Eggshell Skull Quotes
"There is something to be said for having your voice be the last in the minds of the jury before they retire to consider a verdict."
"I was waiting for my sign. Waiting for a hope that justice might be done."
"‘Are you worried I’ll say something wrong?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I replied, grinning."
"I’ve decided to call it the 'circuit shuffle', where they chat to me so much I have to start walking backwards out of the room to escape without being rude."
"‘Yeah it’s just me,’ the bailiff said. ‘We’ve got a verdict.’"
"I always felt as if I was trespassing somehow, when I stood and took the verdicts, like a baby in adult dress-ups."
"In the eyes of the law, since Reester had been convicted, the allegations against him became truths."
"‘Daddy!’ The shout rang through the room like a bullet."
"‘The past is a different country,’ he said to me. ‘Yeah, well, it sounds like a shithole,’ I replied."
"It’s impossible to have every inch of public space covered by CCTV, and even if we did, sex offences mostly happen in private."
"I’d been holding myself together for so long, waiting for the appointment, and the horizon of deliverance had been a mirage."
"The problem with me, the wrongness, that it was corporeal."
"I imagined things he could say: ‘I didn’t sign up for this shit.’ ‘This isn’t fun anymore.’ ‘I don’t feel the same way about you now.’"
"My panicked need for self-improvement could only ever come from self-loathing."
"‘What about you?’ I asked her. ‘How many other files have been sitting down there for decades?’"
"I closed my eyes and imagined writing my worries on slips of paper and putting them in a box."
"I felt alone sitting there, unable to call out the slut-shaming inherent in the barrister’s cross-examination."
"‘Do you not want to have sex with me now that I’m fat?’ I asked him eventually."
"I thought about how the IGA had a disproportionately high number of shelves dedicated to pre-packaged and junk food."
"I was deep in revenge fantasies when I misjudged a crumbling part of the tarmac, faltered mid-stride, and watched in slow motion as my heel slipped into a pothole."
"I guess she was lucky that he was too stupid to actually deny it?"
"I had been breathing it all in, every day—the reminder that my abuse was one tiny teardrop in a putrid ocean."
"I wondered if I would be further clogging the system by making a complaint."
"That monsters were real, and that these men were what they looked like, and that everyone has a right to justice, and so did I."
"His name is Samuel Levins." It felt dirty coming out of my mouth, but kind of good. Like vomiting.
"What was the maximum he could hear and still think me desirable?"
"I could leave this job and find another, but I loved Vincent so much it made my chest ache."
"In the meantime I had to be careful not to lose my job or my boyfriend."
"Statistically speaking there could be at least a dozen of us."
"I thought a lot about what would happen if Samuel’s parents found out and he had to tell them about being abused himself."
"Unfortunately for Samuel my line of work exposed me, every week, to men who used the same lines to girls and women they’d hurt, and none of them were original."
"I was sure everyone would believe me, but I didn’t know if it would change things."
"I couldn’t afford to make things worse."
"If I were on a trampoline in the back of a friend’s yard, with the opportunity to gratify myself with no consequences, at the cost of betraying the sanctity of another human being’s bodily autonomy, I would not do what Samuel had done."
"I rolled onto my back and felt the cold, sharp stones on my skin; the sky was such a bright blue it made my eyes water."
"I didn’t know how to switch off that mechanism for other kinds of reading."
"Every sentence referenced many other similar-fact comparable cases like an endless accumulation of completely unoriginal sins."
"Judge and I went to dinner with Rebecca, the visiting prosecutors, and some of the local solicitors. I felt a subtle twinge when I saw her and Judge interact again."
"Not many other jobs would give me the opportunity to examine life and liberty on a daily basis."
"‘Well, that’s the most exciting golfing attire I’ve ever seen,’ the judge said to me, one eyebrow raised so high it would have hit his hairline if he had one."
"‘Hi, it’s Sean from Dutton Park Police, have you got a moment?’"
"‘I have something for you,’ Judge said to me one morning, and handed me two printed pieces of paper."
"‘You only see the 5 per cent,’ he said."
"When I slept I had nightmares about sex abuse and assault."
"‘I never slept with him because I really wanted to,’ she told me."
"‘People keep telling me to just compartmentalise my life,’ I said, pouring us each another glass of wine."
"‘I had a wonderful time, thank you!’ I said."
"‘Where’s Samuel?’ one of his mates asked, and I tried to act casual."
"I stared up at the Hills hoist and felt all the waves colliding at a giant break."
"‘You know in Lord of the Rings,’ I said, ‘when Gandalf the Grey dies but then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and he’s even more badass and is, like, the most powerful motherfucker ever?’"
"I walked toward the Magistrates Court building down the street that morning and regretted going alone."
"‘Well, yes, you’d better,’ she replied, ‘those are the rules.’"
"It is not for Mr Levins to decide how serious his offending was. In our legal system defendants must ‘take their victims as they find them’."
"I’m a human being, this is my life, this is another four weeks of my life."
"I won’t be afraid of Samuel for the rest of my life, and this had something to do with the fact that he was now afraid of me."
"How the fuck had I got on that bus that day?"
"Each adjournment came with less let-down, less stress. Life was less and less parcelled into four-week arcs of hope and disappointment and denial."
"I realised my feelings were more complex than just tears or frustration."