47. Hi, Gorgeous.
hi, gorgeous.
alyssa
I hate this building.
The Essex County courthouse in Newark looks exactly the same as it did years ago when I first sat in a witness box and recounted my marriage to Malik and the night he was killed.
Same metal detectors, same scuffed floors, and the smell of industrial disinfectant that can't quite mask the staleness of too many people's worst days.
I walked through the entrance flanked by my mother and sisters, their voices a protective bubble I couldn't quite hear through the roaring in my ears.
“You've got this,” Jordan murmured.
“We're right here,” Tamika added.
“You okay, baby?” My mother squeezed my arm.
“I'm fine.” The lie came automatically. I’d been saying it for two days straight to everyone, holding myself so tightly together that I might’ve shattered if someone breathed on me wrong.
They were there to support me, but deep down I knew they all needed me to be strong. Needed to see that their sister and daughter could handle reliving the worst period of her life with grace and composure.
So that's what I gave them.
We passed through the metal detector, gathering our belongings on the other side, then headed down the hallway to find my courtroom and wait for the prosecutor to call me in.
Jada stopped and grabbed my arm. “Alyssa, is that… Julian?”
I looked up, and my heart actually skipped a beat.
He was sitting on a bench against the wall, elbows on his knees, wearing a perfect suit among the chaos of the courthouse. When he looked up and saw me, he stood in one fluid motion and took long strides toward us.
Three weeks of silence. Of not knowing if we'd ever speak again. And here he was, in Newark, at nine-thirty in the morning, walking toward me like it was the most normal thing in the world.
We stopped a foot apart. Everything I wanted to say jammed in my throat.
“Hi, Gorgeous.” He smiled at me, like my mother and sisters weren't watching.
I crashed into him, arms draped around his neck. His arms came around my waist, squeezing tight.
“What are you…? How did you...?” I managed.
“You didn't think I'd let you walk in there without me, did you?” His voice was rough against my ear. “Once a bulldozer, always a bulldozer.”
I pulled back to look at him, eyes burning.
He was here. Despite our fight, despite everything, he was here.
Tears blurred my vision and despite my attempts to rein it in, a convulsive sob broke free, punching out of me in a broken exhale, jerking my shoulders forward.
Then another as Julian pulled me back into him.
“No, Lyss… don’t cry. Shh. Shh.” His thumb brushed tears away before they could fall further.
“I’m so sorry, Julian,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Shh, don’t. I’m sorry, Alyssa. Me.” His eyes were soft and pained. “You were right. Don’t cry. I hate that you’re crying because of me.” He dabbed at my face with a cloth he pulled out of nowhere. “We’ll talk later, okay? Right now. Just you. Getting through this. That’s what matters.”
I nodded, clinging to him like I was afraid he’d vanish. I took a deep breath against his chest as he held me close.
“You smell good,” I whimpered.
He huffed a laugh, his chest jerking against me. “So do you.” He took a deep inhale and pressed a kiss to my forehead, holding it there, rubbing my back.
He pulled back and locked his eyes on mine. I saw the tense set of his jaw, felt it in the uneven pull of his breath. He wanted to really kiss me, but held back. Like he knew that if we started, neither of us would stop.
“Julian.” My mother's voice cut through the moment. “We weren't expecting you. Such a busy man with a business to run. I hope Alyssa didn't pull you away from anything important.” She looked at me.
Her subtext to me was clear: Don't be too demanding. Don't ask for too much. You'll drive him away.
I tensed, reflex rising, ready to make myself smaller; You don't have to stay, I know you're busy, was already halfway up my throat.
I opened my mouth, but Julian spoke first. “She didn't ask me to come, Ms. Carter. She didn't even tell me about the hearing.”
My mother blinked, confused.
“I found out from Raschad yesterday,” he continued, giving me a look. “There's nowhere else more important I should be today.”
“Well, that's... we certainly have enough support here. Four of us. You didn't need to trouble yourself—”
“It's not any trouble.” His tone stayed respectful but firm as he squeezed my hand. “Supporting Alyssa isn't an inconvenience. It's a privilege.”
My mother tried to hide her surprise and I watched her recalibrate, trying to square this with her expectations.
