But my throat felt scraped raw, and I had learned a long time ago not to hand them words they could turn into weapons.
Silence had been my safest language since childhood.
Tessa had always known exactly where to press. When we were kids, she broke my things and told Mom I was being sensitive. In high school, she read my messages and called it concern. At family dinners, she could turn one sentence into a joke and somehow make everyone look at me like I had ruined the room by reacting.
My mother called it keeping peace.
Peace, in our house, meant everyone stepping around Tessa while I apologized for bleeding on the floor.
The monitor beside my bed beeped steadily. Green lines moved across the dark screen. A cuff hugged my arm. A hospital wristband circled my wrist, my name printed in black letters beside a barcode and an intake time I could barely focus on: 11:42 p.m.
