Serena’s POV
Three hours since the jury filed out, their faces carved from the same unreadable stone as the marble floors beneath my feet.
Three hours of fluorescent lights humming, of stale courthouse air that smells like old paper and cold coffee, of the muffled click of shoes from strangers who get to walk past this moment without carrying an ounce of its weight.
Caleb sits beside me on the wooden bench, close enough that our shoulders touch. Neither of us has spoken since we left the courtroom.
His hand rests on his knee, knuckles scraped from gripping the witness stand yesterday, and I want to reach for it. I don't. The silence between us feels load-bearing right now, like if either of us shifts, the whole structure collapses.
Mia sits on my other side, scrolling through her phone with the focused intensity of someone pretending she isn't terrified. Every few minutes she locks the screen, stares at the wall, then unlocks it again.
"Stop doom-scrolling," I tell her.
"I'm reading articles about jury deliberation timelines." She doesn't look up. "Apparently anything under four hours is either really good or really bad."
"That's helpful, Mia. Thank you."
"I aim to comfort." She locks her phone again. Unlocks it. "Three hours and twelve minutes, for the record."
Rachel sits across from us on the opposite bench, her posture perfectly straight, her hands clasped in her lap.
She hasn't moved in at least forty minutes. There's a stillness to her that reminds me of the women who testified alongside us — all of them carved down to their quietest, hardest selves by the act of saying the truth out loud and then waiting to see if it mattered.
"Rachel." I lean forward. "Have you eaten today?"
She blinks, as though the question takes a moment to translate. "I had coffee this morning."
"Coffee isn't food."
"It's a food-adjacent experience." The corner of her mouth twitches. "I'll eat when this is over."
"You'll eat now." Mia is already digging through her bag, producing a granola bar with the efficiency of a woman who has never been unprepared for anything in her life.
She tosses it across the hallway. Rachel catches it one-handed.
"You carry emergency snacks to courthouses?" Caleb's voice is low, rough from hours of disuse.
"I carry emergency snacks everywhere." Mia zips her bag shut. "Anxiety burns calories. Someone in this family has to think about logistics."
The word family lands between us without fanfare, and Mia doesn't correct herself. I watch Caleb's jaw loosen by a fraction, and I know he heard it.
Down the hall, my father paces in front of the tall window where gray afternoon light spills across the floor.
Back and forth, six steps each way, his shoes marking a rhythm I can feel in my teeth.
He's loosened his tie, and his hair sticks up at the crown from being raked through too many times. Every few passes, he checks his watch, then his phone, then the courtroom door, as though the verdict might appear in any of those places.
"William." Catherine's voice reaches him from the bench near the window. "Sit down. Please."
"I can't sit."
"You've been pacing for two hours."
"Then I'll pace until there's a groove in the marble." But he stops walking. Stands at the window with his hands in his pockets, staring at the parking lot.
Catherine sits with her spine straight and her hands folded in her lap, fingers laced so tightly her knuckles are white.
‘That's where Caleb gets it. That quiet refusal to break where anyone can see.’
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