At first I thought he was simply disrupting the lesson and didn’t want to listen to me․․․
At first, I thought Daniel was just being disruptive—standing up every few minutes, drawing laughs from classmates. I scolded him, assuming he wanted attention. But his eyes told me something was different.
When the bell rang, I asked him to stay. Alone, I crouched to his level.
“Why are you acting this way? Were you trying to upset me?”
His face reddened. “No… it just hurts to sit.”
He lifted his shirt, and my heart dropped. The marks on his skin weren’t accidents. With trembling hands, I asked softly, “Who did this to you?”
Through tears, he whispered: “My stepfather. He always does… if I disobey.”
That day, I contacted the school psychologist and authorities. Soon after, the truth came out—his mother was also trapped in fear, living under the stepfather’s control.
It was a brutal reminder: sometimes abuse hides in plain sight, invisible until someone dares to look closer.
