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“What happened in the car?”

The nurse’s words flash, uninvited.

“No definitive signs of…”

Her pen scribbled, turning me into a checklist.

Bruising on the inner thighs. Finger marks on the waist.

Not knowing eats away at you. I see it, clearer than ever now, standing on this side of the clipboard. My patients used to say it: “I just want to know, I have to know what happened,” and I’d nod, squeeze their hands, promise it’d be okay no matter what. I believed it. I still do.

I never realized how deafening uncertainty could be.

“You should try to get some sleep,” Dad says. His hand reaches for me, slow, like he’s approaching something fragile.

Before I know it, I stiffen, barely moving an inch. His hand freezes in midair, and the look on his face hits me like a punch to the chest.

It’s him. I know those hands, their warmth, how they’ve brushed my shoulder or tucked my hair back a thousand times. I know.

But the memory of every unwanted touch in that van is a live wire; my body can’t separate Evan’s hand from my father’s yet. It’s tangled up with every gentle hand during the examination, hands my body couldn’t distinguish from those treating me like a thing, voiceless.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, pulling the comforter up tight around my neck. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Stop.” His voice cracks, just a little. “Don’t apologize. Not for this. Not for feeling like you do right now.”

I let my eyes close. The exam room blazes in my mind, all sterile lights and sharp edges. I thought I understood it the way you understand a procedure you’ve performed a hundred times, until you’re the one on the table.

I thought I knew the cost. I figured the way I gently softened my voice, added warmth to my questions, could ease that harshness. I hope it did. I hope it was something, even a little.

“Dad.” My voice is a whisper. “Can you stay?”

“I’m not leaving.” The chair creaks as he settles deeper, his breathing steady, familiar. That rhythm I matched mine to when sleep wouldn’t come, until my body felt safe enough to let go.

Outside, the low rumble of a motorcycle. Carter. I’d know that sound anywhere. He’s been circling since we got back, a restless presence at the edge of my awareness. Around the block and then back again. He won’t come up, keeping his distance, respecting my dad’s space. Or he’s doing it for me. I can’t decide which tugs at me more. But he won’t leave either.

The house settles around us, its old bones creaking in the cold. Downstairs, murmured voices can be heard, my mom and Matthew, probably people keeping busy to avoid the waiting.

“I keep thinking about the exam,” I say, the words surfacing of their own accord. “I’ve done those kits so many times. Hundreds. Thought I knew what it was.”

My father’s jaw tightens, but he stays silent, making room for my thoughts.

“The nurse was kind,” I continue, finding my voice steadier. “She talked me through it. But I kept staring at the ceiling, counting tiles, trying to be somewhere else. Like every patient I’ve ever had, escaping in their minds.”

“They did that,” my father says, “because you made it safe enough for them to survive.”

A tear slips down my cheek, hot against cold skin, a chill that’s lingered. I let it fall.

“I don’t feel strong.”

“Fear doesn’t make you weak,” he says, leaning forward, voice deep and sure. “Running from it does.”

The clock ticks, time stretching and twisting. My mind drifts back to the car, those blank spaces, the gaps filled with shadows. I know it’s how trauma works, spinning stories to drown out silence, because sometimes fear is easier than the unknown.

Knowing doesn’t stop it.

“How do you make it stop?” My voice cracks. “That feeling, it’s still happening… that I’m still…” I can’t finish. My tongue presses hard against the roof of my mouth. I count the other water stains on the ceiling—there are four or five if the smear near the light fixture counts—until my breathing evens out.

The chair sighs as my father stands. For a moment, he just stands there, his bulky frame outlined by the window, moonlight cutting across his face, the rest lost in shadow. He looks older than I usually let myself see, or I just see him clearly now, with all my filters stripped away.