He studied me, and I knew what he saw. Not the kind of person who storms in screaming. Not the kind of person who makes threats and regrets them. I wore plain jeans and a cardigan. My hair was in a low bun because I’d pulled it back when my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I looked like a woman who paid her bills on time.
The officer tapped the paper once. “Do you want to press charges?”
The question hit like a weight on my chest.
There’s a moment, when you’re raised in a certain kind of family, where the word charges doesn’t sound like justice. It sounds like betrayal. It sounds like you’re the one doing something wrong. Like you’re breaking a rule no one ever wrote down but everyone expects you to follow.
Don’t embarrass us.
Don’t make this public.
Don’t ruin her life.
I could already hear my mother’s voice saying it, soft and pleading. My father’s silence behind it. My sister’s outrage, like she was the injured party.
But then I saw the number again in my mind.
$560,000.
The years of my life that number could swallow if I let it.