Page 149 of Edge of Unbroken

Mr. Walker nods with a heavy sigh. “Law enforcement spent last night securing the scene, going through Adam’s car. We were able to retrieve his cell phone and review it.”

My body reacts to this information by setting my face ablaze with heat.

“There were certainly the photos you had described, Cat,” Mr. Walker says, but thankfully doesn’t dwell on that aspect. “But what’s more alarming is that there were also photos of you, Ran, and both you and Cat together. We were able to determine they were taken last summer and over what appears to be several weeks. Then there were more photos of only you, Cat, and some of my kids, Shane, and well, you get the gist. Adam had been watching you. Maybe to see if there was a pattern to your schedule and movement, to see if there was ever a time you were out and about alone, those kinds of things. He was keeping tabs on you.”

My mom’s face carries a note of revulsion.

“I can’t stress enough how perfectly timed Ronan and Shane’s arrival was yesterday. What evidence we were able to collect from Adam’s car indicates he had sinister plans. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail, but—and sorry if this sounds callous—I’m not sad it ended the way it did for Adam. He was a deeply troubled young man, and if he had been arrested and tried, it’s likely he would have gotten away with minimal time in jail. Unfortunately, domestic violence and stalking cases tend to have unsatisfactory outcomes.”

My mom storms over to Ronan. Like she did yesterday, she throws herself against him with a loud sob, squeezing him tightly. “I’m beginning to think you’re some kind of guardian angel,” she stammers through her tears. “No pressure, but if you don’t marry my daughter one day…”

The temperature in my cheeks increases while Ronan chuckles uncomfortably, giving my mom a one-handed pat on the back.

***

“I feel like I should remind you that nothing that happened was your fault,” Ronan says against my hair a couple of hours later.

Mr. Walker left long ago. My mom’s on the phone with my dad, catching him up on today’s news. I’m elated it’s finally over, but feel inexplicably guilty that it ended the way it did for Adam. I never wanted this for him, even in our darkest moments. I never wanted him dead. I wanted him gone from my life, yes, but never dead. And the nagging idea that he would’ve been so much better off if he’d never met me has gnawed at my conscience more than once this evening.

I lift my head from Ronan’s chest where it’s rested for the past twenty minutes while I’ve been cuddled against him on the couch. “How did you even know that’s what I was thinking?” I ask him, my gaze flitting between his eyes.

“You were nibbling on the inside of your cheek, which you only do when you feel ashamed for some usually unwarranted reason. I just put two and two together.” He shifts, forcing me to sit up. With a finger under my chin, he moves my face so we can lock eyes. “I need you to know that you have no reason to feel guilty. You did nothing wrong; you didn’t bring this on yourself or Adam. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: Adam was in complete control of the entire situation. This was of his making alone. You didn’t deserve this, you didn’t ask for this, you didn’t bring this on either of you.”

I nod, wishing desperately to convince myself of the truth of his words. “How long do you think it’ll take me to actually start believing that?”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose, then simply pulls me into his arms. “If only I knew, baby.”

Sunday, April 17th

Cat

I’m already emotionally exhausted. No surprise, I guess, considering the last year, the last months, and particularly this last week and the devastating, soul-shattering evidence that has already come to light.

Rica Soult’s trial officially kicked off last week. It commenced with a full day and a half of jury selection. I’ve never watched a trial before. I thought I’d have to testify when Adam was charged with assaulting me last year, but he took a plea and I never even saw the inside of a courtroom. But I vowed to attend every day of Ronan’s mom’s trial—from the jury selections, through every single day of witness testimony, until the jury comes back with a verdict.

Tori, Vada, Summer, my mom, Penny, and me. Each day we’ve sat there, silent, taking it all in. Ronan hasn’t been there for any of it. Even though he would have been allowed to be there during the witness testimony, he made it clear to his dad and the attorney that he had no intention of being in the courtroom longer than absolutely required. A couple of weeks ago he began picking up shifts at Murphy’s, so he’s been working to keep himself, and probably mostly his mind, occupied as the trial commenced.

It's a good thing, too, because when I first walked into the courtroom last week, I was dismayed to find some of the benches occupied by complete strangers. There were even a couple of cameras set up in the corner and journalists perched in the back two rows. I had no idea why they were there, but I knew the presence of news crews and people who weren’t at all connected to the trial would make Ronan more apprehensive.

