[REDACTED]

'I'm right behind you, I [REDACTED] you.'

'Those were your words, were they not Mr. Morton?'

The prosecuting barrister. That jumped-up, mid-tier hack in his perfectly pressed KC's robes and a horsehair wig that somehow made him look even more like a prat. He was really pressing the point. Wanted to catch me out, make me say the word back to him. The one that had gotten me into this mess. Had gotten her into this mess...

'Those are definitely words,' I replied, somewhat sarcastically and with that childish sense of impudence you got when you had been caught red handed. Standing in the dock felt like being in a zoo – all these wigged heads gawping and staring at the emotional deviant.

'And you said these words, did you not, to a one Ms Mar-len?' As he said her name, he was checking his notes, making sure he had got it right. As if Marcy were just one of dozens he would try to condemn today. Like she was just another case number – another statistic.

'Marlene,' I corrected through gritted teeth. 'Her name was Marcy Marlene.'

Hearing his fat, plummy voice butcher her name caused the rage to bubble inside me. But I held it down. Forced it down. Twelve pairs of eyes watched from the jury box, looking for any sign of emotion. Any crack in the facade.

'My Lord, if I may,' he continued, opting to avoid saying her name entirely this time. 'I refer to the defendant's words to the deceased: "I'm right behind you, I [REDACTED] you."' He delivered the words with indifference, 'And then Ms Marlene jumped. Right, Mr Morton?'

I stood there. Silent. Remembering her face in those final moments. The way her eyes had shone with defiance as she stood on the edge. How she had smiled at me, one last time, before stepping backward into the void. The door vibrating against my back as security hammered from the other side. Just a few more seconds and I would have—

'Is this not true Mr Morton? Are these, or are these not your words?' He repeated, his voice growing higher and more condescending as each vowel tumbled out.

'And is it not true that when security finally broke through, they found you mere inches from the edge? That you fought them as they pulled you back?'

My barrister, a pound shop lawyer called Graham Davis KC saw that I was struggling and decided to step in. His polyester wig was slightly askew.

'My Lord, I must object. My learned friend is badgering the witness.'

The judge, more wig than person, leaned forward. His booming voice echoed from behind the ancient wooden bench.

'Mr Davis, the Crown is pursuing a legitimate line of questioning regarding violations of the Deviant Emotions Act 2096.'

'But my Lord—'

'That will do, Mr Davis. If your client does not answer the questions put to him, the jury shall draw their own conclusions.'

'My Lord, perhaps we might proceed with exhibit P1,' the prosecuting barrister interrupted, practically preening in his success. 'With your permission, of course.' The judge nodded as the room fell silent. A small courtroom clerk fiddled with his tablet.

For the first few seconds, all you could hear was rushing wind. The recording had been captured at the top of the old lift tower. The lift tower had been repurposed in 2057 as a central data hub. This basically meant it was plastered with satellites, wires and masts that captured every last word across Northamptonshire. Every county had one. The bastards never missed a whisper.

As the wind rushed through the speakers, the clerk, a small rat-like man played with the audio levels. Keen to make sure every syllable could be heard. He'd clearly done this hundreds of times before. Hundreds of other people's last words. Hundreds of other forbidden confessions.

'Everyone hear alright?' he asked, satisfaction seeping into his voice.

The judge responded with a plain acknowledgement as the jury sat forward with bated breath. They couldn't say the word themselves, but they could hear it. They could listen to my voice. Listen to me fill the courtroom through crackling speakers with a word they’ve probably never heard before. The forbidden word, plain for all to hear.

Then the clerk pressed play. Silence filled the room and then we listened to the “proof”, every agonising articulation. Every strained enunciation. Culminating in two illegal phonemes.

Our last moment together was now evidence P1 in his majesty's court of emotional control. As the audio played, the memories came flooding back. I could practically smell the hoppy, burnt smoke that the wind carried from the Carlsberg factory across town. I could feel the security guards hammering at the door – desperate to stop us, to save us. Not that it would have made a difference – saving us would have just meant a more public end.

