Chapter 8 - The Pre-Trial Jitters
As winter approached, the trial date loomed on the calendar like a dark cloud. I had graduated from the wheelchair to a walker, and finally to a forearm cane. My limp was pronounced, and my back still ached when it rained, but I was walking. I had returned to high school for my senior year, navigating the crowded hallways with a fierce determination to not let Evelyn steal my normal life.
The weekend before the trial began, Dad and I met with the prosecutor, a sharp, fiercely intelligent woman named Ms. Davis.
"Evelyn's defense strategy is going to be character assassination," Ms. Davis warned us as we sat in her downtown office. "They are going to try and paint you as a rebellious, out-of-control teenager who threw a tantrum and fell by accident. They will claim your father is a bitter ex-husband coaching you to lie so he doesn't have to pay alimony."
"Can they actually do that?" Dad asked, his jaw tight.
"They can try," Ms. Davis said calmly. "But we have the medical records proving the injury was inconsistent with a simple fall. We have the SOS ping. And most importantly, we have the two of you. Juries respond to authenticity. You just need to tell the truth and not let her attorney rattle you."
I thought about Evelyn, sitting in her jail cell, likely spinning lies to anyone who would listen. I felt a knot of anxiety in my stomach, but it was quickly eclipsed by a cold, hard anger.
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"I'm ready," I said. "Let them say whatever they want. I know what happened."
That night, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror. I dropped my cane and took three unsteady, painful steps without it. I caught my reflection—a girl with a scarred back and a heavy limp, but a girl who had survived. Evelyn wanted to break me, but all she did was forge me into steel.
