Sophia
I sat propped against the headboard, the sheets pulled tightly around me even though the room was warm.
My body was still, but inside, a storm brewed.
My mind replayed the dream again and again: my mother’s face, the child’s laughter, the screech of tires, the silence after impact.
And the car.
The nameplate. The truth I could no longer run from.
Erick.
Every time I thought of him now, a fracture appeared inside me. The man who carried me in his arms, who tucked me into bed as though I were something fragile and precious, was the same man who had left my mother dying on the road.
I wanted to scream, to demand an explanation, to throw the truth into his face and force him to acknowledge it. But a little part of me wanted to be more cautious.
Erick wasn’t someone you con
