Chapter 17
After the trials, people expected me to disappear.
Maybe I did for a while.
I moved into my father’s lake house with Dr. Chen’s recovery plan, Eleanor’s legal checklists, and a silence that no longer frightened me.
My face healed slowly.
Some scars softened.
Some stayed.
I stopped measuring progress in mirrors.
I measured it in mornings I got out of bed.
In meals I tasted.
In songs I could hear without shaking.
Christian’s music vanished from radio for a while.
Then became evidence in documentaries.
I did not watch.
Leo was adopted by his foster mother’s sister, a teacher named Maribel.
She loved him fiercely.
She sent me updates through the advocate, only with my consent.
His drawings became brighter.
More suns.
Fewer locked doors.
One day, he asked to visit.
I said yes.
He was five then.
He brought flowers.
Not white roses.
Dandelions.
“I picked them,” he said.
“They’re perfect.”
He looked at my face.
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you hate me?”
My heart cracked.
I knelt.
“Never.”
“My dad hurt you.”
“You are not your dad.”
He hugged me then.
Small arms around my neck.
Careful.
Kind.
I cried after he left.
May you like
Not because he hurt me.
Because he didn’t.
