The first thing I remember after Trevor hit me is not the hospital, or the sling, or the police officer waiting beside my bed.
It is the smell of my parents’ garage.
Cold concrete.
Old oil.
Sawdust from the workbench where my father used to repair broken chair legs and pretend every family problem could be fixed if he just found the right screw.
I had grown up in that garage.
I learned to ride a bike in the driveway outside it, scraped both knees on the pavement, and ran inside crying while Nadia laughed from the porch.
She was my older sister, the bright one, the dramatic one, the one my mother always said “felt things more deeply” whenever she was being cruel.
I was the practical one.
That was the role I was assigned before I was old enough to understand how expensive it would become.
Practical daughters get asked to compromise.
Practical daughters get told they can handle disappointment.
Practical daughters are expected to hand over anything stable because everyone assumes they can rebuild it later.
By the time Nadia called about the mortgage, I had spent years trying to build one clean corner of the world that no one could snatch away from me.
I had good credit, a little savings, and a life quiet enough to sleep in.
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