But we had to wait. And wait. Well, that was one thing that was the same as the civil courthouse-the judges took their sweet time, no matter how many people were wasting away their mornings.

As we waited, my nerves started to ramp up. To distract myself, I texted Grady. I knew he had taken a deposition that morning in a big medical malpractice case.

How did the dep go? I wrote. The text was just like any I would have sent him last year, a question posed by a friend, by another lawyer. But something about it seemed false.

Apparently, Grady felt that, too. I don’t want to talk about depositions, he texted. I want to talk about you working at that lingerie store.

I sat for a second and stared at my phone, thinking. Before I could decide how to respond, I had another text from Grady. Let’s have dinner?

I waited for an immediate response from deep inside me, something that would tell me either No, Grady and I are just friends, or Hell, yes, tell him you’ll meet him tonight. But no obvious answer appeared. Which frustrated me. Apparently, I was not someone who liked to play on the edge of decision. I had thought that as I got older, I would know sooner, quicker, exactly what I wanted.

Maybe? I wrote Grady.

A pause. I stared at my phone. Finally he replied, That’s the last time you get to use that answer.

A door behind the judge’s bench opened and in walked Tony Pitello with his attorneys. Pitello was a good-looking, if slick, man in his midfifties who, according to the news stories I’d seen, favored silk suits and diamond cuff links. Today was no exception, but the gray silk suit he wore seemed too tight. He’d clearly gained weight during his trial, and his face was red, as if his collar was choking him.

Pitello and his lawyers took a seat at their table, all stone-faced. One of the lawyers leaned toward Pitello and whispered something. Pitello nodded, his eyes fixed on the empty jury box.

The state’s attorneys were next to come through the door-two women and one man. They didn’t look at the crowd in the courtroom. They joked a little, they cleaned up files on their desks without ever glancing at the spectators or even seeming to feel their presence. It was as though their actions were always watched by a throng of people.

The judge entered the courtroom then. A man in his sixties with wavy gray hair, he stood on his bench, towering over everyone. He said nothing, but the room fell silent. He nodded, then sat.

He clasped his hands on the desk in front of him and looked down at the lawyers. “Any matters to address before I bring in the jury?”

Pitello’s lawyers shook their heads no. The lead state’s attorney called out, “No, Your Honor.”

The judge raised his gaze to the horde of people in his gallery. “There are rules of decorum in this courtroom, especially during the reading of a verdict. I will tolerate no outcries, no emotional displays. Jury service is one of the most important duties any American can provide for his country, and I want this courtroom to remain silent while the verdict is read. I want you to respect this jury and this process. Do you understand?”

Nods from around the courtroom. The judge scrutinized the faces in the gallery as if he were extracting a tacit agreement from each of us.

The judge looked at his bailiff. “Bring in the jury.”

The weight of anticipation hung over the room like a shroud.

The crowd seemed frozen as another door behind the bench opened and twelve jurors filed in. As Ted predicted, the jurors looked exhausted, their clothing rumpled. Seven of them were women, five men.

I tried to make quick notes as they began to take their seats in the jury box. Asian guy with glasses. Blond woman with birthmark on cheek. Heavyset guy, balding.

But then I stopped. Because I noticed something about the jury.

None of them were looking at Tony Pitello. Not one.

As lawyers, we always try to read the jury. We watch their facial expressions during testimony to see if they understand the information. We try to divine if they are registering the weight of it. We notice when they nod asleep for a second. We take note when they nudge the person next to them. We take bets on who the foreman will be based on who takes the most notes or who usually comes through the door of the jury room first.

But none of this is a science. Sometimes a jury that seems unmoved by the woes of a plaintiff during a trial comes out of the jury room with a record-breaking verdict for millions of dollars. Other times, it’s the woman who seemed to talk to no one, who wrote down not a word during the trial who ends up being the foreman.

But if the jury is about to read their verdict and they don’t look at the main participant-the plaintiff in a civil case, the defendant in a criminal one-that’s huge.

The opposite isn’t always true. If a juror were to glance at Pitello now, it could mean one of many things. They might be sending him a look to say, Don’t worry, you’re off the hook, or a holdout juror might be sending a fleeting apology with their eyes, as if to say I tried, but I couldn’t turn them. You’re cooked.

And yet to not have any juror-not a single member of the twelve-be able to meet Pitello’s eyes almost certainly meant one thing. Guilty.

I quickly examined them again. Every juror was looking at the floor, studying their fingernails or staring at the judge.

I looked at Pitello. He’d seen it, too. As a lawyer, he understood exactly what was happening. His mouth hung open a little, as if he was breathing heavily through his mouth. His face grew more florid as he hastily scanned the jury, almost begging them with his gaze to look at him, to send him a message that it was going to be all right.

He got nothing. Not one juror would meet his stare, not even for a nanosecond.

I watched Pitello. He appeared completely panic-stricken. His body seemed to sway.

And then a loud Crack! rang through the courtroom.

One of the jurors screamed. The spectators gasped.

Pitello had fainted, his forehead hitting hard against the table in front of him.

The sheriff ran over. He and Pitello’s lawyers lifted the man up. He was alert, blinking madly, blood trailing from an open cut above one eyebrow.

“Mr. Pitello, are you all right?” the judge said.

Whispers between Pitello and his lawyers. Pitello touched a hand to his wound, then stared at the blood on his fingers, as if he couldn’t comprehend it.

More whispering with his attorneys.

“Mr. Pitello,” the judge said in a loud, insistent voice. “Are you all right?”

Pitello nodded.

“Your Honor,” one of Pitello’s lawyers said, “Mr. Pitello believes he is fine, but if we could have a brief recess to make sure.”

The judge frowned. Hushed conversations rolled through the gallery. What’s he doing? Is it a hoax? What’s going on?

The judge directed his scowl toward the onlookers. “Quiet!”

The room fell into silence.

“Ten minutes,” the judge said. “And this verdict will be read.”

He cracked his gavel and the courtroom starting buzzing with conversation.

My body was ramped up with anxiety. What should I do? I looked at the other reporters. No one was moving. Most of them were texting furiously on their phones or looking at their watches.

I felt yanked in two different directions. Stay and wait for the verdict, or run outside and report on what had happened and what I thought the verdict would be. There wasn’t enough time to do both. It would take nearly five minutes just to get outside.

I heard Tommy Daley in my head then. You’re here to report, but you’re also here to give your opinion…The network wants you to filter the information through your experience in the law.

I bolted from the courtroom and ran to the elevators. It seemed to take an interminable amount of time to get down. As I scurried through the once-grand foyer I began to write my lines in my head. My only experience was from watching the news. I really had no idea what I was supposed to say or do. But if the network wanted opinions that were filtered through my legal experience, I had one.