powerful turned powerless. Justice.
Len approaches me as soon as I’m sworn in and seated, then begins with questions about the abuse. I retell my story to him in front of a roomful of strangers. He wasn’t joking about it being worse. I don’t know these people and they don’t know me. The ones in the box on my left will decide my father’s fate. The rest are spectators, gawking at a drama that will make them feel better about their lives.
Len gathered my medical records from the multiple emergency rooms and doctors my parents took me to in order to prevent suspicion, including the records from Dr. Black indicating the bruising to my cervix and vagina. He reminds the jury that a medical expert will organize the records into one big picture for them, and presents each piece of evidence to them as I recount the injuries, pregnancy, and abortion.
I don’t know how much time has passed when Len finishes, because the clock is behind me and I dare not sneak a peek at my watch.
Father’s lawyer, Gary Prescott, stands, smoothing down his green and white striped tie. A charcoal gray suit and light green shirt fit with a little give.
“Miss Parker,” he starts. “How long have you been dating your boyfriend?”
“Since the night before the Jerichos found my father beating me outside.”
“You two were friends before you dated?”
“Yes.”
“And you never hooked up with him before that first date?”
“No.”
“Not even when he came to the house asking your father’s permission?”
“No.”
“Tell us again what you did on your first date.”
What does this have to do with my father? “We went to the football game, then Joe’s for pizza. My best friend and her boyfriend joined us.”
“No sneaking out to the car or into the bathroom?”
My body temperature elevates. “No,” I answer, pursing my lips as his insinuation sinks in.
“What about since then?”
“I don’t understand your question.” He’s going to have to say it.
“Are you and your boyfriend sexually active?”
I glance at Jason sitting between Mike and Alana, each with a hand on his arms. His face red, jaw set, and fire in his eyes like when Rick wouldn’t leave me alone.
Hunter clutches the wooden dividing wall while Damian’s arm bars him from getting up, both of them wearing their outrage like Jason.
“No.” I glare at Father and he averts his eyes to his hands. “He knows exactly what my father did to me and that I’m not ready for sex.”
“You expect us to believe a healthy teenage boy is willingly engaging in abstinence?”