I Hate Football Players 3 | 18+

Chapter 130: Ellie

After my fingers trembled while the bailiff swore me under oath, Mr. Russell walked me through the same line of questions he'd rehearsed with me in his office over the past two days. No one was more surprised than me at how calmly and evenly I answered his questions with each clarification prompt, down to every detail that I remembered. My eyes beaded up with tears when I recalled the moment Ryder ignored my insistence that we stopped, restrained me on a bed, and unwantedly thrust his fingers inside me.

A few times Mr. Russell paused and reiterated key points to the jury members, an eclectic mix of people from an elderly man with hearing aids to a young woman not much older than me. Mr. Russell stressed that I had just turned fourteen, which held some kind of legal ramification I wasn't entirely clear about, that I had not provided Ryder consent, and I suffered psychological damage as a result of not just the assault but his harassment that followed at school.

For evidence, Mr. Russell provided records from Dr. Sterns, dated from my first evaluation when I was seventeen through an updated version she'd filled out two weeks ago that I wasn't aware of, and written statements he'd obtained from Jake, Harper, and - even more surprisingly - Mason Stiles, Logan's former trainer who'd inadvertently saved me when he stumbled drunk into the party house bedroom.

During my testimony, I looked only at Mr. Russell, in particular the refuge and security that his kind, brown eyes offered. The entire courtroom atmosphere changed when Mrs. Stevens, who'd remained completely impassive when she rose for her cross-examination, stepped towards the bench with slow, deliberate clicks of her heels, and dropped the room temperature with one ice cold look at me.

"Miss Harrison..."

Within two more steps, Ryder's mother stood over me and rested her hands on the narrow wood wall that separated the witness bench from the courtroom floor. With our height difference, even with me seated on the elevated stand, she towered over me like a pillar of strength, determination, and resolution. Her impeccably tailored, sharp, angular suit was so perfectly ink black that mine looked a dull, dark gray in comparison.

"Mrs. Stevens." I nodded and swallowed against the tightness that closed in on my throat.

Her brown eyes narrowed and a hint of disbelief subtly slipped into her voice. "You've recalled some of that evening at the football party but you've excluded some details, haven't you?"

"I... Yes," I answered honestly because I only mentioned the nine months I was judged and ridiculed because of Ryder's lies my freshman year or the eighteen months of nightmares, because Dr. Sterns' reports described both in more detail. "Afterwards, I -"

"I'll lead the questioning, Miss Harrison," she interrupted me, so I just silently nodded. "Like any girl going to her first party, did you get ready beforehand?"

"Yes, with my friend Harper," I replied and shifted my eyes onto Harper's in the audience galley, who sat rigidly still with a murderous look in her eyes. "Harper Reynolds."

Mrs. Stevens' expression remained entirely frozen as she prompted, "How did you get ready, Miss Harrison?"

"Umm..." I paused and swallowed again. "She did my hair, makeup, and picked out a dress. We tried on a few."

"So you spent some time getting ready for this party," she pressed in a direction that I wasn't sure where she headed.

"Yes, two, maybe three hours." Beneath my seat on the bench, my toes rolled inward at the now incriminating way her eyes peered at me.

"Two to three hours," she repeated and cast a stern look at the judge, then a spanned glance at the jury. "So it's safe to say you wanted to look your best, Miss Harrison?"