CROSS EXAMINATION OF THE HEART

They walked me down the hallway like I might bolt.

I didn’t try to.

The corridor smelled like coffee gone cold, disinfectant, and something old like paper maybe. Bureaucracy has a smell. It’s not evil. Just indifferent. And that somehow makes it worse.

An officer stopped in front of a door with frosted glass.

INTERVIEW ROOM B.

He knocked once. Not for permission. For procedure.

“Two minutes,” he said. “That’s all.”

The door opened.

And there he was.

Julian sat at the table, hands folded in front of him like he was waiting to be graded. His jacket was gone. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms tense with restraint, veins standing out like they were trying to escape his skin.

He looked… smaller.

Not weak.

Contained.

Like a storm locked behind glass.

His eyes snapped up the moment he saw me.

“Ava.”

My name broke in his mouth.

For one heartbeat, the room forgot it was an interrogation room. The detectives along the wall blurred into shapes. The recorder blinked. The air thickened.

I stepped forward without thinking.

“Julian.”

He stood too fast, chair scraping back with a harsh sound. One of the detectives shifted immediately, hand twitching near his belt.

“Sit,” the older detective said calmly.

Julian obeyed. But his eyes never left mine.

I sat across from him, hands clenched in my lap to stop them from shaking.

For a second just one, we stared at each other like people who had already survived something together and were now being asked to pretend they hadn’t.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

It was the wrong question.

The detective cleared his throat. “Mr. Vale, you asked to see Miss Alessi. You have two minutes. This is being recorded.”

Julian nodded without looking away from me.

“Ava,” he said quietly, urgently, “you need to tell them everything.”

My chest tightened.

“I am,” I whispered.

“No,” he said, sharper now. “Not selectively. Not carefully. Everything.”

I shook my head slightly. “Julian”

“They’re going to try to pin this on you,” he continued, words tumbling now, cracks forming in the calm. “They already are. You can’t protect me. You hear me? You cannot.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” I said, heat rising in my voice despite myself.

His jaw clenched. “I do when it puts you in danger.”

“And what about you?” I shot back. “What happens to you if I say everything?”

He laughed once, short and bitter. “I go where I should’ve gone a long time ago.”

That landed like a slap.

One of the detectives leaned forward slightly, interested.

I lowered my voice. “You’re not disposable. Not to me.” 

Julian’s eyes flickered. Pain. Gratitude. Fear.

“I am if it keeps you out of a cell,” he said.

I leaned in too, just enough that the edge of the table pressed into my ribs.

“You don’t get to martyr yourself and call it love,” I hissed. “This isn’t a rock opera.”

For half a second, half his mouth almost smiled.

“There she is,” he murmured. “Still yelling at me in crisis situations.”

The detective cleared his throat again. Louder this time.

“Miss Alessi,” he said, “this is not the time for emotional negotiations.”

Julian’s eyes hardened instantly.

“She’s not negotiating,” he snapped. 

The room went very still.

The detective studied him carefully. “Mr. Vale, you’re already cooperating. Don’t make things more complicate. They already are a great deal of complicated.”

Julian exhaled slowly, visibly reining himself in. Then he looked back at me, softer now. Dangerous in a different way.

“Ava,” he said, “listen to me. If you hold anything back about Noah, about the attic, about the photos”

“I won’t,” I interrupted. “But I won’t let them turn me into your accomplice either.”

That stopped him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said, voice shaking but steadying, “that the truth doesn’t belong to just you. And I won’t lie by omission just to keep you clean.”

One of the detectives raised an eyebrow.

Julian stared at me like I’d just pulled the floor out from under him.

“You said you’d walk away,” he whispered. “After this.”

“I said I’d stop ghostwriting,” I replied. “Not that I’d stop being honest.”

Silence stretched. The recorder blinked.

Julian swallowed.

“They’re going to separate us after this,” he said quietly. “And they’re going to push you harder. They’ll make it sound like you’re already guilty.”

“They already are,” I said. “They told me.”

His eyes flashed. “Did they threaten you?”

“They warned me,” I said. “That if I don’t talk, I look complicit.”

He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, something had shifted.

Not fear.

Acceptance.

“Then you need to talk,” he said. “Fully. Even if it hurts me.”

My breath caught.

“Julian…”

“I’m serious,” he said. “If you try to shield me, they’ll assume you’re part of it. And I will not have you punished for my choices.”

His voice dropped.

“I already ruined enough lives.”

The detective stood.

“Time,” he said. “Miss Alessi, we’re done.”

I didn’t move.

Neither did Julian.

For one reckless, unbearable second, I reached across the table and grabbed his hand.

Gasps. Movement. A sharp Hey.

But Julian squeezed back immediately, fingers tight, grounding, desperate.

His thumb brushed my knuckles once.

A goodbye disguised as reassurance.

“Look at me,” he said quietly.

I did.

And God help me, I loved him in that moment not safely, not wisely but with the ferocity of someone who had seen him stripped of myth and still stayed.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “you tell the truth.”

“And you stop deciding you don’t deserve a future,” I shot back.

A muscle in his jaw jumped.

The detective stepped in. “Hands off. Now.”

Julian released me.

I stood, legs shaking.

As the officer guided me toward the door, Julian spoke one last time low, steady, meant only for me.

“Ava,” he said. “If they ask you whether I knew”

“I’ll tell them,” I said without turning back.

“What I know,” he clarified.

I finally looked at him over my shoulder.

“I know,” I said. “And so will they.”

The door closed between us.

Not gently.

Final.

And as I was led back down the hallway, heart racing, pulse roaring in my ears, I realized something terrifying and clarifying all at once:

This isn’t about saving Julian anymore.

This was about whether the truth could survive being told by two people who refused to let it be weaponized.

And whether love whatever shape it took could exist without lies.