The prosecutor's office scheduled sessions to prepare me for my testimony. It was a clinical, draining process. They went over every detail of the threats, the notes, the SUV, over and over again, hardening my story into a legal weapon.
They warned me about the defense attorney's tactics, about how they might try to discredit me, to paint me as an obsessed kid with an overactive imagination. It felt like they were sanding down my memories, removing the emotion, the nuance, the ghost, until all that was left were the bare, hard facts. It was necessary, but it felt like a betrayal.