I had no trouble spotting Ronan’s mom. She was seated behind a large oak desk, and if I didn’t know what torment she had inflicted on Ronan, I would have felt bad for her. She looked tiny, frail sitting in her chair to the left of her lawyer—a lanky bald man with glasses and a dark-gray suit.

I scanned her profile, hating that she shares so many of Ronan’s beautiful features, and especially his gorgeous green eyes. I’d only ever seen Rica with her hair braided or in a ponytail, but these last days she’s worn her hair down. It makes her look even younger—more like a girl than a grown-ass woman who viciously beat her son. She’s looked beautiful in her light-pink and white outfits, her skin smooth, youthful, rosy, her nose delicate and her lips full like Ronan’s. I’m still unable to reconcile the way she looks on the outside with what I imagine her soul to be like. If the way one treats people would affect someone’s appearance, Rica would be nothing more than a shriveled, wart-ridden, hunch-backed old hag.

It dawned on me that, perhaps, the way she’s dressed for the trial, the way her hair is down, the way she sits in that chair, making herself look younger, smaller, is all part of the defense strategy. Looking at her compared to Ronan—who’s over six feet tall with a beautiful, muscular frame that he had to work so hard to regain after losing so much weight and muscle—a jury might think Rica wouldn’t be capable of inflicting such horrific injuries on her son. It makes me angry just thinking about the possibility of her getting away with what she did to him. But I keep reminding myself that there’s video. This isn’t just a he-said-she-said situation. We have real, tangible evidence of the unprovoked violence Ronan had to endure.

Another person who immediately stood out was a well-dressed woman in her late fifties. She looked regal in a navy-blue pencil skirt and matching jacket, a large black leather purse on her arm and Louboutin pumps on her feet. Her blonde hair was in a perfectly coifed bun. It didn’t take long for us to conclude that she must be Rica’s mother when she made her way to the front row right behind the defense table and patted Rica’s shoulder. Rica turned around, her eyes briefly resting on me, and greeted the woman with a curt nod before facing forward again.

I was relieved to find that Rica’s mother doesn’t share any of Ronan’s features. Her eyes are a steely blue instead of green, and her lips are pencil-thin, lacking the fullness and softness of Ronan’s perfect lips.

The trial started out harmless enough once everyone got settled. It’s a fascinating process. Jury selection, I mean. And it was likewise interesting to hear two of the police officers testify about their arrival at the scene, their descriptions of Rica’s demeanor, her statements to them. I was able to stay surprisingly level-headed. Even when Ronan’s surgeon testified about the horrific injuries Ronan’s mom inflicted last year and the obvious signs of past, untreated injuries, it felt more like I was watching a movie, or maybe a true-crime documentary. It didn’t really feel like they were all talking about Ronan. I just felt so removed from it all.

I’ve gotten to know Ronan’s dad better since Ronan left for Montana, and especially once my mom and Penny reconnected. Yet the things I learned when Frank was called to take the stand were fascinating and devastating at the same time. He gave so much insight into his background, his upbringing, and his relationship with Rica and his sons. And I think if there’s one thing that connects each and every one of us—my friends and Ronan’s dad—it's that overarching sense of guilt, like we should have known, should have done more to prevent the abuse or at least stop it.

Shane’s testimony, too, was manageable. It was heartwarming to hear him talk about his deep friendship with Ronan—I never realized how much the two have been through together—and it’s clear as day how much love they have for each other. They’re like brothers in a way. Things took a turn, however, when Shane began talking about bruises he’d notice on Ronan, black eyes, abrasions, broken bones, and random injuries for which Shane couldn’t find an explanation. And when he recollected the day he finally figured out what was going on, this entire trial suddenly began to feel real.

When Steve took the stand and started talking aboutthatday,thatmorning—about how he went to pick up his brother, about how he heard Onyx barking in the backyard as he and Zack made their way into the house, about seeing his mother kick the life out of Ronan, I could barely contain my sob. I had tried to imagine it before—the moment Ronan’s life almost ended. I had heard accounts of it from Steve and Zack at the hospital and during the weeks that followed, but my brain wasn’t able to form a picture this shocking until Zack took the stand and I finally saw it with my own eyes.

The prosecutor requested the lights be turned off in the courtroom and the curtains drawn as a large screen was lowered. My body tensed in anticipation of seeing, for the first time, what Steve and Zack saw when they found Ronan, and my stomach was queasy.

---