“I didn’t fall,” I told the nurse through blood-stained lips. “He hit me.” The cold hospital floor burned my cheek as alarms screamed and my stepfather stood over me, shaking with rage. Three days after surgery, he said I was faking. As the police rushed in, one thought echoed in my head: If he can do this here… what has he already done at home?
The cold hospital tiles pressed against my cheek, sharp and unforgiving, as the taste of copper filled my mouth. I’d been out of emergency appendectomy surgery for three days—three—and every movement sent fire through my incision. Nurses’ shoes squeaked as they ran toward me, alarms shrieking from the IV stand that had crashed down with…