So... this update is three days late. I know- I'm the worst!

Anyways, I've been loving your comments. Thank you for being such supportive readers!

Chapter 21

It was silent in the car.

Terrifyingly silent.

Until my mother spoke finally. Her manicured nails gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and I saw her glance at me in the corner of her eye. I swallowed the bile of nervousness that rose in my throat. I always felt anxious whenever she looked at me. I wanted as little attention from her as possible.

"So what are you going to tell them?" She asked me. I was in pretty serious pain, but her voice was calm. She didn't seem worried about me.

"That I fell down the stairs." I responded quickly. My head was pounding and I was worried that I wouldn't say the right thing and she'd fly off the handle again.

"Good. I mean, it's not a lie. You did fall down the stairs. It was your own fault really." She shrugged her shoulders. She didn't see the big deal. She didn't see the lie.

"Yeah, I know." I said softly.

She didn't speak to me for the rest of the car ride. And when we pulled up to the hospital, she helped me out of the car, touching me in probably the gentlest way she had ever touched me in my life. I held the rag to my forehead tightly as she helped me through the front doors of the hospital.

And then she changed.

As we stepped into the fluorescent light, she immediately started calling for help frantically. She looked nervous, and afraid. In the car a few moments earlier, she didn't look that way. She had been cool and calculating.

"Someone please help me! My daughter is hurt!" She cried out. A nurse rushed up to us immediately and began to fuss over me. I felt my mother's hands disappear from my skin, replaced by the nurse who helped me onto a stretcher.

"Is my baby ok?" My mother begged her.

"We're going to stitch up that wound so she doesn't lose any more blood ma'am." The nurse informed her. She applied antiseptic to my forehead, which stung, and then some cream that numbed the area. I watched her with crossed eyes as she stitched me up.

"Alright, we're going to take her back for an x-ray and MRI to make sure there was no internal damage. You need to stay here for that, ma'am." The nurse said to my mother.

"No I need to come with her. I'm so worried about my baby."

"Ma'am, you need to stay here. She'll be ok for a few minutes without you." The nurse repeated. My mother's eyes flashed quickly and she looked down at me. I think she realized she wouldn't get her way.

"Ok baby, I'll be right here waiting for you," she said to me as she leaned in to give me a gentle hug. "Don't mess this up." She hissed in my ear so that the nurse couldn't hear.

As soon as we were down the hall and in the MRI room, the nurse seemed to relax.

"So, honey, what happened to you?" She asked me as we went into a room with a huge machine.

"I fell down the stairs." I responded carefully.

"By yourself or did someone push you?"

Someone pushed me. I wanted to say.

"By myself. I was wearing slippery socks and the stairs are hardwood." I continued with the script my mother had prepped me with.

"Ok, well, you know I don't believe that for a minute. If you need to disclose anything to me, I got us a few minutes of alone time before we go back to your mom." She explained to me, looking at me with an expression that told me that she knew exactly what had happened.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I mumbled.

"Ok, well let me know if you change your mind." She said

The nurse had some people run some tests on my head using that big machine, and then we went to another room and they did the same thing. I was wondering what they could see with those machines. I knew they were just scanning my head, but I was hoping maybe they'd be able to see the old fracture on my collarbone or maybe the fracture in my arm.

I had never been to a hospital before, but I guess my mother thought my head injury was serious enough to warrant treatment.

"Last chance, Summer. I want to help you, but I need to know what happened." The nurse whispered as she wheeled me back down the hall.

"I slipped because of my socks and fell down the stairs." I responded.

"I'm really sorry for you. Hopefully it gets better." She said before we returned to my mother.

I was 14 when my mother hand pushed me down the stairs for... I think I didn't put my laundry away fast enough. And one of my biggest regrets was not opening up to the nurse- someone who could have gotten me out of that house.

But I had been too scared.

"Red, has he touched you like that before?" We were in Marcus's car, Sophia was driving.

"No, he's never hurt me before. It was an accident. If I hadn't-"

"Red, you did nothing wrong. He was being an asshole." She snapped at me. I nodded and looked out the window. I didn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Can you just take me home, please?" I asked her.

"No. You're seeing a doctor, Red."

The car was awkward and silent for a while. I could tell she was distressed, she didn't know what to say. But I just wanted to pop my shoulder back into place and go to bed so that horrible night would end.

Where was Caleb? What was he doing? Is he ok? Is he mad?

