"Eleanor, you don't have to?—"
"I'm already putting on my shoes." I heard rustling, the jingle of keys. "I'll be there in twenty minutes. Do you have food?"
"I have... half a sleeve of stale crackers and some questionable cheese."
"So that's a no." She sighed, the sound equal parts exasperation and affection. "I'm stopping at the bakery. Don't argue."
"I wasn't going to argue."
"Good. Because you'd lose." A pause. "Claire?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm proud of you for calling. I know it wasn’t easy for you."
The unexpected kindness made my eyes burn. "It took desperation, actually."
"Same thing, sometimes. Twenty minutes."
She hung up, and I stood there holding my phone, feeling something loosen slightly in my chest. Eleanor was coming. Eleanor would know what to do. Eleanor always knew what to do.
True to her word, she arrived nineteen minutes later with a paper bag from the bakery and an expression that suggested she'd been crying in her car. She took one look at me and opened her arms.
I fell into them.
"Oh, sweetheart," she murmured against my hair. "Oh, Claire."
"I'm a mess," I managed.
"You're allowed to be a mess. You've earned the right to be a spectacular mess." She pulled back, gripping my shoulders, her eyes fierce and wet. "What they did to you in that courtroom was barbaric. Using therapy against someone, usinghealingas a weapon… I've never seen anything so unconscionable in my life."
"You watched it?"
"I watched every second." Her cheeks puffed up with grief. "And then I watched it again, because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. That lawyer should be disbarred. That woman, Victoria, should be in prison, not giving interviews outside hospitals."
I blinked. "Interviews?"
Eleanor's expression shifted. "You haven't seen?"
"I've been avoiding the news. And my phone. And reality in general."
She guided me to the couch, pressing a still-warm cinnamon roll into my hands. "Eat first. Then I'll tell you."
"Eleanor—"
"Eat." Her tone left no room for argument.
I ate. The cinnamon roll was perfect, warm and gooey, and exactly the kind of comfort I needed. Eleanor watched me like a hawk, only relaxing once I'd finished the whole thing.
"Okay," she said, settling beside me. "Victoria has been staging a media circus outside the hospital. Flowers, tears, the whole performance. She's telling anyone with a camera that she's devastated about the 'accident' and that Nathaniel is a controlling monster who's using the restraining order to punish her."
My stomach turned. "She's making herself the victim."
"She's certainly trying." Eleanor's voice was grim. "The woman nearly killed her stepdaughter, and somehow she's spun it into a narrative about an abusive husband keeping her from her 'precious child.' It's masterful, in a horrifying way."
"And people believe her?"
"Some do. The comments sections are... divided."
