Adult-hood.

As sunlight wrestled against the curtains, coming in ever so little only to fall upon her face, Katherin looked up a smile on her face and gleam in her eyes. She hadn’t slept that well in the past two years. Price had that effect on her. In his arms, she’d come to feel secure, a calm that completely enveloped her internal turmoils restoring tranquility in her tumultuous life.
The judgement had been passed last afternoon. The verdict in her favor, pronouncing her not guilty on any account of the homicide of her ex- boyfriend whom the cops had found hacked to death in her apartment. The relief she felt as the verdict was pronounced was something out of the world. The weight that she seemed to be carrying that of confusion and uncertainty had suddenly been lifted off her shoulders.
The early morning sun-rays today reflected her life, nature’s way off imparting poetic justice one would think. The dark circles under her eyes that had until yesterday made her appear old and frail today attenuated the radiance like scars on a war veteran, reflecting maturity and wisdom and the ability to fight it through a rough patch. Proof of her will and determination and more than anything , to the world, of her innocence. The tears she’d cried, the prayers prayed had all payed off.
Today she was not just a free lady, but one who had been victimized by the judgementality of society. Looking outside she some children, little girls probably on their way to school, smiling and waving their arms bidding their goodbyes. She recollected the last time she had smiled like that, full and carefree, it was exactly two years ago, as she bid goodbye to Philip as she left for uni.
Reflecting back on the day, she couldn’t help but frown at the reality, “Could adults ever smile carefree in true innocence? Or had they lost that capability to children alone?” Marred by deceit, conspiracy and forever worried by the uncertainty we’d enslaved ourselves to fear.