We both watch as the jury file in. They each take up their places, just as they have for the past ten days, but something in their faces has changed.

They’ve made a decision.

Do they believe him?

Or me?

My eyes flash to the dock. He is pristine as always, his suit pressed, his dark brown hair slicked to one side, his face cleanly shaved.

‘Anabelle, don’t look at him,’ Mum whispers.

My body jolts at her voice – a gunshot in the quiet courtroom.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ Dad says, his eyes shining with emotion. ‘No matter what happens – it’ll be okay.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Mum mutters. ‘They’re going to find him guilty.’

‘Can the foreman please stand,’ the man who sits in front of the judge says, his voice ringing through the large room and up into the expanse of the vaulted ceiling. I tear my gaze from Dad and look back towards the jury.

The lady who’s sitting in the front row, the one who has been taking notes for the whole trial, the one who wears glasses at the bottom of her nose while she’s writing, her greying hair tucked behind her ears, stands.

‘Have you reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed?’

The lady coughs, clearing her throat. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘On the count of rape – what is your verdict?’

She looks down at her hands. I inhale sharply, my breath crackling in my lungs as I wait for her to speak.

Guilty. Please let them find him guilty. Please let me put this all behind me.

Her voice breaks and she stammers, but the verdict spills from her lips and ripples through the air.

‘N-not guilty.’