Chapter Eight
She’d rinsed out the blood from her mouth before looking into the tiny chipped and cracked mirror in the bathroom, taking in her face and loose tooth. Her mouth and jaw were tender from how hard Manny had hit her, and she could see the redness and the slight swelling. She winced when she moved it and knew it was already starting to bruise.
She’d never been hit by a man until she went to prison, where she’d learned the hard way that talking about it and reporting it would only come back on her. She may not have understood before why women who were assaulted didn’t report it, didn’t get help, but she understood now. The abuser was always heard first, and then came the retaliation, the loss of rights, the cruelty in a world that continued to take everything from her. She had h
