Page 30 of Courtroom Drama
I clear my throat and look away. I can’t handle more right now. “I really am so sorry about Kara.” I cringe a little inside that I’ve just said the words he always avoided offering me in times of sympathy. “I wish I could have been there.”
“I don’t... I don’t talk about her.”
“I know,” I say, because his words feel prophetic of a him I didn’t see over the last ten years but know the movements of.
He clears his throat and straightens, as if someone has pulled taut a string from the ceiling attached through his body. Whatever stolen time we had in this suite, it’s clearly over, his shield positioned in front of him again.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, he adds, “We should head back to our rooms.”
I try not to deflate, knowing it’s the right thing to do. “Yeah, we probably should.”
After some deliberation, we place the beer cans into the bag from the trash bin, then throw it in the larger bin in the hallway.
He silently leads me back to the stairwell and holds the door open as I brush past him. My arm grazes his chest, and my body’s Pavlovian response kicks in with a flash of his eyes cut by the light in the closet moments ago, sending a wave of both heat and sadness through me. Apparently, sadness and attractioncancoexist. As we descend the stairs, it feels like the end of something. He opens the door to the firstfloor, and I step through. His eyes linger on mine as I do, making me believe he feels it, too.
We cross the hallway unspotted.
Facing each other again in front of Cam’s door, the one tucked between ours, I’m about to turn and leave with no more between us when he whispers, “I’m sorry if...” He clears his throat, runs his hand down his face. “...if I made you uncomfortable.”
“What? No, I’m sorry for starting it.”
He nods. I’m intoxicated by the need to know what’s going on in his head. He’s a mystery greater than Margot Kitsch at this moment, and I want to solve it. Solve him. I want to know what else has happened in these last ten years—big, small, and everything in between. I want to know what beer he likes, because I’m confident it’s not Natural Ice. I want to know what love has looked like for him, who has broken his heart. If the way he approaches relationships was shaped by what we walked in on that day. I want to know what life was like right after his sister died. I want to know how my feelings could betray me so quickly, choosing him over my ten-year stronghold of resentment. I want to know if he still thinks I’m beautiful, even tonight in my sweatsuit and no makeup. I want to know if he felt those kisses in his toes.
As we stand in the hallway, a swirl of things unsaid hovering around us, the door between us swings open. In an instant Cam is standing in his doorway, looking back and forth between us. He smiles, mouth wide, a grin full of accusatory glee.
“What’re you guys doing?” Cam asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
“C’mon. Whatever it is, I want in,” he pleads in a hefty whisper.
I look past them both to the corner where George is stationed. He’s not visible, though I hear the quiet rush of what sounds like a football game, likely being watched on his phone. “Right, good night,” I whisper in the general direction of them both. Reaching across Cam, I grab Damon’s hand and shake it vigorously to emphasize the platonic nature of our interaction. But even the handshake sends a pulse between my legs.
Damon looks down at our hands and then back at me, his face unreadable.
I release his hand and abruptly take the few steps to my door, fish the key from my sweatpants pocket, and bulldoze my way in.
Safely inside my room, back pressed against the door, I cringe. I cringe at the handshake, the closet, the entire evening. My stomach hollows at the thought of Kara.
But then, I feel the phantom touch of his lips against mine and can’t fight the twinge of heat that follows.
16.
Hearsay (n.)
an out-of-court statement that is being offered in court for the truth of what was asserted
lies, all of it
Idon’t run into Damon the next morning, as I arrive as late as possible for breakfast, grabbing a stale blueberry muffin and scarfing it down on the way to the shuttle. Most mornings, I’ve headed down early to talk with the other jurors, ensuring I know each of their names and a detail or two about them. Despite all the curveballs Damon’s presence has brought, I still want to be foreperson. It stings when I finally emerge to find Xavier chatting up a group of four other jurors, right as they all erupt into roaring laughter at something he’s just said. I make a vow to up my game.
It’s not that I’m avoiding Damon—that’s impossible when we’ll be seated next to each other all day. I just don’t know how to be around him after last night.
I tossed all night thinking about him, yes, but mostly about Kara. About her life. Her death. About what it must have been like in his house when they got the news. I pictured his mom crumpled in a heap on the floor, wrapped in the sunflower-covered sundress that was always Kara’s favorite. I pictured his father staring at a doctor in shock, his gentle blue-green eyes (Damon’s eyes) pleading. And I pictured Damon, tears falling silently down his cheeks as he bent to the cold hospital linoleum to console his mother. I can’t imagine what theirfamily has been through, and I don’t know if it brought them closer together or tore them apart. There’s still so much unknown space.
When we’re lining up to enter the courtroom, he turns and addresses me over his shoulder. “Hey,” he says, that jaw muscle flexing as soon as he closes his mouth.
“Hi,” I return, losing the battle with the corners of my lips to keep them in place as they upturn.
