Chapter 6
The restraining order hearing was two weeks later.
I’d spent those two weeks healing.
My ribs still ached, but I could breathe without crying now.
The concussion was gone.
I’d started my new job, and my boss had been amazing—she’d let me work from home for the first week, bringing me soup and checking in on me every day.
Mara had prepped me for the hearing for hours.
What to say.
What not to say.
How to stay calm when Ethan lied.
“Remember,” she’d said, squeezing my hand before we walked into the courtroom. “The truth is on our side. He can lie all he wants, but we have the receipts. Just breathe. I’ll handle the rest.”
The courtroom was small and cold.
The judge, a woman in her sixties with silver hair and glasses perched on the end of her nose, sat up high behind the bench.
Ethan was already there.
He was wearing his best suit, the one I’d bought him for his birthday last year.
His hair was perfectly combed.
He looked like a model husband.
His lawyer sat next to him, a slick-looking guy in an expensive suit who kept smiling at me like he knew something I didn’t.
His parents sat in the back row, his dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, putting on a show for the judge.
The bailiff called the case to order.
Ethan’s lawyer went first.
He stood up, adjusting his tie.
“Your Honor,” he said, his voice smooth as butter. “My client, Ethan Carter, is a hardworking, upstanding member of this community. He has never been in trouble with the law in his life. These allegations of abuse are completely fabricated. My wife—excuse me, my client’s wife, Elena Carter—has a long history of mental instability. She’s been depressed for years, she’s prone to fits of rage, and she’s made false accusations against my client before in order to get her way. She fell in the kitchen that night, Your Honor. She tripped over the dog. And when my client tried to help her, she attacked him. He had no choice but to leave her there to calm down. She’s only doing this because she wants to steal his money in the divorce. She’s a gold digger, plain and simple.”
He sat down.
Ethan looked at the judge, his face the perfect picture of sadness.
“I love my wife, Your Honor,” he said, his voice cracking. “I just want her to get the help she needs. I don’t want a divorce. I want our marriage back.”
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to jump up and tell the judge he was lying.
That there was no dog.
That I’d never been depressed a day in my life until I married him.
But I kept my mouth shut, just like Mara had told me to.
It was our turn.
Mara stood up.
She didn’t smile.
She didn’t yell.
She just walked over to the evidence table and picked up the big stack of papers we’d brought.
“Your Honor,” she said, her voice clear and steady. “The defense would have you believe my client is a crazy, lying gold digger. But the evidence tells a very different story.”
She laid the medical records on the bench in front of the judge.
“These are Elena’s hospital records from that night. Three cracked ribs. Severe concussion. Bruises all over her body consistent with being pushed and held down. You don’t get injuries like that from tripping over a dog.”
Next came the text messages.
Printed out, one by one.
*You’ll wish you’d never been born.*
*You’re nothing without me.*
“These are the texts Ethan sent Elena the night she left the house,” Mara said. “Does that sound like a man who loves his wife and is worried about her mental health? Or does that sound like a man who’s angry he got caught?”
Then the journal.
Mara read the entries out loud, her voice flat.
The whole courtroom went quiet when she got to the part about pushing me.
Ethan’s mom gasped in the back row.
Ethan’s face turned bright red.
And finally, the letters from Lisa.
The police reports.
The pictures of her bruises.
“Ethan Carter has done this before,” Mara said, looking the judge right in the eye. “He abused his last fiancée so badly she had to file a restraining order against him. And when he met Elena, he did the exact same thing. Isolated her from her family. Controlled her money. Hit her. And his mother helped him. She encouraged him. She planned it. Your Honor, if you don’t grant this permanent restraining order, it’s not a question of if he’ll hurt her again. It’s a question of when.”
Mara sat down.
The judge didn’t say anything for a long time.
She just flipped through all the evidence, page by page.
When she was done, she looked up at Ethan.
“Mr. Carter,” she said, her voice like ice. “I’ve been on this bench for twenty-two years. I’ve heard a lot of lies. But yours are some of the worst I’ve ever heard. The permanent restraining order is granted. Five years. No contact whatsoever. You are to turn over all of Elena’s money, plus ten thousand dollars in damages, within ten days. You will also give her full ownership of the house and both cars. If I see you in this courtroom again for violating this order, you will go to prison for a very long time. Do I make myself clear?”
Ethan opened his mouth to argue.
One look at the judge’s face shut him up.
“Yes, Your Honor,” he mumbled.
The judge banged her gavel.
“Case dismissed.”
I walked out of that courtroom ten feet tall.
Mara hugged me so tight my ribs ached.
Mrs. Greene was waiting outside, crying happy tears.
We did it, I thought.
May you like
We actually did it.
I was free.
