Her arms were covered in marks. Some yellow and old. Others recent, purple, and deep. Fingerprints, belt lines, bruises that looked like maps of pain.
“Who did this to you?” I asked softly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t.”
“Who?”
She broke down completely. As if the word had been choking her for months.
“Damian,” she whispered. “He hits me. He’s been hitting me for years. And his mother… and his sister… they do too.” They treat me like a servant. And… and he hit Sofi too.
I froze.
“Sofia?”
Lidia nodded, her voice trailing off.
“She’s three, Nay. He came home drunk, lost money gambling… he slapped her. I tried to stop him, and he locked me in the bathroom. I thought he was going to kill me.”
The whirring of the spotlights faded. The whole hospital seemed to shrink.
All I could see was my sister in front of me, broken, silently pleading, and a three-year-old girl learning far too soon that home can be a battlefield.
I stood up slowly.
“You didn’t come to visit me,” I said.
Lidia looked up, confused.
“What?”
“You came for help. And you’re going to get it. You’re staying here. I’m leaving.”
She went pale.
“You can’t. They’ll find out. You don’t know what the world is like outside. You’re not…”
“I’m not the same person I used to be,” I interrupted. “You’re right. I’m worse for people like them.”
I walked over, took her shoulders, and forced her to look at me.
