Chapter 1
“What did she mean?”
My voice sounded too loud in the bedroom. Savannah sat propped against the pillows, one arm still curved around her stomach. The tiny pink blanket lay folded on the chair by the window, its bright color almost cruel against the gray afternoon light.
She looked at the doorway.
“Leave it open.”
I stopped before I could take another step. “Of course.”
“No. Don’t say it like you’re agreeing because you think that’s what I need.” Her voice trembled, but she held my gaze. “I need to see the door.”
I moved back until I stood beside it. I kept my hands at my sides.
“Okay.”
Savannah let out a breath that seemed to scrape on its way out. “Your mother said you knew.”
My throat tightened. “Knew what?”
“That she was hurting me.”
The answer landed between us. I had questions crowding my mouth, but the look on Savannah’s face stopped them. Whatever she had carried alone, I couldn’t make her set it down faster just because I was terrified of what it weighed.
She pressed her palm against her belly. “I’ll tell you what I can. Don’t interrupt me.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t touch me unless I ask.”
My arms went cold. “I won’t.”
She studied me, searching for the part of me that might break that promise. Then she glanced at the open doorway again.
“The first thing I wrote down was a bruise on my arm,” she said. “Your mother grabbed me when I tried to leave the kitchen. Later, she said I’d run into a cabinet.”
I swallowed. “When was that?”
“I don’t know the exact date. I wrote down what I could remember.” She looked past me, not quite at the window. “I was embarrassed. I thought maybe I really had been careless. Then she told me not to make a big deal out of it, because you were already stressed.”
“Savannah—”
She flinched at the sound of her name, and I stopped.
Her eyes sharpened. “That’s what I mean. You hear one piece, and you want to fix it before I’ve finished saying it.”
I shut my mouth. The shame came hot, but I kept it to myself. She didn’t need to comfort me for the way I had failed her.
“I’m listening,” I said.
She nodded once. It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t even trust. It was permission to remain where I was.
“I asked her if you knew,” Savannah continued. “She said you did. She said you’d told her you wanted the house quiet, and that meant I wasn’t supposed to challenge her.”
A memory stirred—my own voice, tired and careless, asking for peace after some family argument. I couldn’t place the day. I couldn’t know what Bernice had repeated or what Savannah had been made to believe. The thought that my words might have become a weapon left me feeling unsteady.
“I never gave her permission to hurt you,” I said, then caught myself. “That doesn’t mean you have to take my word for anything right now.”
Savannah’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know what you gave her permission to do. I know what she told me.”
I lowered my eyes. “You’re right.”
Silence settled over the room. From somewhere beyond the bedroom, the apartment’s ventilation hummed, ordinary and indifferent. I wanted to cross the space between us. I wanted to take her hand and tell her she was safe. But wanting to comfort her wasn’t the same as being entitled to touch her.
“Can I call your doctor?” I asked. “You can tell me what I’m allowed to say. Or you can make the call yourself, and I’ll stay here.”
“Call,” she said. “Tell them I’m seven months pregnant and there was an assault. Don’t give them the folder. Don’t share anything else without asking me.”
“Understood.”
I called the number we used for her doctor’s office. Savannah listened while I explained what had happened, and when the nurse asked for details, I looked at her before answering. Savannah chose which symptoms to describe. She answered the questions about pain and bleeding herself, pausing when she needed to. I kept the phone on speaker only after she said it was okay.
When the call ended, she asked me to read back the instructions so she could correct anything I’d missed. I did. She corrected me once, and I thanked her.
Her eyes stayed on the open door.
“Don’t let anyone in without asking me,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“If you need to talk to your family, don’t use my name. Don’t tell them what’s in my phone.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t ask me to prove it.”
“I won’t ask you to prove it.”
For the first time since I had found her on the floor, her shoulders lowered a fraction. It wasn’t relief. Maybe it was the smallest space where relief could someday fit.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I looked at the screen. Bernice’s name lit it.
Savannah noticed my face change. “What is it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I didn’t open the message. “Do you want me to read it?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
The message was short.
Savannah is dangerous, Christopher. She’s been turning you against me for years. Bring me home and we can talk without her twisting everything.
A second message arrived before I could answer.
If you keep her there, I can prove she’s the unstable one.
My grip tightened around the phone. I could feel anger rising, fast and familiar. But Savannah was watching me, and I understood that another burst of anger might sound like another demand for her to manage me.
“Do you want me to respond?” I asked.
“No.” She looked toward the doorway. “Not yet.”
May you like
I set the phone face down on the dresser, where she could see it.
Bernice had left our home. Somehow, in only a few minutes, she was already trying to decide whose voice would count inside it. And I couldn’t pretend I knew how to protect Savannah without first learning whether she could trust me to listen.
