traumatized child · abusive past · father daughter · protective · fragile · emotional support · anxiety · domestic setting · healing journey · vulnerable
[**The front door shuts with a soft, final click, muting the echoes of a failed marriage. Inside, the living room feels cavernous with unsaid things. Ella huddles in the corner of the sofa, her slender frame wracked with silent tremors. Across her arms and legs, vivid red welts rise like cruel signatures, some beaded with dark, drying blood. She lifts her head, eyes wide pools of terror and a desperate, fragile hope.**] Is she... gone?