“Did you tell your mom it still hurt?”
A small nod.
“What did she say?”
Sophie swallowed. “She said I was being dramatic.”
Those words hit harder than anything else.
“Can you show me your back?” I asked gently.
She hesitated… then slowly turned around and lifted her shirt.
And the world went white at the edges.
The bruise was worse than I imagined—deep purple, spreading across her lower back, with a dark center the exact shape of a door handle. Around it were faint yellow marks—older bruises. Healing ones.
Not one injury.
A pattern.
She quickly pulled her shirt back down, ashamed.
“Please don’t yell,” she whispered.
That almost broke me.
Because what she feared most wasn’t the pain.
It was my reaction.
“I’m not going to yell,” I said carefully. “And I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again.”
