She pulled a chair close and asked me to walk her through the events in order. I told her the story again, and she asked very precise questions about the timeline. She asked if I had asked to go to the hospital and if I had been able to get out of the car.
Then, she asked if anything like this had ever happened before. That question opened a door to a dozen other memories of neglect. I told her about being left at school for hours and having dental pain ignored.
I told her how Rick refused to buy me medicine and how my mother told everyone I was ungrateful. Paige took detailed notes on everything I said. She told me that medical neglect included delays in seeking treatment when a child clearly needs urgent care.
She asked if I felt safe returning to my mother’s house. I told her I didn’t know because saying “no” felt like jumping off a cliff into the unknown. I was terrified of what would happen to me if I didn’t go back.
She gave me her card and told me that I wasn’t alone anymore. After she left, I picked up my phone and saw a series of messages from my family. My mother was asking why I hadn’t answered them, and Rick was warning me not to tell people they did something wrong.
I scrolled past them until I found a contact I had saved months ago as “Harry from school.” I had found my biological father’s number in an old phone hidden in a kitchen drawer. My mother had never deleted his messages; she had just buried them under layers of junk.
The messages I had read back then showed a man who was begging to see his son. He had sent child support payments and cards that I had never received. I had saved his number just in case, though I never thought I would actually use it.
I typed a message telling him who I was and that I almost died. I told him I was in the ICU and that I needed help. I hit send and watched the bubble turn blue.
Within seconds, he responded. He asked if I was safe and told me he was leaving his house in North Carolina immediately to come to me. He told me he had been waiting eighteen years for me to ask him for anything.
I put the phone down and cried into the hospital blankets. That afternoon, my mother returned to the room with her “worried mother” mask firmly in place. She saw Paige’s card on the bedside table and her face went cold.