“Mina.” I kept my tone quiet, almost soft. Enough to steady, not startle. “Look at me.”
She turned slowly, reluctantly, but she did. Her eyes were wide and glassy. Waiting for judgment. For a consequence.
And it made something dark curl in my chest.
“You can spill ice cream all over this car. I don’t care.” I held her gaze. “It doesn’t change who you are. Or how I see you.”
She blinked. Just once. That flicker of confusion—like she didn’t understand how someone could be calm after a mistake.
Whatever Mikel had done, it went deeper than words. Yelling. Name-calling. Throwing things. I knew the signs. And yesterday… yesterday had crossed a line.
“Whatever happened before,” I said slowly, carefully, “doesn’t get to decide how you’re treated now.”
I didn’t reach for her. Not yet. She was still too tense, too raw.
But I meant every word. And I’d say it again and again until she believed it. Until she realized she wasn’t here because I wanted to win a bet.
She was here because I didn’t want anyone ever lifting their hand to her again.
My hands stayed on the wheel, but I wasn’t driving anymore. The engine still hummed, but the world outside had fallen away. My voice was low. Controlled.
“Has he ever touched you?”
Mina froze.
Her spine stiffened just slightly, and her gaze jerked to the window like she could outrun the question. “Who? Mikel?” Her tone was light. Too light. Like she was trying to pretend she didn’t understand.
I didn’t press. Just waited.
Silence stretched between us—not empty, but full. Loaded. I let it hang. She’d answer when she was ready.
Finally, barely audible: “Not like that.”
“Mina.” I said her name quietly, but there was steel beneath it. I needed her to hear it. To come back from wherever she’d drifted.
She didn’t look at me, but I watched the way her shoulders rose and fell with each breath, like she was carrying too much and didn’t know how to set it down.
“He hasn’t,” she murmured. “He yells. He throws things. He says awful stuff sometimes. But he never…”
“Did you think that was normal?” I asked. My tone didn’t shift. I wasn’t accusing her—I just needed to know how deep the damage went. “What he did? That wasn’t frustration. That wasn’t a mistake. That was control.”
Her brow furrowed. Like the idea itself was foreign. “He gets competitive,” she said. “Frustrated. He’s just… like that.”
“No,” I said, firm. “Frustration doesn’t come with raised hands or broken things.”
She looked down at her lap. Her hands were clenched in her hoodie sleeves. She looked small. She wasn’t.
“I didn’t want to see it,” she whispered. “It felt easier not to.”
I nodded once. Not at her, but at the truth in that. “That’s how people like him win. They make silence feel safer than standing up.”
She didn’t respond. Just bit her lip, hard, like it would stop the tears from coming again.
“I didn’t think he’d ever cross that line,” she said, quieter now.
“You didn’t think,” I said, and I heard the bite in my voice too late. It wasn’t meant for her—it was meant for him.
“I thought he cared about me,” she snapped suddenly, and it was sharp, alive—herself pushing back.
