Chapter 3
The blanket Nurse Ruiz gave me was too warm and I didn't want to take it off. It was white and thin and it smelled like the detergent we used at home, and I pulled it up to my chin and kept my hands underneath it. My legs didn't reach the end of the exam table. I could hear the air conditioner buzzing in the green-gray wall and I could hear myself breathing too loud.
Ruiz didn't move to the tray where the key was anymore. She stayed crouched so her eyes were level with mine. Her gloves made a soft sound when she rubbed her hands together, then she folded them in her lap. She wasn't smiling. She just looked at me like she had time.
"You stayed very still while I looked," she said. "That was brave. I'm going to stay right here with you, okay?"
I nodded. My throat was dry. The door was still closed. I kept looking at the little rectangular window even though there was no one in it now. I didn't want to look at my cheek.
Ruiz followed my eyes for a second, then looked back at me. "Do you want to tell me about those three lines on your cheek?" she asked. Her voice was even. "You can tell me in your own words. Take your time."
I had told my dad it was the porch. I had said I fell by the steps when I was trying to get the cat. He had said okay and then he had told the lady at the front desk the same thing, that I was clumsy. I felt my face get hot under the bright light they'd used earlier.
"It wasn't a fall," I said. My voice came out small. I swallowed. "It was fingernails."
Ruiz didn't lean in. She didn't touch my face again. She just repeated it gently, not like a question.
"Fingernails," she said.
I nodded and the tears came back before I could stop them. I wiped them with the edge of the blanket.
"Someone dragged them," I whispered. "Across. Like this." I didn't show with my hand. I just looked at the wall.
Ruiz kept her hands still. "Dragged across your cheek," she said, using my words back to me. "Thank you for telling me that. That sounds like it hurt a lot."
It did. I nodded again. My cheek stung like it was happening again, that hot sting you get right after.
"I believe you," she said quietly. "And because you told me that, I need to tell you something about my job. I help take care of kids, and part of that job is I have to keep kids safe. So when someone tells me they were hurt by fingernails, I write down exactly what they said and I make sure other safe people know, so it doesn't happen again. I'm not going to hide what you tell me, but I won't share it just to be mean. Does that make sense?"
I didn't answer at first. I was listening to the hallway. No footsteps. The blanket was making my hands sweat.
"Are you going to tell him?" I asked, and I tipped my head toward the door.
"Not without talking to you first about how we do it safely," she said. "Right now it's just you and me in this room. What you say stays with the safe team unless we decide together how to share it."
She slid the little rolling table closer but didn't open anything. There was a paper form on a clipboard and she picked up a pen. She didn't write yet.
"Can I write down what you just said, in your own words? 'Fingernails dragged across my cheek, not a fall.' Is that right?"
I stared at the pen. "Yes."
She wrote it exactly like that, and then she read it back out loud, slow, so I could hear it. The letters were neat and blocky. She didn't add anything.
"Can you tell me about the key?" she asked after a minute. She didn't point at it. It was still on the tray behind her, on a piece of gauze. "You were holding it very tight."
My stomach dropped. I had thought maybe she forgot it.
"I didn't steal it," I said fast. "I found it."
Ruiz nodded. "I hear you. You found it and you held it."
I pulled the blanket tighter. My hands were shaking underneath.
"I had it in my hand," I said. "And then I put it in my mouth because he told me to give it to him and I wouldn't. I kept my mouth shut. My jaw hurt."
Ruiz reflected it again, word for word. "You held it in your hand, then you kept it in your mouth because you didn't want to give it to him."
"Yeah," I said. My voice cracked. "He was mad. He kept saying open, open. I wouldn't."
"That was a choice you made to keep it," she said. "Thank you for telling me that part too. I'm going to write that down just how you said it, that the key was yours to hold and you didn't want to give it to him. Is it okay if I write that?"
I nodded. She wrote, and the pen scratched against the paper. She didn't ask what the key opened. She didn't ask where I found it. She just capped the pen when she was done.
"I don't want him to hear this," I said. I finally looked straight at her. "Please don't let him hear me say it. He'll say I'm lying."
Ruiz set the clipboard down where I could see it. The papers faced me, not her.
"He won't hear this from the hallway," she said. "And I will not bring him in to listen to your words. If we need to talk to him, we do it separately. Your words stay yours. Can we keep the door closed a little longer while you decide what feels safe next?"
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I breathed out. It was a real breath for the first time since she had held up the forceps. I gave a small nod and kept looking at her hands, which were still, open, and not reaching for me.
"Yes," I said. "Keep it closed."
