Chapter 5 - Morning Light Through Wire Glass
The morning sunlight cut across the linoleum floor of the facility dayroom in thin, dusty stripes, catching the reinforced wire mesh embedded inside the high windows. I pulled my knees up against my chest inside the oversized fabric of my dress, watching the dust motes drift in the quiet air. The heavy metal door at the end of the hall clicked open, and the facility administrator, a tall woman with a clipboard tucked permanently under her arm, walked toward the small mounted television set in the corner.
She reached up and pressed the power button with a dry click. The screen flickered to life, showing the familiar stone facade of the county courthouse. A bright red news banner crawled along the bottom of the frame, accompanied by shaky morning footage of reporters crowding the front steps, shoving microphones toward anyone in a dark blazer who tried to walk past the glass doors.
"They're not letting up," the administrator murmured, half to herself, as she watched the camera zoom in on a still photograph of the courtroom microphone where I had stood just hours before. The audio from the broadcast caught the muffled shouting of questions, reporters demanding to know why a child had been put on the stand, why the system moved so slowly, why anyone had let it get this far.
I pressed my forehead against my knees. The sound of the anchors talking about the viral spread of the clip—the shares, the comments, the thousands of people typing messages online—made my stomach knot tighter than it had all night. It felt like the courtroom had somehow followed me inside these gray walls, multiplying itself across thousands of screens until the whole world was staring down at my white shoes and my braided pigtails.
Ten minutes later, the heavy front door buzzed again. Sarah pushed it open, her footsteps echoing down the corridor. She looked different than she had yesterday in the wood-paneled courtroom; the dark blazer she wore was wrinkled at the cuffs, and dark shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes. She carried a thick manila folder tucked securely under her arm, bulging with loose paper corners and yellow sticky notes.
She walked straight across the dayroom, ignoring the television screen entirely, and knelt down on the linoleum in front of my narrow chair.
"Good morning, sweetheart," Sarah said softly, resting her hands on my shoulders in the exact same gentle way she had yesterday. Her fingers were cool against my skin, and her steady gaze cut through the noise of the news broadcast. "Did you get any sleep?"
I shook my head, my braid brushing against my collarbone.
Sarah gave a small, tired nod, her thumb tracing a reassuring circle through the fabric of my pink dress. "Neither did I. The phones at the office haven't stopped ringing since midnight. Every news outlet in the state wants a statement, but we aren't giving them one. We're letting the legal filings speak instead."
She tapped the heavy manila folder against her knee. Inside were fresh briefs, emergency petitions, and a signed request for a expedited review with a higher-level supervisor who had finally agreed to look at our case file outside the standard waiting period.
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"Pack whatever small things you have," Sarah said, helping me to my feet as the television droned on in the background about public outcry and social media hashtags. "We're heading downtown. There's a supervisor waiting to talk with us, and we need to be ready."
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