They say "guilty" and his chin drops to his chest--no it doesn't, no it doesn't, Neil, look them in the eyes like you rehearsed, your eyes water, doesn't matter, don't blink.

They say "guilty" and he holds his head still but his hands twitch, he can't help that, little seizures of vein and muscle. Some of the jurors must see it because they can't look at his face. Good, he thinks--no, not good, nothing about this is good--that he isn't the one turning away.

The judge keeps talking and he knew that would happen, he's been in court before, but still on television and in the movies they always cut, when the verdict's read and the victim's sister cries, one hollow piano note repeating. He thinks he can hear that now, pounding--that's your heart, idiot, and you might want to think about breathing or something soon--and the air tastes like dust. He allows himself one glance to see the victim's sister, she isn't crying, just staring through him, blank, hate--but Julie, you're an actress too; you must know this isn't in the script.

He's going to throw up. All over this suit, this table and Teddy, Teddy will eat him alive but he's going to throw up because his stomach is rioting, writhing around itself. His neck breaking out in sweat, like withdrawal at its worst--the snake--and what he wouldn't give for a drink right now, two lines of white powder straight to the brain. But he looks straight ahead, dead on, twelve faces and the ones that don't flinch from his are so disgusted, he's disgusting--fucking violent cokehead statutory rapist, rapist, killer?

He's tried, tried to remember and he doesn't, traitor memory, damaged, deadened, black hole--did you?--but he knows he didn't, couldn't, do this thing. She was his girlfriend. Only fifteen, Jessie was only fifteen, he never knew that--did she tell you when you were too high to remember, did you--but she was his girlfriend, she was his friend, and he went to her meetings, watched her sitcoms with popcorn, held her when the snake was eating her from the inside out--bought her drugs too, didn't you, did you--loved her, innocently, loved her--kill her?

They say he did. The law says so, beyond the shadow of doubt, can't prove otherwise. But he wants to scream, though Teddy's told him, don't: he would--would you?--know! His hands would know. He looks at them, and--no--knows they never closed around that girl's throat.

But they've said "guilty" and Chris takes his arm, and he almost jumps. He thought it would be the bailiff, the cops, the handcuffs and he already sees the bars, but that's only in the movies, sentencing at a later date and he's going to sleep in his own bed tonight. Home. For the last time in his life and he can't hear his heart anymore--hey, asshole, you're already dead.