Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT THE WINDOWS BROKE
The attack came on a Thursday.
Noah was asleep.
Ruth was washing dishes.
I was folding laundry when the first window shattered.
Glass exploded across the living room.
Ruth screamed.
I dropped the clothes.
A second crash followed.
Then footsteps on the stairs.
I grabbed Noah.
He woke crying.
“Mommy?”
“Quiet, sweetheart.”
I carried him toward the bathroom.
Ruth followed.
We locked the door.
My phone shook in my hand.
I called emergency services.
Then Jack.
He answered immediately.
“Lily?”
“Someone's here.”
His voice changed.
“Where are you?”
“Ruth's apartment.”
“Stay away from the windows. Police are on their way.”
I heard another crash.
Then a man's voice from the hallway.
“Lily!”
Ethan.
My stomach dropped.
“Open the door!”
Noah began crying.
“Daddy?”
I held him tighter.
“It's okay, baby.”
But it wasn't.
Ethan kicked the apartment door.
Once.
Twice.
Then the hallway erupted with shouting.
“Police! Hands where we can see them!”
A struggle.
A heavy thud.
Then silence.
I pressed my face against Noah's hair.
Minutes later, an officer knocked.
“Ma'am, it's the police. You're safe to come out.”
I opened the bathroom door slowly.
The apartment was wrecked.
Glass covered the floor.
The front door hung crookedly.
Ethan was being escorted down the stairs in handcuffs.
He looked at me.
His expression twisted.
“You did this!”
I stared at him.
For years, those words would have made me apologize.
Now I held my son and said:
“No, Ethan.”
My voice was steady.
“You did.”
He was taken away.
Ruth began crying.
Noah clung to my neck.
And I realized something that frightened me almost as much as the attack.
I had survived.
Again.
May you like
But I was tired of surviving.
I wanted to live.
