My Fake Wedding Was the Start of Their Real Prison novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Sentencing
I leaned on a parking meter.
"Can they make me?" I said.
"They can subpoena you. They already have." The litigator's voice went dry. "And Sadie. I think you should let them."
"Why?"
"Because they think you'll go soft on the stand. They've read the old you. Sweet, polite, signs what she's told." Paper rustled again. "They haven't met the one I have."
The courtroom on May fourteenth was full by nine.
Twenty of the teachers had flown in on the club's own money.
They sat in the second row in their good cardigans, the retired teacher in the middle with her blue binder in her lap.
My mother sat behind them, in navy.
Caelen sat beside her, in the suit his grandmother pressed.
Brett's father sat in the last row, alone.
They brought the three of them in through a side door.
Spencer first, in a gray suit that hung loose on him now.
Kelsey next, in khaki, with her roots grown out to her ears.
Brett last, in his own clothes, without cuffs, because he'd cooperated.
None of them looked at each other.
At ten-fifteen, Spencer's lawyer called me to the stand.
He was silver-haired and kind-eyed, and he called me Ms. Lowell like we were old friends.
"You signed the pledge letter on October seventeenth," he said. "Correct?"
"Yes."
"With your own hand."
"Yes."
"Nobody held a gun to your head. Nobody forced the pen into your fingers."
"No."
He smiled at the judge.
"So you signed it willingly."
The second row went very quiet.
I looked at Spencer, sitting at the defense table with his hands folded.
He was smiling too.
A small, tidy smile.
"Nobody forced me," I said. "They didn't have to. They made sure I couldn't read it."
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