She Framed Me As Unfit So I’ll See Her In Court Chapter 12
The clock in the lower right corner of the computer clicked over to one in the morning.
The last backup finished. I unplugged the USB drive, my palms slick with sweat. After staring at the screen for hours, my eyes were dry and aching, my neck and shoulders so stiff I could barely turn my head.
Outside, the distant roar of Atlanta traffic rolled on. Now and then, headlights swept across the curtains, then disappeared.
Hundreds of people were online waiting to watch me fall apart.
And I was sitting alone at the table, numbering and filing every word they had said.
Last time, they killed me.
This time, they would become exhibits.
I turned my phone back on.
It hadn’t been ten seconds before it began vibrating nonstop.
More than three hundred unread messages.
Abuse, curses, screenshots of CPS reports, even photos of Maya sent by strangers filled the entire screen.
I didn’t reply to a single one.
I just turned off push notifications and swiped the alerts away.
Then I opened my encrypted messaging app.
A number with no profile picture sat quietly in my message list.
“Hello. I’m the mother of one of Maya’s classmates.”
“I don’t know the full truth, but I feel like Sloan has gone too far. She said even uglier things in a smaller group, and she told everyone to report you together.”
“If you need help, I may be able to anonymously provide some screenshots from that group.”
I stared at those lines for a long time.
So not everyone believed Sloan.
And not everyone was willing to follow her and drive a mother into a dead end.
I took a screenshot of the message, preserved the timestamp and number, and saved it in a newly created folder.
“05 – Potential Witnesses and Group Chat Leads.”
Then I turned off my phone and lay down in bed.
Exhaustion crashed over me like a tide, but this time, I wasn’t afraid.
Sloan, last time you won with public opinion.
This time, I have evidence.