“Of course,” she said finally, in a bright tone that meant she was pivoting. “How thoughtful.” She turned to me, and her face softened into something proud and pleased. She liked him, I could see that. “Alyssa, you've found yourself a good man. Don't—”
She stopped herself. But I knew the rest. I'd known it my whole life. Don't be too much. Don't lean too hard. Don't ask for too much. All of it folded into the ‘don’t’ she swallowed in front of company.
Julian looked at me, then at my mother. “I found myself a good woman. I’m grateful.
You raised her to be strong. I see it every day.
” He gave a small nod, like he was conceding her the point.
“I don't think being strong and having somebody in your corner are opposites.
She's earned both.” He held her eyes warmly.
“I enjoy being her corner. Same as you.”
My mother's smile stayed fixed, but the surprise in her eyes couldn’t be missed. He'd heard every word she'd been saying to me my whole life. And he'd just set himself directly between me and it.
I looked behind us at my sisters with a satisfied smirk. Tamika pressed her chin down and put her hand to her chest, with her mouth open, eyes wide. Jada was grinning like a Cheshire cat. And Jordan nodded at Julian’s back, then at me, bit her lip, and started making smack-that-ass gestures.
My mother turned around and their three faces fell to neutral.
“We should head up,” I said, trying not to laugh.
Julian's hand found the small of my back. “Let’s go, Gorgeous.”
In the elevator, Julian stood behind me, solid and present. “You knew about this hearing,” he said quietly. “You didn't tell me.”
“We weren't talking.”
“Before that. You knew before that. You didn't say anything.”
He was right. I'd known for a couple of weeks before our fight. Had carried it alone like I always did.
“I didn't want to bother you with it.”
I felt him exhale, understanding clicking into place. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Later,” I agreed.
“Later,” he confirmed. “But Alyssa? You're never a bother. You sat on this for weeks. That's what gets me. The fact that you didn't tell me hurts. I don’t need to be protected from caring about you.”
I didn't have anything to say to that. Because he was right.
* * *
The prep room was small and too bright. Elena Santos, the prosecutor, ran me through it one more time.
Ryan Marsh's defense was heat of passion, arguing he had been overcharged with first-degree murder.
That walking in on his wife and Malik had driven him out of his mind.
So they'd be working to paint Malik as the villain who'd earned it.
Santos needed the opposite: a sympathetic victim, and a grieving widow who wanted justice.
Neither of them had a box for what I actually was. Because the truth was a knot. Malik was Micah’s father, but also a man I could not summon a fond memory of. He’d also been murdered, and I couldn't make myself glad about that either. And somewhere underneath all of it, I understood Ryan Marsh.
Somewhere down the hall, Malik's mother and his brother were waiting for the same trial, wanting the longest sentence the state could hand down.
Grieving a man they'd never been betrayed by, free to mourn him cleanly in a way I would never get to.
I was supposed to be on their side of it. The widow who was robbed of her future.
I couldn’t get up there and be that. I wasn't going to dance on his grave either.
My hands started to shake on the table as Santos coached me. Julian reached over and covered them with his. He didn't say anything. He just held them steady while I prepared to talk about the worst years of my life in a room full of strangers.
The witness stand made me feel on display. Too high up and too exposed. But when I looked out before taking the oath, Julian was in the front row, right in the center of my line of view. He gave me a slight nod and smile as I sat down, and my nerves seemed to settle.
I'd hoped it would be quick. A few gentle questions from Santos, a few from the defense, twenty minutes and I’d be done.
That was before I learned Marsh's family had hired a new defense team.
Sharks. So I'd been on the stand for a long time already, passed back and forth between two lawyers who needed opposite truths out of me.
I felt like a kid on the stand in the middle of her parents' custody fight.
Santos had walked me gently through her questions designed to show Malik as an admittedly flawed yet innocent victim. Now it was the defense's turn again.
The defense attorney rose like he had all day.
“Ms. Carter. At the time of your husband's death, isn't it true you discovered he had forged your signature on multiple lines of debt?”
“Yes.”
“Did he take out a second mortgage on your home, without your knowledge or consent?”
“Yes.”
“And that resulted in you and your young son becoming homeless. Correct?”
“We weren't homeless,” I answered. “But yes, the house was foreclosed on.”
“Forgive me. Nearly homeless.” A small nod, like he'd done me a courtesy. “And his infidelities? The affairs. You weren't aware of any of it until after his demise. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”