I wiped the blood from my lip with my sleeve and used the chair to pull myself upright. My hand was swelling fast. I couldn’t even curl my fingers into a fist. Still, I grabbed my purse and walked out. No shouting. No drama. I wasn’t going to give her that.
Outside, the sun felt too bright and too cheerful, like the world hadn’t gotten the memo that something inside me had snapped. I got into my car and sat behind the wheel, shaking.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Jacob.
“Please don’t come back. It’s better this way. Stay away from us.”
I stared at the words.
Us. Not me. Not “I’m sorry, Mom.” Just us, like they were a team and I was the outsider. Like I had become a stranger in the family I built with my own hands.
I drove straight to an urgent care off the main road, the kind tucked between a pharmacy and a sandwich shop with a faded flag flapping in the winter wind. Fluorescent lights hummed above me while a nurse wrapped my arm and asked me to rate my pain.
Fractured wrist.
They put on a temporary cast and handed me pain meds in a little paper cup. The nurse asked me gently if I wanted to report anything.
“Not today,” I said.