What I found instead broke me.
The front door was unlocked. That should have been my first warning. The house felt wrong the moment I stepped inside. Too quiet. Too empty. The furniture was gone. The walls bare where family photos once hung.
I followed a faint sound toward the living room, my heart pounding harder with each step.
She was on the floor.
Pale. Trembling. Her breathing shallow and uneven. Pain etched across her face in ways I had never seen before. She looked small. Fragile. Like the strength that once defined her had been slowly drained away.
I dropped to my knees, calling her name, my hands shaking as I tried to help her sit up.
She smiled anyway.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” she whispered.
At the hospital, the truth came out slowly. Not all at once, but in pieces that hurt more the longer they came together.
