The waiting was a peculiar kind of torture. It was a hollowed-out space where sound ceased to have meaning and time lost its rhythm. For Adrian Vale, the five days the jury deliberated were spent in a strange, suspended animation. He existed in the apartment Amelia had made into a home, a place now filled with the ghosts of both their fears.
He tried to read. Sentences slithered off the page. He attempted to work on the freelance coding projects that now paid his bills, but the logic gates in his mind felt gummed up with static. Mostly, he moved. He walked endless loops around the block, the familiar cracks in the sidewalk becoming a mantra. He cooked elaborate, unnecessary meals, julienning vegetables with a surgeon's precision, the focus required a temporary bulwark against the dread.
