A month later Vanessa stood in court and she didn’t look anything like the woman in my backyard.

No sunglasses. No smirk. Just scared.

My parents sat behind her, staring at me like I was the one who blew up the family.

I didn’t look at them. I looked at Emma’s hand in mine, and the way she still winced when she breathed too deep.

The judge picked up his papers. The room went dead quiet.

Aggravated assault on a minor. And once the police followed the bike back to her garage, everything else came with it. Possession with intent. Distribution.

He read the number out loud. Fourteen years. Fourteen years.

And that’s when my family screamed. My mom first, this awful high sound, then my dad on his feet yelling my name like I was the criminal.

I didn’t yell back. I didn’t even turn around. I just felt Emma squeeze my hand, and she leaned over and whispered, “Mom, your hands are shaking.”

They were. They still are, honestly, every time I think about it.

People keep telling me I won. That I did the right thing. Maybe. Vanessa’s gone for fourteen years and I haven’t spoken to my parents since the verdict. They blocked me. I let them.

But I don’t feel like anybody won. I feel like a woman who turned forty in a backyard with string lights and lost half her family by midnight one month later.

Emma’s ribs healed. She still parks that bike by the garage. She still doesn’t like anyone touching it.

And I still hear her in that hospital bed. Not the crack of the bat. That little whisper. “Am I in trouble?”

I tell myself I answered it right. Most days I almost believe it.