Mercy fills a basin with warm water, and the steam curls into the air in soft waves. My body reacts before thought forms. I push myself tighter against the wall, nails scraping wood, throat working until a sharp sound escapes me. Water meantpunishment where I came from—too hot, too cold, used to shock, used to control.
Mercy pauses. She doesn’t move closer. “I’m just warming it,” she says softly, voice steady enough that my breath doesn’t splinter as hard as it could. “Nothing’s happening unless you say yes.”
Mama Rue settles onto a low stool, her knees cracking quietly. She watches me with an expression that feels too patient, too knowing. It twists something inside my chest, something that’s been clamped down so long it doesn’t know what to do with gentleness.
Mercy dips her fingers into the water and lifts them out slowly, letting droplets fall back into the basin. Each motion is careful, deliberate, spoken in silence so my body has time to understand her intention.
She narrates softly. “I’m wetting the cloth. I’m wringing it out. I’m moving toward you.”
My knees weaken with every word, but the clarity helps. Words that name actions. Actions that match words. Nothing hidden.
She holds the cloth out without touching me, giving me the choice to lean forward or pull back. My hand trembles as I lift it halfway, then stop. I can’t make myself cross the rest of the distance. The memory of fingers gripping my jaw, forcing my face under water, slams into me so hard my vision fades around the edges.
A low hum breaks in my throat—warning, fear, plea. I don’t know which.
Mercy lowers the cloth. “Not your face first. Something easier.”
She reaches for my arm, stopping inches from my skin. Waiting. Her eyes meet mine, and the care in them reflects the places I try to hide. She’s lived inside fear, too. I see it. I feel it.
I let my arm fall toward her, though every instinct screams to pull it back. My fingertips brush her knuckles, and the shock of gentle contact burns through me.
She touches only my wrist. Barely. A whisper of warmth.
My stomach tightens, but I don’t flinch away.
Mercy lifts my arm with both hands, slow enough that I can pull back at any moment. I don’t. My muscles tremble with exhaustion, not resistance.
The warm cloth drags over my skin—soft, unhurried, nothing like what I braced for. My body reacts before I understand it as heat spreads under my skin, sharp and confusing. A shudder rolls through me, a ripple I can’t hide. Not pain. Not fear. Something unfamiliar. Something my body doesn’t know how to categorize.
Tears sting my eyes without permission.
Mama Rue speaks from her stool, voice low and steady. “You’re not meant to hurt anymore, child. Let the water ease what it can.”
When Mercy brushes a strand of hair off my shoulder to reach the nape of my neck, I jolt so hard the basin sloshes. She freezes instantly.
“Not touching your hair,” she says. “We’ll go slow. You tell me when.”
Mercy resumes washing my arms, my hands, the dirt embedded along each knuckle. She pauses every time I tense, waiting until the tremor leaves my muscles.
Little by little, my shoulders loosen. Not trust. Not yet. Just less fear than before.
Mama Rue steps closer, slow as dusk settling over a field. I don’t understand most things about her yet, but I understand her age, her certainty, her quiet. It presses against my skin in waves. When she reaches for my hair, my ribs snap tight.
She lifts a section gently, only to inspect it, but the moment her fingers touch the tangles, panic tears up my throat. The sound that comes out of me is sharp and broken—too loud, too raw. My body jerks backward so hard my spine hits the wall. I clutch my hair with both hands, curling over it.
Mama Rue stills. Her hands drop open at her sides.
“I won’t take it,” she says softly. “But it hurts you to leave it this way.”
Her voice is calm, but my body can’t hear calm. It hears only the memory tightening around my skull. Hands grabbing fistfuls, dragging me by the roots. Hair cut in anger. Hair cut as warning. Hair cut when they wanted me to know I didn’t own myself.
Inhales rip in and out, fast enough that my vision trembles. I can’t tell where I am for a second. Only hands. Only pain. Only before. Mercy sets the cloth aside and kneels in my line of sight.
“Hey,” she whispers, voice thin with understanding. “I’m not going to cut it. I swear. Let me fix it. Just fix it.”
I shake my head, clutching tighter. A sob claws deep in my chest, but only part of it reaches daylight—a helpless, wounded noise that slips from between my teeth.
Mercy inches forward on her knees, hands visible, palms up. “I know what that fear feels like. I know what it means to lose pieces of yourself you didn’t agree to give.”
