Page 4 — The Name She Couldn’t Say Out Loud
I took Emma’s hands. They were cold.
“Listen to me,” I said. “You’re not responsible for protecting me from the truth. I’m responsible for protecting you.”
She hesitated so long it felt like the room ran out of oxygen.
Then she whispered one word:
“Michael.”
My stomach dropped so hard it felt physical.
Not because I wanted it to be true—because I didn’t.
But because a part of me had been building the same conclusion and refusing to say it.
Emma’s voice shook as she explained in fragments—enough to understand the pattern without forcing her to relive every moment:
- Threats when I wasn’t home.
- Late-night visits to her room.
- Fear that kept her from sleeping.
- Warnings that if she told me, I would be the next target.
Then she said something that made my skin go cold:
She had been trying to create a “different reason” for the neck pain.
Not because she wanted attention.
Because she wanted camouflage.
I stood up, and something in me shifted from shock to action.
“Jennifer,” I said, voice steady now, “where’s the nearest police station?”
“Three blocks,” she said.
“Emma,” I said, “put your coat on. We’re going right now.”
She panicked. “But he’ll—”
“He won’t,” I said. “Not anymore.”
We walked into daylight like the world hadn’t changed.
But it had.
And I knew one thing: if we went home first, we’d give him time to rewrite the story.
So we didn’t go home.
We went to the police station.
On the next page: what a child-abuse specialist asked first—and the piece of evidence that made the case move fast. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
