CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KYE
The courthouse waiting room had beige walls, hard chairs, and a television playing a home-renovation show with no sound. Nothing about it looked like the place where somebody decided whether your fear counted.
My mother sat on one side of me. Jori sat on the other with a pharmacology packet open on her lap because apparently, trauma did not cancel dosage calculations.
I had already told her she did not need to come.
She came anyway.
I did not thank her yet.
The woman at the intake window called my name wrong twice before I realized she meant me.
“Kyle-ah Monroe?”
“Kyla.”
I followed her through a locked door carrying my folder.
The interview took almost an hour. I repeated the same story I had told the officer.
Friday night, he took my phone.
He twisted my wrist.
He pushed me into the dresser.
He watched my location.
He had access to my old iPad.
He leaked private messages and a voice note.
He sat outside my mother’s house.
He owned a gun.
Saying the facts in order made the relationship sound different from how it had felt while I was inside it.
There had been good days.
Dates.
Breakfast in bed.
Him carrying boxes into my salon suite and staying until midnight to put shelves together.
The form did not ask for those.
For a second, that felt unfair.
Then, I remembered the bruise beneath my sweater.
Good memories did not need legal protection from me.
I needed protection from what he was doing now.
A judge appeared by video a little after three. I raised my right hand and promised to tell the truth.
My voice shook on my own name.
The judge asked direct questions.
“Are you afraid the defendant will contact or harm you if no order is entered today?”
“Yes.”
“Has he ever threatened you with the firearm?”
“No.”
“Why do you believe the situation is escalating?”
I looked down at the printed screenshots. “Because I ended the relationship, changed my passwords, and told my family. Every time I close one door, he finds another way inside.”
The judge granted a temporary order.
Trell could not contact me, come to my mother’s house, enter my salon, or possess a firearm while the order was active. A full hearing was scheduled for the following week.
Relief did not arrive the way I expected.
I did not feel safe.
I felt like I had handed a piece of paper to a problem with a car.
Outside the courtroom, my mother hugged me.
Jori waited.
I looked at her. “You can hug me too. Don’t make it weird.”
She wrapped her arms around me carefully, avoiding my shoulder.
“Thank you for coming,” I said into her coat.
“You’re welcome.”
“Still mad at you.”
“I assumed.”
“And your voice note was nasty.”
“It was.”
“You really think everybody performs around Ari?”
Jori stepped back. “Sometimes.”
I stared at her.
“You asked.”
“Damn, you could lie a little during the hug.”
“That would defeat the whole week.”
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
It felt wrong.
Then, it felt necessary.
My mother drove us to the salon, so I could give the suite manager a copy of the order. She had already changed the outside code and told security not to let Trell into the building.
The hallway smelled like hair spray and somebody’s seafood lunch.
Normal smells.
Normal doors.
My life had not changed enough for how different I felt walking through it.
Inside my suite, three appointment cancellations waited in my booking app.
One client wrote:
I don’t want to be involved in drama if your boyfriend comes up there.
Another simply said:
Saw the page. Never mind.
The third had been booked for a birthday install worth two hundred and seventy-five dollars.
My chest tightened.
Trell had not only embarrassed me.
He had found a way to reach the thing I built without him.
My mother read over my shoulder. “People come back when the internet finds somebody new.”
“Rent don’t wait for the internet to get bored.”
“How much you short?”
“Don’t.”
“I asked a question.”
“And I’m telling you don’t start paying for stuff because you feel guilty.”
She pressed her lips together. “Fine. What can I do that ain’t money?”
I looked around.
The back door.
The small camera over the hallway entrance that belonged to the building. The front window where anybody could see whether I was alone.
“Stay while I do my last client.”
“Done.”
Jori sat her backpack beside the dryer. “I can stay until six.”
“You got an exam.”
“I can study here.”
Part of me still needed to prove I could work without becoming everybody’s assignment. The smarter part of me had just asked a judge for help.
“Fine,” I said. “But if you start quizzing me on medicine, I’m putting you out.”
My four o’clock client arrived wearing a bonnet and carrying iced coffee for both of us.
“I saw that mess,” she said while sitting in the chair. “You good?”
I reached for the cape. “Working on it.”
“That man come in here, I’m hitting him with the blow-dryer.”
My mother called from the corner, “Get in line.”
For the first time all day, the room felt like mine again.
At five twelve, a sheriff’s officer called to say Trell had been served at his apartment. His firearm had been surrendered according to the order.
I thanked him and hung up. Then, I went into the bathroom and cried with one hand over my mouth.
I had loved him enough to picture forever and, now, strangers had to take his gun so I could finish a sew-in without watching the door.
My mother found me after a few minutes.
“I miss him,” I admitted.
She leaned against the sink. “I figured.”
“That sound stupid?”
“No. It sound inconvenient as hell.”
I laughed through the tears.
“You can miss who he was good at being,” she said. “Just don’t confuse missing him with needing to go see if he changed overnight.”
“He gonna hate me for the order.”
“He already showed you what he do when you tell him no. Don’t start twisting yourself up trying to make him feel better about it.”
I washed my face and went back to my client.
At six, Jori left for home. My mother stayed while I cleaned.
We checked the hallway camera before stepping out.
Empty.
The parking lot looked normal.
I locked the salon, tested the handle twice, and walked toward my car with my keys between my fingers, even though I knew they would do little against a gun that was supposed to be with the police.
My mother’s car sat three spaces away.
A black Charger turned into the lot.
My whole body stopped.
The car slowed near the entrance.
Trell sat behind the wheel.
He looked directly at me.
The temporary order was less than three hours old.
My mother lifted her phone and started recording.
I called 911.
Trell drove away before the dispatcher finished asking for the license plate.