“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she said, a mix of shock and anger flashing across her face.

“I didn’t think anyone would believe me—believe us.” I stared at my shoes and watched my tears fall to the ground. I promised I wouldn’t.

She paused, the outrage draining from her expression. “I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s not your fault. It’s not Elise’s fault either.” She never apologized, never said I was right, leaving me speechless. Then she surprised me again, this time with a tight hug, and for a moment she wasn’t the enemy. For a moment she wasn’t my awful mother who played favorites, who was perpetually disappointed in me, who wished I was never born. She was just my mom, and I needed her. She held me and let me cry.

Mom spoke to the doctors, saw Elise, called doctor friends who worked at the hospital, woke up a plastic surgeon to come in and sew up Elise’s cuts.

“Make sure you don’t leave any scars,” she directed.

The police came, asked Elise questions about her father. He’d driven back to The Realtor’s house after leaving the Pink Mansion, but she’d refused to let him in. Undeterred, he pounded on The Realtor’s door until she called the police, and that’s how they found him. He was at the station now, asking for a lawyer.

“What happened, exactly?” one of the officers asked Elise.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said, tears running down her face. With her permission, they took pictures of her in her underwear: the cuts, the bruises, the taped-up ribs, the swollen eye and bloody scalp.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, after the officers left and my mom was out in the hallway talking to Elise’s doctors, we were finally alone.

“Hey,” I said softly, resting a light hand on her wrist, still afraid to touch her.

“Hey,” Elise said, turning her head toward me, a faint smile on her lips.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know,” she said with a kindness I did not deserve. The guilt grew within my heart, all hard metal and sharp edges, gutting me from the inside.

I pulled away just when Elise needed me. And I’d been so wrapped up in Jack and so busy falling in love that I didn’t see how badly she truly needed help.

Maybe it was all too easy to dismiss every call, every cry for help. Even the ones I answered, because this—her father’s violence—had become such a routine part of our lives. It was strange and awful, how given enough time anything could start to feel normal. As pedestrian as going to school, as mundane as breathing.

“What happened?” I asked.

Elise shrugged and then winced from the movement. “What always happens. He was on the warpath and I was in the way. I wish I—” She broke off, looked away. I felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me. It terrified me: Elise’s secrets were unmapped mines that exploded when discovered.