“Did Dad want me to die too?” he asked quietly.
I sat beside him and took his hand.
“Your father did something terrible,” I said. “But you did nothing to deserve it. Nothing.”
He nodded, holding himself together.
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“We won’t,” I promised.
And I meant it.
After we were discharged, we stayed with Laura. Martha had already gathered some of our things with the police—my bag, Ryan’s hoodie, and a drawing he left on the fridge that morning.
It showed the three of us together. Smiling.
At the top, he had written: “Family night.”
I couldn’t look at it for long.
