“Did it hurt because I did something bad?”
I held her close and said the only thing that mattered.
“No. It hurt because someone else was wrong.”
I took her to the dentist expecting a loose tooth.
Maybe a cavity.
Something simple.
Instead, a pair of tweezers pulled out the truth.
And in that moment, I realized—
her pain hadn’t just revealed something hidden in her mouth.
It had revealed exactly how far someone was willing to go to control her.