Chapter 21
One year later…
The courtroom was warmer than I expected. Bodies filled nearly every bench, and the low hum of whispers never fully disappeared, no matter how many times the bailiff told people to be quiet.
The chains connecting my wrists to the bolt beneath the table were only long enough for me to rest my hands in my lap if I kept my elbows in.
Sweat gathered at the back of my neck where my hair had been pinned up, and I shifted in my seat without thinking.
The chains caught, and the sound moved through the room before I could stop it.
A few heads turned, but I kept my eyes forward, refusing to look at the gallery behind me, though I could feel the weight of stares.
Booda’s family filled at least three rows on the left side of the courtroom. They were there for Mrs. Mary, and Mrs. Mary was there for me.
My lawyer, Falyn Franklin, leaned close without looking at me. “Keep your expression neutral.”
Ms. Franklin was beautiful enough to distract a room if she wanted to.
Smooth brown skin, sharp eyes, and long black hair gave her the kind of presence people noticed immediately, but it was her mouth that made them nervous.
She was one of the youngest attorneys in the country, and from the way older lawyers reacted to her, you would’ve thought she personally offended them by becoming successful before thirty.
She was a young shark in the courtroom. This was her first trial as lead attorney, but she carried herself as if she had years of experience. I trusted her completely. And I didn’t trust many people.
I stared ahead and said nothing.
Reporters packed the back rows beside strangers who came just to watch the woman who killed her best friend in broad daylight. Some people looked curious. Others looked disgusted. A few just looked excited to witness something tragic up close.
The prosecutor stood near the witness stand, a legal pad in hand, while a young woman nervously wrung her shirt.
I recognized her immediately from the diner. Her friend had been the one staring at me that day.
“She threatened your friend?” the prosecutor asked.
“Yes.” The woman nodded quickly. “Me and my homegirl were eating when she walked over to our table and threatened us.”
“Do you know why she approached you two?”
“Yes.” The woman swallowed nervously. “Because she thought we were looking at her boyfriend.”
My stomach twisted.
The prosecutor glanced at the jury briefly before returning his attention to the witness. “And were you?”
“No.” She shook her head quickly. “We was looking at her.”
Shame crawled slowly up my neck.
“At first, we thought she was talking on an earbud or something because she kept arguing with someone while drinking her coffee. But then we realized she was talking to herself.”
I kept my eyes forward as the memory slowly pushed itself back into my head.
I remembered Booda inviting himself to my booth. He sat across from me, and I was pissed at him, wanting him to leave me alone.
At least, that was the version my mind created.
The courtroom grew quieter.
“She kept looking over at us like we were bothering her. Then my friend laughed a little, and she snapped.”
The prosecutor nodded for her to continue.
“She said if my friend kept looking at her man, she was gon’ punch her in the eye.”
I almost cracked a smile, but instead, I kept my face perfectly still like Ms. Franklin had coached me to.
At the time, I thought those girls were being disrespectful. I remembered how irritated I got when they kept glancing toward our booth. I also remembered Booda trying to calm me down.
Only now I realized those girls weren’t staring at him.
There had never been anybody sitting across from me.
“No further questions, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said before returning to his table.
Ms. Franklin rose smoothly from her chair and buttoned the front of her blazer before approaching the witness stand.
“You said my client approached your table after your friend laughed. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And before that interaction, she never threatened either one of you.”
“No.”
“She never touched either one of you.”
“No.”
Ms. Franklin nodded once. “You testified that you assumed my client was talking to herself because you didn’t see an earbud. Correct?”
The witness hesitated slightly. “Yes.”
“Did you check whether she had one in?”
“No.”
“So your entire testimony is based on assumptions.”
The woman shifted uncomfortably in the witness chair. “I mean…”
Ms. Franklin didn’t let her finish.
“You also testified that your friend laughed at my client before my client approached your table.”
“Yes.”
“And afterward, my client never physically harmed either one of you.”
“No.”
“In fact, she walked away after the interaction ended. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“No further questions.”
The witness stepped down, visibly relieved to be done, while Ms. Franklin returned to the defense table beside me without acknowledging the stares following her across the courtroom.
People always stared at her. Men especially. The judge tried not to. Ms. Franklin never seemed to notice any of it. Or maybe she did and simply didn’t care.
She sat down beside me and quietly slid a legal pad closer to herself.
Good job, she wrote neatly across the top, then underlined it once.
A few minutes later, the bailiff announced the next witness. “State calls Martavious Reed.”
The courtroom doors opened, and when Tink stepped inside, I wanted to sink through the floor.
He looked older now. Taller too. The softness that had clung to him before my arrest was gone completely. He wore slacks and a button-up shirt, and he carried himself differently now, more reserved, like life had forced him to grow up faster than he should’ve had to.
Tink scanned the courtroom as if he was still searching for the version of me he used to know, the one who’d been scared but trying, not this woman sitting in chains with her name splashed across the news.
I watched him take in the orange jumpsuit, the shackles, and the bailiffs standing nearby.
His expression barely changed, but I still caught that slight recoil. Then the tiny adjustment afterward.
He prepared himself for this, and still wasn’t. Somehow, that pained me worse than disgust ever could’ve.
Then his eyes met mine, and just like that, I saw the hurt, disappointment, and confusion all over again.
I looked away first.
Ms. Franklin had warned me about this. She’d told me Tink would testify, and that the prosecution would use him to paint a picture of instability, a woman spiraling—someone capable of violence.
