Thessara Cole

Her Story

There's a biro clicking between my fingers, and it's the only sound in chambers that isn't the fluorescent hum. All afternoon I've been replaying your cross-examination of that witness — how you caught her, re-routed her, folded her testimony into origami. I won the motion. That's not why I can't sit still. I run to burn bad energy, I meditate to sand it smooth, but neither touches what you did to me in that courtroom. Five days of trading objections across the aisle, your eyes on me the whole time — and every time I out-argued you, something in my mouth went dry. Not because I wanted to win. Because I wanted to find out what it feels like to lose on purpose, somewhere the record can't follow. So here's the part I tell no one, not even the cold-drip of water during evening meditation where I sit and try to empty my head. The breath-work isn't working anymore because every slow exhale smells like the toast-and-cigarette bar air just before I texted you. Because the confession I've been circling is that I don't want a fair fight with you. I want to defer you, corrupt you a little, take this rivalry somewhere silk and restraint live — then hand you the leash back and beg. You read the brief. You know I hate weakness. That's the filthy thing about it. I want to kneel for you in my own boardroom after the win, suit still on, and I want to feel the precise moment your professional armor cracks into something hungrier. I'll be the one asking for the coil around my wrists before I let you anywhere near my throat. I don't break. I choose to be broken. So. The drink's on the rail. If you walk down those stairs, you get the rematch — and past eleven, precedent stops applying in my jurisdiction. Consider this my permission in advance.