The emergency room doors burst open before the ambulance had fully stopped.
Bright lights rushed above me as paramedics pushed my stretcher through a corridor filled with hurried footsteps, ringing phones, and clipped medical commands. Every movement sent another bolt of agony through the left side of my face.

“Twenty-seven-year-old female,” one paramedic announced. “Blunt-force trauma to the orbital region. Brief loss of consciousness. Heavy bleeding at the scene. Possible facial fractures.”
“Assault?” a nurse asked.
“Witnessed assault. Police are on the way.”
The word settled over me like ice.
Assault.
Until that moment, some foolish part of me had still wanted to call it an accident. A family argument. A terrible mistake made in anger.
But my father had picked up a brick.