I don’t remember how I got to the hospital, only that I was there and my body felt like it had been thrown around. My vision focused on what was happening in front of me, where I heard a woman’s voice.
“Listen, if we don’t get a rape kit done on you and get these cuts cleaned, you may get an infection,” she was saying.
I noticed that the label on her teal jacket was coming off. This must be what shock felt like—focusing on things that weren’t important. It was all I could do just to focus on the label and the woman’s voice. It wasn’t a brand I recognized. At least she was warm. She stood next to a woman in green scrubs who was taking my vitals.
“Honey, are you listening?” The woman’s voice was a little louder, making me flinch.
I felt everything and nothing at the same time. I finally looked up from the teal jacket to the woman’s face and was met with beautiful light-green eyes that I could tell had seen more than their fair share of hardship. Her bronze skin was flawless. Nellie was breathtaking.
“Yes,” I croaked out. It hurt to talk. One of my ribs had to be broken.
Nellie squatted in front of me and took my bloodied hands in hers. “I know you are still in shock, but we need to get all of the tests done to get those motherfuckers. They hurt you pretty bad.”
I looked down at myself and noticed I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and shorts that did not belong to me.
“Your clothes were taken for DNA,” Nellie said, as if reading my mind. “Will you let them do the tests?”
I allowed a single tear to fall down my face and nodded my head. At this point, I would do anything to get out of this place and get home to my sister.
By the time I hobbled out of the hospital, I had made a new friend with the woman who had saved me. Nellie had paid for my cab home and ensured I had her information in case I needed anything or wanted to come to a women’s group session.
As the car pulled up to the dilapidated apartment building, my gut told me something was off. Every step I took pained me at my core, making me wince and whimper several times before I got to my apartment. The door hung ajar, busted where the knob should have been.
What the fuck?
I pushed the door with my toe. It swung open and only stopped when it slammed against the interior door. I gasped.
My father lay in the middle of the floor, blood dribbling from his temple and his wheelchair on its side. Dead for all I knew. The couch behind him was torn apart, its filling scattered across the room. My mind raced as I ran as fast as I could through the apartment, looking for the one person that mattered. The one person I cared about in this world. My heart pounded in my chest, every muscle in my body screaming at me.
“Lil? Lily!” I called out with no response.
Each room was as destroyed as the living room had been, and Lily was nowhere to be found
When I reached our bedroom, I collapsed onto the ground in front of the torn, stained mattress. I kept the space tidy, but all of our belongings had been thrown on the ground, everythingtorn. Whatever the person had been looking for, they hadn’t left anything untouched.
Tears filled my eyes before white-hot anger seeped through every cell of my body. I got off the ground to deal with the piece of shit that lay in the other room. I needed answers. And I needed them now.
I stormed over to my father and slapped him across the face. He groaned as he pressed the heel of his palm to a bleeding spot on his head.
“Where the fuck is Lily?” I screamed.
“Lily,” he mumbled, trying to prop himself up.
“Where the fuck is she, Dad? She's not here! What the fuck happened here?”
After getting nothing but incoherent mumbles and grumbles, I grabbed my cell phone, cracked from the attack, and called the police.
“Are you sure she didn’t just go to a friend’s house?” the lady on the other line asked after I explained what had happened.
“What part did you not understand? Yes, I’m sure! My house looks like it was torn apart. Can you please send someone?”
“It sounds like someone just got rambunctious in the household, Miss, and your sister is just at a friend's. There’s no missing person’s case here.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The police wouldn’t come, and I had a feeling it had everything to do with who my father had pissed off. I knew all of this was his fault. I hung up the phone and looked down at my piece of shit sperm donor.
My father sneered and pointed a shaky finger at me.
“You!” he grunted as he tried to maneuver himself closer to me. “You! This is all your fault!” His eyes looked animalistic as he struggled to sit up. “It was supposed to be you! Now...” He broke down sobbing, his eyes showing more emotion than I’d ever seen.
