Misprinted Lies (Alice in Chains/Bruno Mars)

Beautiful Soul

Lily's face was saturated in tears. A nurse ran a rape kit and took pictures. As she got poked and prodded like an animal, or worse, an object, I stared into her eyes. No one was living in there.

I didn't leave the hospital for three days and definitely didn't sleep. Jerry and the guys stopped by, but she was sleeping for the first time in a while.

"Is she going home today?" Jerry asked, rubbing her forehead gently.

"I really hope so but we have to see what the x-rays show."

"X-rays?" Mike asked.

I parted the top of her hospital gown to expose the bruising on her chest. Those marks took some more time to show. I laid my hand there for a few seconds, feeling the motions of her unsteady breathing.

"How is that possible? Wouldn't we have known that?"

I turned my body closer to Lily's direction. "I know. I guess it's like the other stuff. I don't think she had the energy and strength to tell me. She was too scared."

Lily woke up, startled by the amount of people in the room.

I took her hand. "It's okay, baby girl. We're all here for you...we're all here cause we care about you."

She gave my hand a weak squeeze. "I wanna go home."

"I know sweetie. Just a little while longer, okay?"

Her ribs weren't broken, but severely bruised. It was going to be a rough recovery. A few hours later, Lily and I got called down to the Seattle Special Victims Unit, a division of the Seattle Police Department that primarily deals with sexual abuse crimes and crimes against children. Lily was a victim of both. We met with a detective who would be interviewing Lily in order to see who had hurt her. We all had a good idea.

The detective crouched down in front of Lily, taking out his badge.

"Hi Lily. My name is Elliot. I'm a police officer."

She smiled nervously, playing with her fingers.

"Don't be afraid," he said, pulling out a wallet full of pictures of kids. "I'm a daddy. We're going to go into that room and talk, okay?"

She kept the same look on her face and looked up at me for approval. I gave her a nod and smile. Elliot took her hand and led her into the room. There was a two-way mirror so we could hear what was going on. The room was very colorful, littered with colors and toys. They stood for a little while to decide what to do.

"So Lily do you wanna play with dolls, puzzles, or draw?"

"Puzzles."

Elliot pulled out a puzzle. They started working on it for a few minutes before Elliot started asking questions.

"Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

She gulped and her whole expression changed. Lily was smart; she knew exactly what was coming, even with this disguise. She squeezed her little stuffed dog a little tighter. I bought it for her in the hospital gift shop. "O-Okay."

"When you go to Mommy's house, do you do puzzles?"

She shrugged.

"Oh come on," he joked. "I'm sure you do something fun. Do you play with toys?"

"No."

Elliot frowned and she noticed his reaction.

She stood up and backed away. "I don't wanna talk anymore."

"Hold on," he said softly, waving his hand. "C'mere."

Lily took a couple of steps toward him again.

"How 'bout you talk about Daddy? What do you do at Daddy's house?"

There it was, the moment of truth. Her face lit up and I could feel mine too.

"You love being with Daddy, huh?"

She nodded wearily and smiled. "We play games and watch movies and go outside and he sings to me a lot."

I was so grateful, relieved, and happy that she was talking about me in this way. Sometimes it was so hard to tell.

"Why is it different at Mommy's?"

Her whole expression did a 180 degree flip. "Um...um."

"It's okay. You can tell me," he said, grabbing her hand.

She crawled into Elliot's lap.

"She hurts me. She hurts me a lot," her little voice said. 

She went into a lot of other details about what Courtney did to her, but I don't even want to explain them.

There it was. I felt so ashamed and awful and happy. My heart was so heavy it was on the floor. All these months she enjoyed being with me but I didn't with her, not all the time. And worst of all I was completely blind to her suffering. I'm such an asshole.

"Alright, alright, it's okay. I'm going to fix all this, don't worry," Elliot said, comforting her.

"Oh no," she said, getting up.

"What?"

She swallowed. "Please don't tell."

"Lily, you're going to be fine."

She backed away. "No. don't tell. It's a secret. I'm going to get in trouble."

"Honey you're not going to go back to her...don't worry."

"Mommy's going to hurt me again," she whined.

It was as if she didn't even hear what Elliot said. She continued to hyperventilate.

When they finally came out of the room, she ran into my legs and nearly knocked me over. I squeezed her tight. It was gratifying knowing I was doing something right.

I couldn't wait to take her home. She was so tired. Between the hospital and the police station, the poor thing was put through the wringer. I held her little hand as I opened the door.

"Welcome back home, Lily."

It was already late afternoon. It was raining, a typical day in Seattle. I made her a very light dinner. Every part of her was more fragile than ever. She was so frail even when she did simple things like walk.

I turned on the bathtub faucet. She shied away from me, away from my hands as I tried to comfort her.

"Hey," I said, raising the pitch of my voice. "Why don't you show me what a big girl you are and start taking your clothes off?"

She shook her head.

"Please?" I begged softly.

"Can't," she said, breaking down into tears.

I held out my hands and she walked into them. I grabbed her head with both of my hands, holding a long kiss on her forehead. Her whole body trembled; her fingers shook as they brushed up against the inside of my arms.

"You can do it," I said, smiling.

She gave me a very fake smile and took her little sweatshirt off first. Her shirt lifted with it, exposing her dark, bruised skin. She looked down and examined herself for a little. She took off the rest of her clothes, shivering even with a slight fever.

I held her hand as she climbed into the tub. She was too afraid to sit down. After three attempts at squatting to get close to the water, she stood up burst into tears, again.

I lightly brushed my fingers over the bruises on her back to soothe her. Her sad, yet beautiful blue eyes met mine. "You can do it, sweetie."

She took a deep breath and nodded her head, smiling. The surge of confidence on her face was priceless, so damn cute. She took a final moment and lowered herself into the water.

I could only feel shame, once again. I could have lost her. The world almost lost an angel with the most beautiful soul.