Every Four Years

Age Twelve

A long time ago Mama told me not to talk. Not to tell anyone what happened. Keep it inside. Smile. Survive.

But lying here now, with my body broken in more places than I can count, I wonder if Mama was wrong.

What if telling is the only way out?

What if this man in uniform really can save me after four years of hell?

The hospital room is white and smells like burnt plastic and lemon. The lights are too bright, humming above my head like a hundred bees. Everything hurts. My ribs when I breathe. My wrist when I shift. Even my hair hurts.

I stare at the police officer. He’s tall, his badge shining like a coin in the sun. He’s holding a notebook. His face looks patient, but his eyes keep flicking over me like I’m a puzzle with missing pieces.

“Miss, I need you to tell me what happened,” he says.

I swallow. My throat feels raw. The doctor said I was lucky to be alive—broken ribs, broken wrist, broken clavicle, a punctured lung, a concussion. Lucky. I’m not sure I believe in luck anymore.

Still, maybe he’s my way out.

“I came home from school and David was drunk,” I say. My voice sounds small, even to me.

“David,” the officer repeats, “your foster father?”

Foster father. The words feel like gravel in my mouth. That man had never been a father. He hated me from the second I showed up at his apartment.

“Yes,” I say.

“And what time was this?”

“About eight-thirty.”

His eyebrows twitch. “Why were you getting home from school at 8:30 in the evening?”

I stare at my hands, bruised and bandaged. Don’t tell them everything, Mama whispers in my head. Never tell them everything.

I wasn’t coming home from school. School ended at three.

Most days I go to the library after. I do my homework. When that’s done, I read. I stay until five minutes before closing, wave goodbye to the librarian, then sneak into the women’s restroom until the doors lock. Only then do I pull out the sleeping bag from my backpack and unroll it in the quiet dark. The library is warm, safe, full of words instead of fists.

But that night the librarian came in to use the toilet before she left—the staff bathroom was broken. She saw me. I made up an excuse about falling asleep in the stall. I don’t think she believed me. I bolted before she could ask more questions.

I tried the park instead, curled up in the kids’ tunnel slide. But there was a group of older boys there, shouting, laughing too loud. My skin prickled. I left.

The apartment was the only place left.

“I was running errands,” I tell the officer. “Doing my homework at the park. That kind of stuff.”

His eyes narrow. I know that look. I’m good at reading people—David taught me how without meaning to. His eyes say, You’re lying and we both know it.

I keep going anyway. “When I walked in, I headed straight for my room.”

I don’t have a room. The rooms they show social services are used for Nancy’s “work,” or for David’s friends when they’re too drunk to drive home. David said if I wanted a room, I had to share with his friends or “work with Nancy” to sell my body.

“But when I passed the lounge,” I say aloud, “David blocked my way and grabbed my throat. He hit me a couple of times. Yelling. Said I needed to do more around the house, earn my place. Said two of his friends had offered him good money to…”

I stop. My stomach flips. The bruises, the punches—I can take those. But the words, the promise of what would come next, still make me want to crawl out of my own skin.

I don’t cry. I don’t show anything. Mama taught me that much.

The officer’s voice cuts in, careful, professional. “And where was Mrs. Godfrey during this incident?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

Probably out with a client.

“I tried to fight back,” I go on. “But he kept hitting me. I grabbed a lamp, hit him with it, and ran. I got to the balcony. He was chasing me. I think he would have killed me.”

I remember screaming for help. The man across the way opening his blinds, meeting my eyes. And then slowly closing them again.

That’s when I knew.

I only had one way out.

“I knew I couldn’t win,” I whisper. “So I jumped.”

The officer looks up from his notebook. “Off a third-story balcony?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know you would survive?”

“I didn’t know if I would or not.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to live or die. Both options terrified me.

He glances at me. “Have you had suicidal thoughts before this incident?”

The question hits me like another punch. What? He wasn’t listening. David was going to kill me. I jumped because I had no choice.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” I say. “I was trying to escape.”

He stares at me. The disbelief is right there in his eyes. I bet he’s already talked to David and Nancy. Heard their lies. The loving foster parents who opened their home to a “troubled child.”

Who are you going to believe?

The broken twelve-year-old with ten foster placements behind her?

Or the smiling adults who know how to act for an audience?

David and Nancy always made sure there was no proof. No marks where teachers could see. Nancy always told him, “Body shots only. Don’t want the school sniffing around.”

The officer asks a few more questions, but I don’t bother answering. What’s the point?

Mama was right.

I shouldn’t have said anything.