Wyatt caught my hand.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m not leaving.”
They cut away part of my dress to check for other injuries. A nurse cleaned blood from my neck while another placed an IV in my arm. The ceiling blurred whenever I tried to focus.
I could still see my mother’s smile.
I could still hear Melanie saying, “I told you she wouldn’t move.”
Dr. Hart examined my left eye carefully.
“Sadie, your eyelid is badly swollen. I need you not to force it open.”
“Am I blind?”
“We don’t know yet.”
The fear that entered my chest was so sharp that for a moment it hurt worse than my broken face.
Wyatt squeezed my hand.
“No matter what happens, I’m here.”
I turned my right eye toward him.
His face was pale. His jaw trembled with rage. There was blood on his cuff—my blood.
“My mother said you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
His expression broke.
“Don’t listen to her.”
“She said—”
“I heard what she said.”
He bent close enough that his forehead nearly touched mine.
“I loved you before tonight. I love you now. And I will love you through every surgery, every scar, every nightmare, and every courtroom.”
A tear slipped from my right eye.
It traveled into my hair.
Dr. Hart looked away for a moment, giving us the privacy of silence.
Then she straightened.
“We need imaging immediately. Before that, because this was an assault, I want a forensic nurse to document every injury.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
The nurse arrived carrying a camera, evidence bags, and a stack of forms.
She photographed my face from every angle. The swelling. The cuts. The bruises beginning to rise beneath my skin.
She sealed pieces of my bloodstained dress in a paper bag.
“We’ll preserve everything properly,” she assured me.
“Please keep all of it.”
“We will.”
“And write down what I say.”
The nurse nodded.
