Nadia stood by the table with her arms crossed.
That is the image I still see when I cannot sleep.
Not Trevor’s hand.
Nadia’s face.
The calm on it.
She looked annoyed that I had made things messy.
“Maybe now,” she said, “you’ll stop being selfish.”
The garage froze around us.
My mother did not run to me.
My father did not swing at Trevor.
The papers fluttered from the draft under the door, and the bare bulb chain ticked softly against its metal shade.
Nobody moved.
Trevor kicked the papers toward me.
“Sign.”
I was on the floor, tasting blood, my right arm useless, my cheek swelling so fast my vision blurred on one side.
But I saw it then.
The signature page was not blank.
There was already a signature above my typed name.
It was not mine.
At first my brain refused to hold that fact.
Then it became the only thing I could see.
The letters tried to imitate my handwriting, but whoever had written them pressed too hard on the first initial and made the final loop too narrow.
It was close enough for someone who did not know me.
It was not close enough for me.
The neighbor called 911 at 8:17 p.m.
I learned that later from the call log.
At the time, I heard only pounding on the garage door and a woman shouting from outside that police were coming.
Trevor let go of me.
Nadia’s expression changed for the first time.
Fear did not make her kinder.
It made her faster.
She snatched papers from the floor while my mother finally dropped beside me and kept saying she was sorry.
The ambulance arrived before the police came inside.
A paramedic asked me my name, the date, and whether I knew where I was.
I answered all three because I was terrified someone would decide I was confused and let Nadia explain for me.
At the hospital, the intake nurse cut my sweater rather than pull it over my shoulder.
I cried when the fabric split because it was ridiculous, because it was only a sweater, because pain makes small losses feel enormous.
The doctor said my shoulder was dislocated.
My ribs were bruised.
My face was swelling.
My lip was split inside and out.
They reduced my shoulder under medication, and I remember waking in fragments, each one edged with pain.
My mother was there.
