Page 58 of Downfall

As I get to my feet in what is technically day two of this damned inquest I hear an audible exhale. This is the show they’ve all come for. This is a performance for them. Some form of entertainment to brighten the dull plastic mundanity of their lives.

And yet thisismy life. All the sordid little details that witnesses revealed yesterday. All the parts they picked over like candy. I can see in their faces that they’re hoping I’ll give them more.

I’m shaking. It’s ridiculous but I am. I shouldn’t have anything to fear after wall, I didn’t cause this, I didn’t make the damn truck crash into us. I wasn’t even willingly in that car.

But still it feels like everyone is watching me, judging me, not that that’s unusual considering who I am but today it feels worse. Today it feels so much worse, so much more pervasive.

The coroner starts off gently. I keep my eyes on him, ignoring the crowd as best I can, answering each question simply. Confirming my name. Confirming that yes I was in the car with Paris and yes we had left the clubhouse together.

“Would you mind explaining the nature in which you left the clubhouse?”

I wince. I knew this was where today would go. I knew today secrets would come out. My secrets. But I have a plan. Even now, even when I’m exposed and it feels like this entire god damn city is ready to pick over the sordid aspects of my private life, I know how I’m going to cover myself.

“We were arguing.” I say. I can hardly deny that when half the damn clubhouse has sat where I have, eager to be a part of this, eager to state everything that they saw.

“What about?” The coroner asks. Like he has a right to know. Like any of these people do.

“I don’t remember.” I reply.

His eyebrows raise. “You remember arguing but not what it was about?”

I let out a low breath. I’m lying. Perjuring myself technically but these are my secrets. My life. This city has taken so much from me, how dare they think they have a right to strip me bare for their entertainment.

“We argued a lot.” I state and that sets a murmur through the crowd. That the perfect fucking couple wasn’t so god damn perfect after all.

The coroner pauses, as if he’s assessing me and I take the moment to sip some water. My throat is dry. It still feels tight from where Paris’s hands were around me as if he’s a ghost haunting me now, continuing the abuse long after he’s dead. Without thinking my hand moves to my neck, feeling where the bruising is as if I need to confirm that I can breathe, that Parisisdead and can no longer do that to me anymore.

He picks up some papers, flicking through till he finds the one he wants. “According to the medical report you sustained a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, as well as bruising in the crash.” He says clearly changing tactic.

“Yes.”

“…but the bruising around your neck is not consistent with a car accident.”

I blink. I bite my tongue, sinking my two front teeth into the tip of it and it’s my father who decides to take over.

“Is this relevant?” He asks standing up, as if he were my lawyer and I was on trial, though I suppose in a way I am.

“Mr Capulet.” The coroner says fixing his gaze on him. “This is my inquiry, I decide what is and is not relevant.”

“How is my daughter’s injuries relevant to what killed her husband?”

“I would have thought that was obvious.” The coroner says. Clearly he’s not swayed by who my father is and as my eyes flit to Darius’s I can see exactly why that is. He doesn’t look concerned. If anything he looks like he’s orchestrated all of this as though this is his court and we are all merely players.

He gives me a reassuring smile but it doesn’t reassure me. Not in this moment.

The coroner turns back to me, ignoring my father completely and I’ll admit I want to see the look on his face though I don’t take the opportunity to look. I keep my focus on the man in the wig. The man who right now has power over me.

“I’ll ask you in a different way Ms Capulet, the bruising on your neck was not caused by the crash was it?”

I meet his gaze. He doesn’t seem a hard man, a malicious man. I don’t think he’s getting anything from this beyond it being necessary to his job and yet I still resent it, I still resent having to sit here and admit to it, to admit to what I am, to become a victim in all their eyes.

The room seems to brace itself, it feels like everyone is leaning forward, half drooling. I can see the journalists, pens poised, ready to scratch down whatever words leave my mouth.

“No.” I say quietly. Not that it makes any difference because they all hear.

“Your husband did that?”

I nod dropping my gaze. I’m not ashamed. I have no reason to be but right now I need to be damn careful. I’m treading a very fine line between what I will admit and what I refuse to.

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