A few minutes later, his mom came walking towards the living room. "Rae, are you..." Rae's mom started, but then walked into the living room, and saw the two of them snuggled up on the floor. She smiled, and then noticed that neither of them budged when she came into the room, talking to Rae. She walked around in front of them, and looked at their faces, just to make sure they were alright. She smiled as she noticed that they had fallen asleep. She walked off, grabbed her camera, and came back into the living room. She took a picture of them together, leaning on each other, with their fingers intertwined. She smiled when she saw Elissa's face, peacefully sleeping with a smile on her face, the exact opposite of when she had first seen her. She walked back out of the living room, and left the two alone. She turned around just to make sure they weren't going to fall over or anything, when she noticed something. Rae's mom's eyes turned into saucers as she walked closer to Elissa to examine her back more closely. She almost fainted when she saw the huge scar on her back. "What has this child gotten herself into?" she sighed out loud.
"She's gotten into a lot of things, it seems like."
Rae's mom jumped when she heard Matt's voice coming from behind her. "Matt, what...how do you know about that scar? What happened to her?"
"I'm not sure what happened or how it happened, but I do know that it somehow involved her dad," Matt explained.
"It involved her dad? I wonder what he did to her..." she thought out loud.
"That's what I was wondering when I overheard those two talking about it."
"Looks like child abuse..." another voice said.
"How do you know, Robert?" their mom asked him.
"Well, you said that she only had a dad, and no mom, correct?" Robert answered.
"Yes, why do you ask that?" Mrs. Irving asked.
"Well, it's not like she would purposely try to hit herself on her back. If she did actually try to kill herself, then there would be millions of other options for her to take, without going through that much trouble. And you said that all you knew was it involved her dad, am I correct?" Robert diverted his attention to Matt this time.
Matt just nodded, and shrugged. "That doesn't mean I'm absolutely sure about it, though..." he sighed.
"Well, it's just easy to assume that it was her dad who did that to her," he explained, walking off.
"I can't believe a father would do something like that to his own flesh and blood," Mrs. Irving sighed. "Poor girl, maybe that's why she's been spending the night over here..."
Matt shrugged, and walked off.
Mrs. Irving grabbed a blanket off of the couch where Rae slept, and covered both of them with it. She leaned over and kissed Rae on the forehead, and then hugged Elissa slightly, and finally left them alone.
