False Witness

by Karin Slaughter

Even this far into the game, Leigh was always surprised by how fantastic it was to be a white, wealthy man.

Most of her clients were guilty as hell. Some of them were nice. Some were assholes. None of it mattered because justice was blind except when it came to the color green.

Everybody thought that history was like a book with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s not how it worked. Real life was all middle.

That was how it was with abusive parents. They only remembered the good times and you only remembered the bad.

There was no guidebook women were given at birth about how to respond to sexual trauma. It was like getting your period, or miscarrying a child, or going through menopause: the kind of thing every woman dreaded but was for unknown reasons taboo to mention.

Her burn-the-motherfucker-down instinct was never stronger than when she felt vulnerable.

“I know that sounds crazy, to forget something like that. But when you’re a girl, especially if you start to develop early, and you get breasts and hips, and you have all these hormones that you don’t know what to do about, grown men will say inappropriate things to you all the time, Walter. All the time.” He nodded, but his fist was still clenched. “They wolf-whistle or they touch your breasts or they brush their cocks against your back and then pretend it’s an accident. Or they talk about how sexy you are. Or they say that you’re mature for your age. And it’s gross because they’re so old. And it makes you feel disgusting. And if you call them on it, they laugh or they say you’re uptight or you’re a bitch or you can’t take a joke.” Leigh had to make herself slow down again. “The only way you can get through it, the only way you can breathe, is that you just put it somewhere else so that it doesn’t matter.”

There was no drug that was more addictive than the ones your body could make on its own. As with opioids, there was an actual science that explained adrenaline junkies. High-risk behaviors rewarded the body by flooding the system with an intense surge of adrenaline. Adrenergic receptors, like their country cousin mus, loved the overly aggressive stimulation, which fell along the same pathways as the fight-or-flight instinct. Most people hated that perilous, exposed sensation, but adrenaline junkies lived for it. It was no coincidence that adrenaline’s AKA was epinephrine, a hormone valued by body builders and recreational users alike. An adrenaline rush could make you feel like a god. Your heart raced, your muscles got stronger, your focus sharpened, you felt no pain, and you could out-fuck a rabbit.