15. Maya
Maya
Maya sat beside her lawyer, her hands folded tightly in her lap.
She knew she hadn’t done it. That was the terrible, useless thing. She knew she was innocent. And it did not matter.
“Given the scale of the alleged financial misconduct,” the prosecutor said, “this demonstrates a sustained pattern of deception and abuse of public trust.”
Maya felt heat crawl slowly up her neck.
Every sentence made her sound monstrous. Like she’d spent years circling vulnerable people waiting to feed on them.
She kept waiting for someone to laugh and say it was a mistake. Nobody did.
She wanted to turn around and look at the people behind her. To ask if they could see her at all, if they could see the difference between the person at the table and the creature the prosecutor was describing.
The prosecutor had documents, bank accounts, numbers.
Maya only had the truth. And the truth was not enough.
Her lawyer leaned forward. “My client has no criminal history. She is deeply rooted in the community and—”
“The same community she’s charged with defrauding,” the prosecutor interrupted.
They all thought she did it.
She wanted to crawl under the desk. She wanted to shout.
I didn’t do this. I loved those people. I loved that charity.
I would never—
She wanted to stand up and tell them about the grant applications and the fundraising efforts and the volunteers and the children and the years she'd dedicated to this.
But nobody was going to believe anything she said in this room.
Even her lawyer assumed she’d done it.
The judge looked at Maya. “Cooperation and accountability will be viewed favorably by the court.”
He was telling her that she should confess. He was looking at her and seeing a person who stole from her neighbors.
Maya willed herself not to cry. Crying here would only make her look guilty.
Too upset, and she looked guilty.
Too calm, and she looked cold.
Too frightened, and she looked manipulative.
The lawyers were speaking again. Dates and scheduling and procedure.
She barely heard any of it.
The courthouse doors swung closed behind her with a heavy thud.
Maya took a deep breath and tried to relax her shoulders. She needed to trust her lawyer. She started down the courthouse steps.
“Maya!”
Reid was standing at the bottom of the steps.
He looked… a mess.
His hair was rumpled. There was dark stubble along his jaw. His tie looked like he’d ripped it open and hadn’t bothered to retie it.
His expression was unguarded. “Maya,” he said again, taking a step toward her.
She stopped on the bottom step. The relief that crossed his face was so naked that for a moment it looked like pain.
"I've been trying to reach you," he said. His voice was rough. "Your phone—I didn't know where you were, I didn't know if you were—" He stopped. Started again. "Are you alright? Are you—"
This person was so different from the cold man who had dropped a suitcase at her feet only days ago. "Reid?”
“Maya,” he said, his voice urgent. “You’re innocent.”
Reid took another half step toward her, he lifted his hand as if to touch her.
“You’re innocent,” he said again. “You would never steal money. Not ever. And definitely not from the charity.” He laughed, delighted, as if this was the best news in the world.
Maya stared at him.
"You're innocent," he repeated, as if she needed to be told.
She had spent days feeling numb. The arrest and the handcuffs and the cell and Reid throwing her out of home and closing the door in her face had simply been too much for her to process.
But something had burned through that fog. Something that took all the space that had been left by the shock and the pain and the confusion and the fear.
She was no longer numb.
"I know I'm innocent."
She was… furious.
Anger was so much easier than everything else she had been feeling. Anger didn’t shake. Anger didn’t cry in holding cells under fluorescent lights.
Standing on the step she was almost at eye level with Reid. Good. She wanted to be at eye level for this.
"I have always known that,” she said. "I have known that every single minute. I knew it when you put handcuffs on me in front of half the town."
Reid flinched.
The heat inside her chest was hot and powerful. And unlike everything else she had felt since Saturday, it felt good.
He opened his mouth. “Maya, I—”
“I knew it when I was photographed and fingerprinted and interrogated and left in a cell,” she said sharply, cutting him off.
It was like a door blown open by wind she hadn't known was building.
“You arrested me.”
Her voice cracked across the courthouse steps like a whip.
People walking past slowed slightly, glancing over before hurrying on again.
“I know, but—”
“You read me my rights,” Maya continued, her voice rising, “like I was some kind of criminal.”
“I thought that—”
“You thought I was a thief.”
The word hung between them.
“C’mon, Maya. I was just doing my job,” he said, like it was enough. Like that was reasonable.
She stared at him.
“You job?” she repeated. Her laugh this time was sharper. “Your job was supposed to be caring about me, loving me.”
“Maya—” Reid reached his arms out toward her. “Come home,” he said. “I’ll fix everything.”
For a moment her body remembered the safety of his arms around her. For a moment, she wanted that. She wanted him to hold her and lie to her.
“You can’t fix this,” Maya said. “My charity is dead. I might go to prison. Nobody is ever going to trust me again.”
“Maya,” he said. “Be sensible about this.”
She rubbed at her wrists. The memory of the handcuffs snapping closed rose up within her.
She wanted him to wrap his arms around her and tell her it would all be okay. She wanted to press her face into his shoulder and let him tell her it was going to be alright, the way he always had, the way she had always believed him when he did.
“Maya,” he said, sounding desperate.
She couldn’t stand to look at him. She turned and walked away.
Behind her she heard his footsteps start after her, then stop.
She kept walking. Her heart was hammering in her chest. The anger was still there, blazing hot and bright.
And underneath it, buried deep where she refused to look at it—
There was just a broken heart.