Franklin was sitting upright, his face pale, his eyes wide with something that looked like terror rather than desire. His hands clutched a string of prayer beads, and his lips moved in frantic murmurs. He was not looking at me. He was staring past me, toward the corner of the room, as if something invisible demanded his attention.
“I saw it,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I saw the sign.”
Confusion and fear collided inside me. I followed his gaze, but the corner was empty. Then I noticed that Caleb had shifted in his sleep, his arm extended across the bed. His hand rested against my leg, heavy and slack, the unconscious movement of someone seeking comfort without awareness.
The realization settled slowly and horribly. The violation of my space was already being rewritten into a story where I was not a person but a symbol. Franklin’s fear did not excuse what had happened. It reframed it, sanctified it, and turned my body into an object within his belief system.
“The blessing passed through you,” Franklin whispered. “I had to protect it.”
Something inside me went completely still.