“My husband beat me while I was pregnant and his parents laughed… but they didn’t know that a simple message would destroy everything.”

I fell to the ground, and the impact was what hurt the most, but the reaction of those who surrounded me.

—“How dramatic”— grumbled Raúl, as if the suffering were an act designed to make them uncomfortable.

Victor didn’t come to help me, didn’t hesitate, didn’t waver, he simply chose violence as an automatic response.

He walked towards the corner, took a wooden stick, and in that gesture the whole story of abuse that I wanted to fully accept was concentrated.

The blow to my thigh was sharp, direct, unremovable, and the scream that came out of me was both of pain and terror.