I WOKE UP TO FIND MY DOG STARING AT ME—AND THEN I SAW WHAT WAS UNDER THE BED (7 of 10)

Months passed.

Murphy never left her side.

She started school again. Made a few friends. Even joined the art club.

She still had bad nights. Panic attacks. Flashbacks. But she learned to talk through them. Sometimes she’d wake me up crying, and I’d sit with her, just listening.

One evening, about a year after she first appeared under my bed, she came home holding a small trophy.

“Second place in the school art show,” she said, trying to act casual. But her grin gave her away.

I hung it on the fridge like it was the Nobel Prize.

Then came the twist I never saw coming.

One afternoon, I got a call. From her mother.

She’d been looking for Nora for over a year. Said she’d left her husband. That she had no idea what was happening until recently. That she’d only just found out about the abuse.

I didn’t know what to believe.