Chapter 14
Chapter 14: The Weight of a Year
Emily turns 15 in juvenile detention, grappling with therapy sessions, a visit from her mother, and the slow progress of her case. She finds small moments of resilience and begins to accept her past, while preparing for the upcoming trial that will determine her future.
The days blurred together after that first session with Dr. Reyes. Each morning, I woke to the same gray walls, the same hum of fluorescent lights, the same schedule that felt like a slow, relentless tide. Eat. Group. Work. Therapy. Sleep. Repeat. The monotony was a kind of comfort, a shield against the chaos inside my head. But the calendar on the wall of the common room marked the passage of time with an unrelenting march. November turned to December. December brought a thin layer of frost on the windows, and the guards handed out extra blankets. I wore the same orange jumpsuit, but I had grown used to its rough fabric, its stale smell. I had grown used to a lot of things.
Dr. Reyes had become a fixture in my life, a steady presence in the storm. We met twice a week, and each session felt like peeling back a layer of skin. She asked about my mother, about Robert Cole, about the night that had shattered everything. I answered in fragments, pieces of a puzzle I was still trying to understand. I told her about the fear in my mother's eyes, the way Sarah had looked that morning when she came home with blood on her hands. I told her about the diary, the blackmail, the weight of carrying a secret that was never mine to bear. Dr. Reyes listened without judgment, her face a mask of calm empathy. But I could see the sadness in her eyes, the way she held her pen a little tighter when I spoke of my mother.
"You're making progress," she said one afternoon, her voice soft. "You're starting to connect the dots."
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