The other lifted.
I hesitated only briefly before letting my fingers move.
This was how I saw.
My fingertips brushed lightly over her face first, moving slowly as if I were trying to memorize her through touch alone—mapping, learning, trying to understand what my eyes could not confirm.
I felt my way along her cheek and paused when I noticed it was swollen, the skin tight and raised in an unnatural way beneath my touch, and before I could fully process it she flinched with a sharp, involuntary reaction, a small whimper slipping out before she could stop it.
My hand stilled instantly.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered quickly, softening my touch even further.
Carefully, I tried again—lighter this time, barely grazing her skin as I moved my fingertips over her cheekbone and then along her jaw, going slowly as though I were trying to understand her through touch alone, and then down her arm, which felt too thin beneath my hand, fragile in a way that made my chest tighten; and that was when I found it—another injury, a patch of bruising I hadn’t noticed before.
“What have they done to you...” the words left me before I could stop them, my breath catching painfully in my throat.
Who could do something like this to a child so small? What if they traced her here, came through that half-open door, and tore her away from me—and hurt anyone who tried to stop them?
Whoever they were, they were clearly not capable of mercy.
Chapter 3
LORETTA
The child who appeared at my doorstep—whom I had saved three weeks ago and taken in as my own—turned out to be autistic, but also the unexpected light in my darkness.
Zara, as I have come to know her, has filled the past three weeks with a kind of joy I didn’t think I was still capable of feeling... and somehow, she has already become the best part of my life.
I learned her boundaries quickly.
Too much touch overwhelmed her.
Too many questions shut her down completely.
So I gave her space when she needed it.
Sat quietly nearby when she withdrew into herself.
Learned to recognize the subtle shifts—the way her breathing changed, the small rocking motion, the way her fingers curled tightly into fabric when the world became too much.
It took three days after I took Zara in before she was finally able to utter a full sentence to me,
Over the following days, I tried asking questions as gently as I could—indirect ones, careful ones.