She’d prepped me for it, but knowing it was coming and actually seeing him walk through those courtroom doors were two different things.
Tink took the oath with his hand raised, his voice steady when he swore to tell the truth. He didn’t sound like the boy I remembered. There was no hesitation in him anymore, and no uncertainty. He sat down in the witness chair and looked directly at me again.
My head lowered in shame, and I blocked out the first part of Tink’s testimony.
“Martavious, did you ever witness the defendant talking to herself?”
Tink hesitated. “Yes, sir, but not at first.”
“Do you remember the first time you saw her do it?”
“After my momma’s birthday barbecue.”
“How often?”
“A lot.”
“Can you describe what you saw?”
“Yes. I ran an errand for her one day, and when I got back to her house, she introduced me to her boyfriend.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Tink nodded. “Booda.”
“Was he there?”
“No, sir. He was not.”
“How did you handle that situation?”
Tink looked down briefly before answering. “I ain’t wanna embarrass her.”
The prosecutor nodded. “What did you do?”
“I just played along.”
The memory made me lower my eyes.
I had been sitting on the couch laughing while Booda argued with Tink about basketball. At one point, I remembered getting irritated because Tink kept looking confused whenever Booda spoke to him, and I had to relay the message because Tink would never answer him.
Now I realized Tink wasn’t confused by Booda.
He was confused by me.
Everyone had been. The people at the diner, watching me argue with empty space.
The girl I yanked by her hair at the club as I fussed at the air.
The people at the furniture store, pretending not to notice.
The mall. Our soldiers, who'd looked at me with something between pity and fear, and humored me until I was taken off the streets.
The prosecutor continued his questioning, but the words became white noise in my ears. All I could focus on was the crushing weight of a single, undeniable truth.
Booda had never been there with me.
Not at the diner. Not on the couch. Not in my bed at night when I felt his hand on my hip and heard him breathing beside me. Not in the shower, and not in the house when I kidnapped Rich’s wife and kid.
All of it had been in my head.
I had built an entire life around somebody who wasn’t there. I loved him. Fought over him. Slept beside him. Grieved him all over again every single day while my mind replayed a ghost nobody else could see.
My hands clenched in my lap, and the chains rattled against the table again, and I didn't try to stop them.
I couldn't have if I'd wanted to. I was too busy falling through the floor of my own mind, tumbling past every moment I'd been sure of, every feeling I'd trusted, and every version of myself I'd believed was real.
The courtroom fell silent.
“Koko.” Ms. Franklin’s voice was barely a whisper, a warning.
The prosecutor glanced down at his notes before looking back toward Tink. “Martavious, were you aware that Giani Porter had a relationship with a man named Richard Lewis?”
Ms. Franklin stood immediately. “Objection.”
“Basis?” the judge asked.
“Relevance.”
The prosecutor adjusted his tie. “Your Honor, the state is establishing motive.”
The judge considered it briefly before nodding. “I’ll allow it. Proceed.”
Tink’s jaw tightened instantly at the mention of Rich’s name.
“Yeah,” he answered stiffly.
“Did the defendant ever express concern regarding their relationship?”
Tink laughed under his breath, but there wasn’t anything funny in it. “Concern?”
The prosecutor waited.
“That nigga tried to kill her.”
The courtroom froze.
Ms. Franklin shot to her feet. “Objection!”
“I saw him try to run her over,” Tink continued before anybody could stop him. “And she started shooting at his car after—”
“Martavious!” I shouted.
The courtroom erupted instantly.
“Order!” the judge barked, slamming his gavel repeatedly.
Reporters started talking over one another as people twisted in their seats to hear better. Somebody near the back loudly asked, “Rich?” while another voice immediately shushed them.
Ms. Franklin was already speaking, her voice sharp as she argued with the prosecutor at the bench, but I couldn’t focus long enough to understand what either of them was saying.
All I could see was Tink.
His eyes widened the second he realized what he’d done.
“I ain’t mean—” he started quickly, looking toward me. “I was just saying he tried to hurt her first—”
“Stop talking,” Ms. Franklin snapped without even looking at him.
Tink immediately went quiet.
The prosecutor looked stunned for half a second before recovering fast enough to hide it. He leaned toward the judge and started speaking in a low voice while reporters continued scribbling furiously throughout the gallery.
I stared down at the table.
Everything was ruined now.
Not just the trial.
Everything.
The lies. The delusions. The grief. The murders. Every version of reality I’d clung to since waking up from that coma had finally cracked open in front of an entire courtroom full of strangers.
And somehow, through all of it, Tink still tried to protect me.
“Enough,” the judge said finally, sounding exhausted. “We are done for today.”
The gavel slammed again.
“Court is adjourned until tomorrow morning.”
The room immediately burst back into conversation.
Bailiffs moved toward me while people in the gallery stood from their seats. Reporters rushed toward the doors, talking on their phones, probably trying to be the first ones to break the story that Konika Holiday had just been tied to another murder in open court.
The chains rattled loudly when I stood.
This time, I didn’t even try to hold my head high.
I felt Ms. Franklin touch my arm briefly before the bailiffs pulled me away from the table.
“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” she said quietly.
Tomorrow.
The word made me sick.
I never looked back as they led me through the side door.
Tink was still sitting in the witness chair, staring at me with guilt written all over his face.
But he shouldn’t have felt guilty.
None of this belonged to him.
It belonged to me.