“Ethan, my leg is broken.”

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before disrespecting my mother.”

Then they walked back into the living room.

I heard football on the television, dishes clinking together, and laughter floating through the house. I lay on the kitchen floor with a shattered leg while they continued eating stew as though it were an ordinary evening. My purse sat in the dining room. My phone, debit cards, and ID were all inside it. Linda had been holding onto them for months “to stop me from doing something irrational.” Ethan insisted it was for my own protection. After I lost a ten-week pregnancy because they delayed taking me to the doctor for hours, I already understood one thing perfectly: inside that family, my suffering would always come last.

Time turned strange and heavy.

Sometimes I blacked out.

Sometimes I woke to the sound of laughter.

At one point, I heard Ethan say:

“You have to put women in their place early, or eventually they walk all over you.”

Something inside me snapped.

Or maybe it finally woke up.

I stopped waiting for someone to rescue me.

I dragged myself toward the lower kitchen cabinets. Every inch felt like fire ripping through my body. Inside one drawer, I found an old rusted can opener. I didn’t use it against anyone. Instead, I jammed it into the screws holding the old back-door grate and forced them loose until my fingers bled.

The opening was tiny, but I had lost so much weight living in that house that I managed to squeeze through.

When I dropped into the backyard, pain exploded through me so violently my vision turned white. Part of me wanted to stay there forever in the wet dirt.

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But Mrs. Greene’s house next door wasn’t far away.

I dragged myself across the ground using my elbows, leaving a dark trail behind me. By the time I reached her porch, I barely had enough strength left to knock.

Mrs. Greene answered the door wearing a pale blue sweater wrapped around her shoulders. The moment she saw me, her hand flew to her chest.

“Help me,” I whispered.

Before darkness swallowed me again, I heard her calling 911 while muttering angrily:

“That family again. But this time, somebody’s finally going to stop them.”

I woke beneath fluorescent hospital lights with my leg immobilized and a nurse gently squeezing my hand. Dr. Reynolds spoke carefully and softly.

“You have fractures in both your tibia and fibula. You’ll need surgery, and we also need to notify law enforcement.”

“Not yet,” I whispered weakly. “First I need them looking for me.”

Nurse Emily looked confused but respected my request. Using an old phone Mrs. Greene brought to the hospital, I called my parents in North Carolina. My mother started sobbing the second she heard my voice.