Then my heart twisted and ached because I could see Marcy. Every detail felt real. Her dark chestnut hair tied into a messy bun. The small moles and that little skin tag on her neck that made her insist on wearing collared shirts. The green floral dress that had billowed when she jumped. And her eyes – those deep hazel pools that looked almost green when she cried.

They were green then.

My fingers dug into the wooden rail of the dock, knuckles whitening as the prosecuting barrister rose again.

'So I repeat once more, did you or did you not say those words? Or are we to not believe what we just heard? Hmm?’ The barrister was in the flow of things now, pacing the room, performing for the cameras.

‘You said this word in direct defiance of the law, knowing full well the punishments for doing so. You said these words and intended to kill yourself, escaping justice and circumventing the laws that our King enshrined in 2096. You, Mr Morton, are an emotional deviant.'

As he said this, I watched them all nodding – the jury, the judge, even my own barrister. Like puppets on the same string.

In my throat, words started to rise. They bubbled and pulsated, competing with each other. Each word filled my neck, choking me into silence. Swelling up until—

I said it.

I said the word everyone wanted and feared to in equal measure. It poured from my heart, through my chest and out of my very soul, reverberating around the room like an object. A physical manifestation of my feelings.

Rage, romance, hatred and disgust. It was all there.

I screamed the word again and again. From the top of my lungs to the bottom, slamming my fists with each syllable into the cheap mahogany railings that shuddered beneath my rage.

The room gasped.

'Order! Order! Mr Morton, we will hold you in contempt if you do not stop this ludicrous display. Order I say!’ The judge's voice crashed down, but I was beyond caring.

'You all dare to sit there and judge me, like I'm any different from any of you,' I shook the dock, spitting the words through the railings. 'You despise me, pity me, try to save me – all while feeling what I felt for Marcy.' My voice rose. 'You're pathetic – all of you, breaking your own laws with every breath, committing the same crimes in this very room.'

‘Dock officers, please restrain the accused.’

I felt rough hands on my shoulders but shrugged them off. 'You think you're better than me because you never say it? Because you can't say it?’ The officers grabbed me again, harder this time. 'Because the one emotion that matters, that makes us human, is redacted?'

'I twisted in their grip, making sure every person in that courtroom could see my face. 'But it isn't, is it? Because you can't legislate away what's inside me. You can't rewrite what we had.'

One of the officers yanked my arm behind my back. I didn't care. 'You can't remove it from the feeling I got when I was around her. When we kissed. When she jumped.' My voice cracked on the last word. 'You cannot erase a feeling that lives inside of all of us. No matter how many kings or courts try.'

‘Order! Orrrrderrr! The judges red face flustered through his oversized wig as his well pruned audience started to crack under my words. ‘I am holding you in contempt of this court, Mr Morton. Officers, get him out of here!’

The officers dragged me backwards, but I let go of myself, releasing all my tension and weight into their hands and continued, ‘You can document every word we said on that tower. You can record every forbidden syllable. But you missed the important parts – her smile when I touched her cheek, the way her eyes lit up when she saw me, how tightly she held my hand at the end. The things that didn't need words.'

As the officers struggled to pull me away, I looked up into the ramparts of the county courts muttering to myself, 'I'm sorry Marcy. I'm sorry we can’t be together. I lo–'

The taller officer, a lanky man with rosacea and a receding hairline, shoved a balled-up transcript into my mouth. The word REDACTED peeked through my lips as I mumbled. His partner hastily tied a handkerchief around it, creating a makeshift gag.

The handkerchief locked in the paper's starchy taste, almost choking me with my own words. But it couldn't stop my smile.

Even with the transcript crumpled in my mouth, even with their laws and their courts and their redactions, they couldn't change what Marcy and I had felt. What everyone in that courtroom felt, whether they admitted it or not.

Silence me. Slaughter me. Make an example of me. But you can never erase the raw emotion I felt at her end. And I hope to feel even a fraction of it at my own.