The Silent Pact

The bruise bloomed across my back like how a robin's underbelly looks bright against its dark feathers. I could see in the mirror the dark and ominous red against my pale skin. At eleven years old I studied it in the bathroom mirror, twisting awkwardly to see the full scope. The bruise, only half a day old, was beginning to evolve from a bright red to a dulled purple-blue. It was almost like art, I recalled. I couldn't look at my legs, which still stung. How do they look? I wondered while resisting the urge to look down. This was not the first time nor would it be the last but this one changed something fundamental inside me.

I heard some movement in the kitchen and quickly pulled my t-shirt down, wincing as the fabric brushed my tender skin. My mami was helping my tía prepare lunch. They spoke about things I don't recall. What I do recall is that it seemed like a normal conversation, not like anything life changing had just happened hours before. As though the words—stupid, worthless, ungrateful—had never left her lips and lodged themselves like splinters in my heart while the jump rope beat my flesh.

This was the pattern: explosion, silence, pretending. Verbal abuse with physical. A cycle as predictable as the earthquakes that shook this part of the world.

I brushed my hair. At this age, it was full and wavy. I still recall the mechanical movement of the brush through my hair, though the physical pain has faded from my memory. I don't know if I huddled in the corner of the back bedroom or for how long I cried. What I do remember is the feeling I had. The feeling of fear, betrayal, and understanding the price of loving someone who was my entire world.

I looked up at the mirror, my sad eyes grieving too much for a child. I brushed it off, put on a normal face and left the bathroom.

"¿Qué haces? Ayuda a poner la mesa" my mom said when I entered the kitchen. Her voice light, her smile normal. She wore her blue blouse. Her stay-at-home mom persona, the mom dedicated to her children. A version for the outside world. My aunt also just went about her normal routine, her face the same as always: mean but peaceful.

We sat down to eat - my tía, abuela, mother, little sister, and me. I don't recall the meal but it was probably a chicken/potato consommé followed by a small piece of meat with some rice. Nothing about the meal was memorable. All I remember is my little sister, four years younger, looking at me with a questionable and confused look. She was too young to understand but old enough to know something about the whole thing was not right. I picked up the dishes as I usually did after the meal. Everything was normal but I was not normal. I felt defective. I felt alone. I felt very alone. From that day on, I decided that alone would be the safest way to be.

That night I replayed it in fragments: me knocking on the bathroom door, her yells telling me to leave her alone, the opening of the bathroom door, my joy to see my mom, and then her sprint towards the inner garden, reaching for the jump rope, which just minutes before I used, with my sister, for fun, and then a whack. The pain, more than I had ever experienced.

The familiar refrain that always made me feel comforted by her would not work any longer; feeling the evidence of violence on my skin, something crystallized in my mind that day. A truth both simple and devastating: she would not protect me - she hurts me. Why? I would never know but what it meant for me was clear. I had to shield myself to protect myself.

With this realization came a kind of clarity. If I couldn't count on her to keep me safe, I would set rules for myself. Ways to minimize the risk. While I was not aware of this at the time, I now know that I began mentally isolating, a survival guide compiled by a child who should have been thinking about games and fun, not safety. I made a silent pact with myself. I would become smaller, quieter, more average. Hiding in plain sight by being ordinary.

I buried the part of me that still reached for her instinctively when I hurt. I suppressed that longing to crawl into her arms, to feel solid and secure in my mother's embrace. I still loved her with the uncomplicated devotion of a son for his mother but this love was no longer blind.

It was too dangerous to need her.

Outside, I recall the July air was warm. I took a deliberate breath, straightened my shoulders despite the pain, and began the walk to my friends house down the block. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time. The weight of my new understanding settling around me like an invisible cloak—both a burden and a shield.

Home was no longer a sanctuary. Love was no longer simple. And childhood, with its blind trust and easy affection, had ended with the crack of rope against skin and the shattering of something more fragile still.