The mahogany rail of the witness stand felt cool and slick under my sweating palms. I pressed my fingers against the wood until the tips turned white, grounding myself in the physical sensation to keep from trembling. The courtroom was a cavern of beige walls and fluorescent lights that hummed with a low, headache-inducing frequency. It smelled of floor wax, old paper, and the distinct, acrid scent of lives being dismantled.
Judge Morrison sat high above us, a man with a face carved from granite and eyes that looked like they had seen every variety of human deceit and found them all exhausting. He peered over his reading glasses, his gaze heavy.
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