Trent sat at the defense table in a gray suit. He looked healthier than I expected. That angered me in a childish way. I wanted him to look ruined. I wanted the outside of him to match the inside.
When he turned and saw me, his face softened.
The performance began.
I looked past him.
The prosecution laid out the case piece by piece.
The scans.
The records.
The forged consent.
The burner phone.
The money transfers.
The traffic cameras.
The life insurance policy.
The doctor’s testimony after he took a plea deal.
Dr. Vance looked smaller on the stand than I expected. Men who do monstrous things should look monstrous. It would make life simpler. But he looked like someone’s tired uncle in a cheap suit.
He described my surgery clinically.
I left the courtroom before he finished.
Caleb followed me into the hall.
“I can’t hear it,” I said.
“You don’t have to.”
“But I should.”
“No,” he said sharply. Then softer, “No, Maren. You survived it once. You don’t owe anyone a second time.”
So I sat on a bench outside the courtroom and counted my breaths until it was over.
When it was my turn to testify, Elaine squeezed my shoulder before I walked in. She was not the prosecutor, but she had been allowed to sit with me as a victim advocate liaison.
“Just tell the truth,” she said.
The truth had become a country I was still learning how to live in.
I sat down, swore the oath, and looked at the jury.
I told them about my symptoms.
I told them about the doctors.
I told them about Savannah.
I told them about waking up after the “cyst surgery” and Trent feeding me ice chips with one hand while holding my phone in the other.
I told them how he said I was lucky he had been there.
Then the prosecutor asked, “Did you consent to donate or remove your kidney?”
“No.”
