Inj.

Injunction court. Miserable process. People herded in in bulk, waiting on the opposite side of the room from OTHER people herded in like cattle that the people on the left were scared enough of to file an injunction AGAINST. I think if I were like Wolverine and could smell pheromones to detect things like fear, I'd pass out, because it's palpable in that room. It's ugly and brown and wooden and the lights are too bright and the benches make your ass go numb. You might get called first, you might sit there for five hours in the same room as him, or her, or them, in silent contemplation of how scared you are and how there might be consequences to this action no matter WHAT a judge orders.

I've had success on all but one, but since that one, I assume every one that I go after is going to be denied. You taste that kind of disappointment once, you train yourself to expect it. That way, I'm never let down and sometimes I'm pleasantly suprised.

This girl has a severe anxiety disorder- she didn't sleep at all the night before -and I know she's so nervous she's on the verge of running from the building. She's a tiny little thing with big beautiful eyes and a soft voice with a minor speech impediment. We were dead last.

She stood up there on the opposite side of a man in four-point cuffs, the man who had raped her, now in jail for a related offense; I made a physical barrier between them, turned to face her but forever watching him out of the corner of my eye, arm braced on the stand and constantly ready to act if shit hits the fan. It doesn't, it never does, but every so often I sit down and have the talk with myself about what I'm gonna do if it eventually does. How much I'm willing to give if it means protecting this person I'm with.

Every time, the answer is "everything". I'm not a martyr and I don't consider myself a good person on the whole, but every time, in my head, without hesitation..."everything".

It's good to know what you'd die for.