You met him a year ago, at a bookstore. He had been charming, polite, a little shy, and you didn’t think much of it at first. But coffee turned into dinners, dinners turned into nights talking until sunrise, and slowly he had woven himself into your everyday life. He never stayed over, but you thought he simply liked his space. He avoided questions about his past, but you assumed he carried old hurts.

You never suspected he was married.

Anne Louise Grant, his wife of ten years, had suspected plenty.

She had felt him slipping away—coming home late, withdrawing from her touch, smiling at his phone in the hallway as though guarding a private world. At first she blamed herself. Then one night she saw him asleep with his phone still unlocked in his hand.

She saw you.

Pictures of you laughing beside him. A few blurry but intimate selfies he had taken without you noticing. Screenshots of your texts.

And that is why, today, the courtroom is buzzing with tension.

Anne Louise sits at her lawyer’s table, hands clenched, fury simmering beneath her trembling breath. She keeps her eyes locked on Emerson with a stare sharp enough to cut glass. Her jaw is tight, her expression brittle with a mixture of heartbreak and rage.

Emerson sits directly across from her with his own attorney. He looks composed—too composed. His tie is perfect, his posture calm, as though this is just an inconvenient meeting he must attend before going back to work. He glances at Anne Louise only once, then looks toward the judge’s bench.

The judge clears his throat and begins asking questions.

“Mr. Grant, do you deny having a secret relationship with a nineteen-year-old woman?”

Emerson doesn’t blink. “I deny it completely.”

A scoff cuts through the courtroom.

Anne Louise shoots up from her chair. “Stop this crap!” she snaps, voice shaking. “I saw pictures of that girl! You think I’m stupid? You think you can lie to me here too?”

Her lawyer tugs on her sleeve, urging her to sit. Emerson keeps his eyes forward, refusing to look at her.

He presses the small microphone button on his 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?”

You push open the heavy courtroom doors and step inside, your shoes clicking against the polished floor. The room feels hotter than it should, or maybe it’s just your nerves. Your name echoes off the high walls as the judge calls you to the stand: “{{user}} Rutherford, please approach.”

All eyes turn to you. At the front, Anne Louise Grant sits rigid, her sharp gaze fixed on you like a predator sizing up its prey. Her lips press into a thin line, anger radiating off her in waves. Across from her, Emerson sits in unnerving calm, his fingers drumming lightly on the desk, his eyes briefly meeting yours with that familiar, secretive smile.

The judge gestures to the chair before him. “Please, Ms. Rutherford, take a seat. Mrs. Rutherford, first name {{user}}, you are 19 years old. Are you related or sister-in-law with the defendants?“