Her sneakers were soaked through. Every step made a dull crunch against the fresh layer of snow that had been falling since sunset, and the thin pink coat she wore—two winters too small and torn at the cuff—did almost nothing to keep the wind from slicing through her ribs.
Still, she kept walking.
Not quickly.
Just steadily.
Because behind her was the little rental house at the edge of town where shouting had started before dinner and where a glass plate had shattered against the kitchen wall an hour later, and where the man her mother insisted was “trying his best” had begun stomping through the hallway with a bottle in his hand.
Maya had waited in her bedroom at first.
She always did.
Sometimes the yelling burned itself out.
Sometimes her mother cried afterward and promised things would change.
But tonight something about the sound of that man’s voice—louder than usual, angrier—had filled the house with a kind of sharpness that made breathing feel dangerous.
