“You have nowhere to go, stop fighting!” I shout.

“I have to get back to her.” She reaches for the counter, and it occurs to me a second too late that she’s near a kitchen block.

I reach for her again, but she has a head start on me. She can barely reach the smallest knife—a paring knife. But she gets hold and uses it to arc around her.

I let go immediately and dodge. I’m not trained to fight. My own instincts are all firmly on the side of flight and stumble.

The girl on the other side isn’t trained either. She holds the knife like it isn’t the first time, but she’s breathing hard, and she’s pale and sweaty. Her eyes dart over the absolute chaos around us: the floor covered in wasted food, the bags that lie torn outside of the pantry.

I can see the bread crumbs on her shirt. The stains from last night’s stew around her mouth.

We circle, and she takes a step to the side, accidentally kicking a can of food to the side.

She raises a trembling hand up to push a strand of matted hair out of her face. Her shoulders drop, and she lets go of the knife.

It clatters to the dirty floor.

I leap forward. To stop her. To restrain her. This time, she’s the one who dodges. She grabs my hand and uses the momentum against me, letting me swing past her, while my arm bends backward.

And two things happen.

My arm bends beyond the point of stretching, but I can’t stop moving. At the very last moment, when I’m sure my arm will get torn in two or my shoulder will dislocate, the girl lets go.

I throw my free arm out, and the floor rises to meet me. I impact on my hand. A quiet but audible snap echoes through the room. It does nothing to slow my velocity.

I stumble forward across my broken wrist and slam headfirst against the wall.

Briefly, I see stars. I never thought that was real, but they’re flickering in front of my eyes. Like needlepoints or pinpricks or pain. And time slows down.

Footsteps crunch past me.

A shadow creeps over me. It grabs at the floor. It grabs at the counter.

“I’m sorry.”

Something hard and heavy comes down toward me, and I can’t move.

Pain explodes behind my eyes.

Then everything goes dark.

* * *

New footsteps.

A scream full of rage and sorrow and anger.

* * *

Violin music echoes around me, that deep resounding echo that only comes from being in a church. But I never played at my parish. I didn’t want to share that part of me with Father Michael or anyone aside from my teachers and my parents.

It’s muscle memory, letting the bow dance across the strings, and it hurts to move my arm, to play, to be here.

It hurts.

It hurts.

* * *