CHAPTER 4
950 Words
The next few hours exist in pieces.
Not a straight line. Not a memory I can play from start to finish. Just fragments,sharp and disjointed,like broken glass scattered across the floor of my mind.
I remember my father hands.
They were shaking as he held my face , his thumbs brushing tears off my cheeks even as more kept coming. He kept asking questions, his voice breaking in place he tried to hide.
“Who did this to you?”
“Where does it hurt?”
“Eleanor , talk to me.”
I couldn’t answer him. Not because I didn’t want to, but because every word felt too heavy to lift .My throat was tight , my chest burring , my body still locked somewhere between panic and numbness.
He wrapped me in a blanket, Then another. As if the layer could unto what had happened. As if warmth could fix something permanently cold.
I remember him calling ana ambulance.
I remember the way voice changed when he spoke to them, controlled , clipped, full of something dangerous. Rage, maybe. Or fear so deep it had hardened into something sharp.
At the hospital , the light were too bright.
Everything smelled clean in a way that made me feel dirty.
Nurses spoke softly, carefully,like I might shatter if they used the wrong tone. They asked me question I didn’t know how to answer.
Do you know the assailant?
Would you like to file a report?
Can you tell us what happened?
I stared at the ceiling and counted the tiles instead
My father stood near the bed, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white.I could feel the anger rolling off him, heavy and suffocating. He wanted to scream. To break something . To go out and fined whoever had done this tear the would apart if that’s what it took.
But he didn’t
He stayed .
He held my hand .
And every now and then , I felt a drop land on my skin, his tears , falling silently because he refused to let me hear him cry.
The doctor explained things I barely processes. Evidence. Examination. Procedures. Words like trauma and assault and recovery floated around me, quite landing Recovery.
The word felt like a lie.
When it was over, when they finally let us, it was morning.
The sky outside the hospital was pale ,undecided. The city waking up like nothing had happened. People rushing to work. Coffee cups in hand. Normal lives continuing uninterrupted.
I wondered how that was possible.
At home,my father sat me on the couch and knelt in front of me, his hands gripping my knees gently but firmly.
“I’m here,” he said. “You hear me ? I’m not going anywhere.”
I nodded.
He hesitated, then asked, “Do you remember his face ?”
I closed my eyes.
I did
I saw it clearly. Too clearly. The calm. The entitlement. They way he looked at me I was nothing.
“I don’t know who he is,” I whispered.
My father exhaled slowly, like he was holding back a scream.
Everywhere went silent. Then the television was filing the room with sound we didn’t asked for.
A morning show.
Bright smiles. Cheerful voices. The kind of fake happiness that suddenly felt cruel.
And then I saw him.
Keon Richardson
Clean. Perfect.Smiling
Standing beside a women so beautiful it hurt to look at her Seraphina Nowells. The media darling. Elegant . Untouchable.
The headline scrolled across the screen beneath them:
“Power Couple Takes the City by storm.”
My breath caught.
The room tilted.
“That’s him,” I said.
My father turned sharply. “What?”
“That’s him, “ I repeated, my voice barely there. “That’s the man.”
The TV kept talking.
About his success. Hid family. His future.
Not about me.
Not about the way his hands felt.
Not about the way he took something I can never get back.
My father stared at the screen, disbelief turning slowly into horror. Then into fury so raw it scared me.
He stood up so fast the chair scrapped loudly against the floor.
“That’s” His voice broke. “That’s impossible.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself , my whole body trembling.
“That’s him,” I said again. “He’s real . He’s Important. He” My voice cracked.
“he’s untouchable.”
The word settled into the room like smoke.
Untouchable.
The television showed them laughing, radiant, adored. The woman beside him leaned into his arm like she belonged there. Like he was safe. Like he was good.
Something inside me collapsed.
I realized then, not just what had been done to me ,but what it would cost to tell the truth .
No one would believe me over him.
And even if they did ,nothing would happen.
That was the moment the world taught me its cruelest lesson.
Some people are protected.
Some people are disposable.
And I knew, with terrifying certainty, which one I was.
I turned away from the screen.
My father reached for the remote and shut it off, but it was too late. The image had already burned itself int my mind.
I curled into myself on the couch, feeling smaller than I ever had before
I wasn’t just a victim.
I was alone in a fight I hadn't chosen.
And somewhere deep inside me, beneath the fear , beneath the shame , beneath the silence , something else began to form.
Not hope.
Not yet.
But resolve.
Because if the world was going to pretend nothing happened.
I would never forget.
- Writer
