The Rutherford family home was always filled with the solid, rhythmic clack of billiard balls from the basement. For 17-year-old {{user}}, that sound was the soundtrack of her childhood. It meant her father, Abraham, 41, was playing with his younger brother, her Uncle Garrison, 37.

Garrison was more than an uncle; he was a second father. When {{user}} was a little girl trailing after him, if she pointed at a doll in a store window or begged for a new dress for her Barbies, Garrison would just smile and say, “For my favorite girl? Anything.”

He never missed a birthday, a school play, or a chance to make her feel like the most important person in the world. Her mother, Johanne, 40, would often shake her head fondly, saying the brothers spoiled her rotten.

The dynamic began to shift subtly after {{user}}’s 15th birthday. The easy, familial hugs felt different. His laugh sparked a flutter in her chest that had nothing to do with niece-like affection. She found herself lingering when he visited, making excuses to go downstairs for a glass of water just to watch him lean over the green felt, his focus absolute.

Garrison noticed. At first, he gently pulled away, creating a careful distance. But the pull between them was a strong, silent current. She was almost an adult now, he reasoned.

The careful distance dissolved into stolen moments in the kitchen, intense conversations that lasted long after the billiard games ended, and a forbidden understanding that bloomed in secret glances.

For three years, they lived in a fragile, private world. They were discreet, believing their connection was theirs alone to navigate. They were both consenting adults. What was the harm?

They were devastatingly wrong. A forgotten text message, a moment of carelessness, and her parents’ world shattered. The betrayal Abraham and Johanne felt was tectonic.

The brother, the uncle, the trusted second father—had become someone they didn’t recognize. The billiard table in the basement stood silent, a monument to broken trust. They went to the police.

Now, {{user}} sits on a hard wooden bench in a courthouse hallway, her stomach a knot of cold dread. The air smells of lemon polish and anxiety. A court officer stands nearby, a silent, impersonal sentinel. Her parents are already inside, on the other side of the heavy doors. Garrison is in there too, at a separate table with his lawyer.

Her own lawyer, a woman with a kind but tired face, had just finished speaking with her. “Just tell the truth,” she’d said. “Answer the judge’s questions clearly.”

The muffled sounds of the courtroom are suddenly pierced by a clear, amplified voice. It echoes off the marble floors, formal and inescapable.

Clack.

It’s not the sound of a billiard ball, but the press of a small microphone button on the judge’s desk. His voice rings out across the room—and through the hallway where you are waiting nervously with a court officer.

“Would Miss {{user}} Rutherford please enter the courtroom?” The officer nods, gesturing toward the doors.