"Ok, let me help you." Sophia said to me once we were parked. She came around and opened my door, and then helped me out of the car so very carefully. I cradled my arm in my other one and let Sophia bring me into the hospital.

She had me sit down in the waiting room while she signed me in. She came back with a ton of paperwork to fill out and let me dictate my answers to her so that I wouldn't have to fill them out myself. It was sweet of her, I think she thought she was being a good friend, but I really just wanted to go to bed.

She didn't understand that a dislocating my shoulder was not a new phenomenon. It wasn't a big deal to me.

We waited for two hours before I was finally called to be seen.

Sophia walked back to the treatment room with me.

"Do you think Caleb will come?" I asked her quietly as we waited for the doctor in the exam room.

She rolled her eyes.

"I fucking hope not." She groaned. She looked over to me and her eyes immediately softened. "Yeah I think he'll come. Of course he will. Marcus is just trying to sober him up right now. They'll come when they can." She assured me. I wanted to believe her, but I was afraid that I had ruined things. Why would he want to come see me?

The doctor came in.

"Hello ladies, I'm Doctor Waters. What seems to be the problem today?" She asked us. Sophia looked over to me.

"I just dislocated my shoulder." I explained.

"Her boyfriend grabbed her too harshly." Sophia added. I shot her a look. I didn't want her to tell them anything about Caleb. I didn't want him to get in trouble for something that wasn't even his fault.

"Ok, let me just take a look." The doctor came over to me and gently touched my shoulder. Her hands trailed down my arm, and when she touched my elbow I cried out at the searing pain that shot up my arm.

"Sorry." I whispered, embarrassed at my reaction.

"Hmm, well it does seem like your shoulder is dislocated. I'm going to have you get an x-ray, just in case it's fractured." She explained.

I nodded, that seemed reasonable.

Sophia waited in the exam room for us as the doctor led me to the x-ray room. She helped me put on this heavy vest and sit up against a black board. She stepped out of the room while she took the x-ray and then came back to take the vest off of me and lead me back to the exam room.

She came back a few moments later with the x-ray in her hands.

"Miss, do you think you could step out?" The doctor asked Sophia. Sophia's eyebrows furrowed deeply over her pretty face. Her full lips turned down into a pout. I noticed she still had her pretty red lipstick on from earlier.

"Why?" She asked bluntly.

"Miss, I have a confidential relationship with Miss Redwood and I can't-"

"She can stay." I said. "I-I want her to stay." While Sophia may have been pretty anti-Caleb, she was still a really good friend to me. My best friend. I trusted her. I wanted her with me. And I knew she'd look out for me.

"Alright, if you give me permission to discuss some more... personal matters in front of her, then she can stay." The doctor nodded.

"Yeah that's fine." I said.

"Alright, well, it seems that you're right and your injury is just a dislocation. So I can fix that for you and send you on your way." Dr. Waters explained as she set up the x-ray pictures in front of a light box.

"Ok that's good right?" Sophia asked.

"Yes, it's a minor injury. With a sling, Miss Redwood should be recovered completely in a week or two."

"Ok..." I didn't understand why she seemed so uptight, something else was wrong maybe. I feel like if it was just a shoulder dislocation, then she would've sent me home by now. But she hadn't.

"Well, I just wanted to talk to you about your relationship with your boyfriend." She continued on. My eyes darted over to Sophia. If she hadn't said anything about Caleb, maybe I could be on my way home by now.

"He's never hurt me. It was a mistake. He didn't mean to grab me so hard." I explained. Why did no one else understand that? Why was everyone so quick to blame him when I was the one a fault?

"Of course." The doctor nodded, but I could tell that she didn't believe me. "I just want to do a further inquiry into your history with him because your x-rays show an obvious pattern of abuse." Dr. Waters revealed.

My heart plunged into my stomach.

Sophia gasped.

"I-I don't... I..." I didn't know what to say. I wanted to deny it, but she had the x-rays to prove it. "I'm just clumsy." I said.

"You told me he had never hurt you like that before. Red- how long has he been hurting you?" Sophia sounded... I couldn't tell. I had never heard that tone before. And her expression was heartbreaking.

"He's never hurt me before." I said as fiercely as I could.

"Well, someone has been. From the x-ray of your one arm, I can spot three different fractures that have healed incorrectly on your arm, as well as a fracture that has healed incorrectly on your collar bone, and two unhealed hairline fractures on two of your metacarpals in your hand. I'm sure a full body scan would reveal a lot more old fractures." She explained. Sophia's jaw dropped and she buried her face in her hands.

