The tears were running down his face.
“Please don’t call the police.”
My heart seemed to stop.
“Lily...”
“Please, Mom.”
He grabbed me from the wrist.
“I didn’t want to hurt myself.”
I could barely breathe.
“What did he do?”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then the truth came out in choppy fragments.
On Saturday night, she and Marcus had argued.
He had been drinking.
Not enough to fall, Lily said, but enough to make her voice stronger than normal and have less patience.
She wanted to call me to ask me to let her go home.
Marcus told him it wasn't dramatic.
Lily went upstairs to pack her bag anyway.
He followed her.
“I kept saying that I was disrespecting him,” he whispered. “I told him he wasn’t my father.”
My stomach turned.
“And then?”
Lily looked at the door.
