Before the door crashed open, before the world devolved into splintered wood and sharp, blinding pain, there was the whisper. It slithered through the crack beneath my bedroom door—a venomous, drunken hiss from the hallway. “Think you’re somebody now, huh, little soldier girl?” Dylan’s voice was a slurry of cheap beer, probably the brand he favored, but the hatred in it was sharp enough to cut glass. “Come back here to show off?”

I lay perfectly still on my bed, the thin cotton sheets sticking to my skin in the oppressive San Antonio heat. The ceiling fan above me did nothing but stir the soupy, humid air. My heart, however, was a frantic drum against my ribs—a trapped bird beating itself against a cage. Every instinct, every ounce of my basic training screamed at me: Assess the threat. Identify egress routes. Neutralize. But I wasn’t on a training field. I was in the room with the faded floral wallpaper of my childhood. And the monster outside was my stepbrother. So I did what the little girl inside me had always done: I played dead. I didn’t answer, praying to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore that he would just give up and stumble away.

But silence to a bully is not a deterrent. It’s gasoline.