"I can't believe I set you up with him..." She whispered.

"Those are years old." I explained. "I wasn't even in this country when any of that happened- I'm just clumsy." Why won't they believe me?!

"Miss Redwood, I just want to make some resources available to you. Here is a brochure about dating violence. There is a group that does counseling who could help you work through some of the psychological trauma. And I want to give you the contact information of a-"

"I don't need this stuff!" I snapped. "I don't need resources. I'm not a victim."

"Oh god- what have I done? What has he done?" Sophia mumbled in a sort of trance. There were tears and mascara flowing down her cheeks and onto her hands.

"Alright. Well, please just humor me and take these with you so I can sleep tonight." Dr. Waters looked me in the eye. "There is a pattern to abuse and I just want to make sure he doesn't-"

"IT WASN'T HIM!" I screamed, finally losing my cool.

They both looked to me.

"Then who hurt you like this?" Sophia snapped at me. Her emotions uncontrollable.

"I'm clumsy." I repeated.

"No one believes you!" Sophia countered. Dr. Waters watched our exchange carefully. She seemed intrigued but worried about our conversation.

"Well, it's true." I held my arm closer to my chest protectively. "Can you just fix me already? I want to go home." I snapped at the doctor, even though none of this was her fault. I was just angry at myself. Why do I always have to ruin everything?

"Yes. Of course." She nodded. I relaxed my shoulders and held my arm out to her- I had done this countless times before so I knew the drill.

"I'm going to kill Caleb." Sophia growled out.

"Ok take a deep breath in. You're going to feel a sharp pain and then a dull ache but that means it's fixed." Dr. Waters explained.

And then she did it. I didn't cry out at the shooting pain. I didn't react at all. I had done it so many times before that I barely even felt it.

"So just wear this sling at all times except when you shower and sleep and you should be much better in two weeks." She told me as she carefully wrapped my arm in my sling and then around my shoulder.

I didn't need no dang sling.

"I'm going to make Marcus report him." Sophia determined. My head snapped over so I could glare at her. She wouldn't dare.

"Caleb didn't do anything." I defended him for the thousandth time that evening.

"Then who did?"

"My... parents."

Did I just say that?

Did I really just admit that outloud?

What had I done?

"What?" Sophia gasped.

"I'll be back in a moment." Dr. Waters excused herself.

"What do you mean, Red?" Sophia asked me.

"I'd really rather not talk about it." I said to her.

"Please... I just- Please." She whispered. In that moment I realized that Sophia needed me. So far, for our entire relationship, I had been the one who needed her. She had taken care of me. But for some reason, what I told her made her vulnerable.

She looked broken.

"Well, umm- my parents were... harsh disciplinarians. And so when I turned 18 I got out of that house and your cousin helped me get here." I explained to her.

"They... they broke your arm?" She began to cry.

"Umm... yeah a couple times."

"How often did they hurt you?"

"Like a few times a week I'd say." I answered quietly. I didn't want to tell her any of this, but she of all people deserved to know.

"Did they like... beat you?" Her voice faltered over that word. Beat. I didn't like saying it. I didn't like hearing it. I definitely didn't like hearing that word come out of her mouth.

"Yes."

"A lot?"

"A lot."

"what else did they do to you?"

"Soph... You don't want to know." She nodded her head at my response. I watched her bury her face back in her hands and just sob.

The doctor came back in with some new resources for me- this time brochures about surviving child abuse and the contact information to some psychologists. I took them without argument because I just wanted to get out of there.

When we walked out of the exam room, Sophia and I were holding hands. My other arm was in the sling, and her other hand was covering her face, which was stained with tears and mascara. She was still crying, making little noises every few seconds and sniffling her nose.

We walked through the hospital and to the waiting room.

"Red!" I heard my name called out.

"Soph?" suddenly Caleb and Marcus were in front of us. Marcus immediately collected a sobbing Sophia in his arms, frantically trying to determine what had upset her.

Caleb didn't bring me into his arms. He looked me over with those enticing green eyes and then landed on my sling.

"Red." His voice was so soft. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Back to normal." I said, my words jumbled together. I couldn't read him- I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Red, I am so sorr-"

"You're not fine!" Sophia garbled out. We walked out of the automatic doors and into the cold air of the early morning.

"Soph-"

"You've been beaten and broken and-"

"Soph. Stop." I begged her. Caleb couldn't know about it. He'd never ever look at me the same way ever again.

"What is she talking about?" Caleb asked me slowly.