But the eyes that looked back at me didn’t belong to parents looking at their injured daughter. They belonged to spectators looking at an inconvenience. My father’s face was a mask of weary resignation. He sighed, a long, put-upon sound as if I’d just spilled milk on the carpet. And Evelyn… Evelyn smiled. It wasn’t a real smile. It was a smirk of pure, triumphant malice, a victor’s grin that said, “See, I told you you’re nothing here.” Then she spoke, and her voice was a slow, sweet poison. “Oh, now, Kenya, honey,” she cooed, tilting her head. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

The words sucked the air from my lungs. Dramatic? The world began to tilt, the edges of my vision blurring. Through the fog of pain, I heard my father’s voice, devoid of all concern, piling on the verdict. “Her brother’s drunk,” he said to Evelyn, not to me. “She always did love the attention.” And then they laughed. It wasn’t a loud laugh, just a low, shared chuckle of amusement between them. That sound, that soft, dismissive sound, was a thousand times more brutal than the screwdriver in my shoulder. My father didn’t just abandon me. He took the side of my attacker. He signed, sealed, and delivered the death sentence of our relationship with a laugh.