Luna

I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm sitting in this courthouse with my parents.

I remember it was raining, so that made it even more depressing.

They took us upstairs to this courtroom.

I had never been in a courtroom either, so this was just a horrible experience in general.

They were doing a couple cases before me, but then they announced me, and they told me to come up and say my name for the record, and the judge had a copy of the affidavit that I wrote out.

I know that this is not really how court is supposed to go, but they let my dad come up and stand next to me because I think they honestly just saw the size of me and the look of me and they were like, she's nervous.

She needs help.

But there was a lot of people in the courtroom.

I am forever indebted to this judge.

We walked all the way up to the bench, my dad and I, and he put the sound machine on for the entire courtroom so nobody could hear what we were talking about.

And he looked me in the face and he said, I'm so sorry that this happened to you.

And I was like, wow, thank you so much.

And he was like, I'm absolutely granting this order.

I'm ensuring you that now you're going to be safe.

That was crazy.

I think he saw right through me.

I felt like I was transparent.

I think he could just see the hurt in me.

It really did, especially for a male judge to say that to me.