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Giselle woke up that morning with a heavy weight pressing down on her chest. The sun barely pierced through the bedroom curtains, casting a dim, muted light across the room, but it only made her feel more trapped. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, wondering how she'd reached this point. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess, a storm of doubts, exhaustion, and stress that had been building for weeks—maybe even months.
The Carter case had pushed her to the edge. Every day was a new wave of tension: evidence disappearing, arguments with the prosecution, and her own doubts about Corey's innocence. Even as she pushed forward, doing everything she could to help him, the cracks were beginning to show. And then there was Jennifer, her colleague who never missed an opportunity to chip away at her confidence.
"Isn't it hard?" Jennifer had asked yesterday, feigning concern with a smirk. "Defending someone everyone else thinks is guilty? Must weigh on you."
Giselle had swallowed her irritation, keeping her face blank, but the words had struck deeper than she'd like to admit. She was under constant scrutiny, trying to live up to impossible expectations, and she felt herself slowly unraveling.
As she got ready that morning, Giselle caught her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes looked tired, circles darker than she'd ever seen. She couldn't keep going like this, pretending everything was fine. Her hands shook as she turned on the faucet, splashing cold water onto her face in an attempt to ground herself, to feel something other than this exhaustion.
Later that day, she arrived at the prison to see Corey. The security checks, the cold sterile walls, the sharp clang of metal doors closing behind her—all of it only added to the suffocating feeling that had been clawing at her all morning. When she finally entered the visitation room and saw Corey waiting for her, she tried to muster up some strength, but it was fleeting. She slid into the seat across from him, her tired eyes meeting his.
Corey looked at her with immediate concern. "Damn, counselor. You don't look like yourself," he said, his voice rough but soft with worry.
Giselle forced a small smile, though it felt like a mask. "I'm just... tired," she admitted, the words slipping out before she could stop them. "This case is a lot."
Corey leaned forward, a seriousness in his gaze that made her feel unexpectedly seen. "You don't gotta do this to yourself, you know? You're out here fightin' like it's your life on the line."
Giselle took a shaky breath, nodding. "It's just... I need to know everything, Corey. If there's even the smallest detail you haven't told me, it could change everything. I need you to walk me through that night, step by step."
Corey hesitated, glancing down at his hands before he spoke. "It's... not easy to talk about. I tried to protect my mom, but it got bad. Real bad."
She waited patiently as he began to recount the events of that night, his voice distant, almost haunted.
