“What if I react that way with Wes? What if when we kiss, my body reacts like it’s bad instead of like it’s good?”
“If kissing is something you and Wes both decide you want, then maybe you start slow. Holding hands. Going on a date. Or hanging out. Whatever you kids call it these days.”
“We hang out all the time.”
“Good. Then you can talk to him,” she continues. “You said he knows you’ve been abused. Does he know about this part?”
I shake my head.
“Talking is important in any relationship. And you two talk a lot, right?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe the best thing to do is tell him you want to kiss him, but you need to do it in your own time. That way you’re not waiting for him to initiate anything and it’s not a surprise. Would that take some pressure off?”
I never even thought of kissing Wes first, but now that she’s suggested keeping the power in my hands, the possibility seizes hold of me. No breathless waiting for it to happen to me, but instead being breathless in anticipation because I could choose the moment.
“What if he laughs at me?” I don’t think he will. Wes is not like that. But it’s scary, thinking about being so blunt about what’s been unspoken and said in glances and barely there touches and bodies that get closer and closer each week, sitting in front of the TV.
“Then you’ll know he’s not a boy who deserves to kiss you,” Margaret says, and that makes me laugh, because she’s the kind of honest I wish I knew how to be.
We fall into a silence that’s not uncomfortable, but heavy. Like the air before a rainstorm: You can smell it on the wind, feel the possibility of the fall of water in the atmosphere, and then it just breaks and the skies open.
“How do I keep this from ruining my life?” I ask her.
“By doing exactly what we’ve been working for here,” she says. “Look at you and how you’re moving forward. That’s not ruining your life, Nora. It’s healing it. Seeing obstacles before they become roadblocks.”
I want to believe her. That this is just an obstacle, not a roadblock.
But I have lived so many lives already. Been so many girls. I’ve learned things from each of them. Katie taught me fear. Not of men. I already knew to fear them, because don’t all girls learn, in the end? I just learned faster and earlier than some, and later and slower than others.
Katie taught me a new fear. She taught me to fear myself. Because she was the closest to me I’ve ever played at being until Nora, and something about that drew Joseph in, didn’t it?
Once I finally find the words to ask her, Margaret tells me that nothing about it was my fault. That I didn’t do anything wrong. She repeats that he was a predator. That I trusted myself. My instincts. I reacted the right way for me.
So why do I still feel so wrong?
（She’s not normal.）
It’s an answer I don’t have. But I’m still looking.
I’ll keep looking.
Part Three
Freedom . . .
（The Last 45 Minutes）
— 42 —
Ashley （Age 12）： How It Ends （In Three Acts）
Five and a Half Years Ago
Act 1: Help
I’m in a hotel suite. My sister brought me here, through the back entrance and service elevator. The second the door shuts behind us, she shoves me into the shower, closing us into this artificial bubble of clean linens and expensive hotel smell.
“Rinse all of it off,” she orders. “Wash your hair twice. Scrub yourself down three times. Use this under your nails.” She gives me a toothbrush still in its plastic. “Put your clothes in here.” She holds out a bag, and I’m numb enough to obey her.
But I’m not numb enough to not wait quietly until she’s left the room so I can undress. I slip the thumb drive from the pocket of my sandy jeans, tucking it behind the stack of toilet paper where she won’t look for it. Then the clothes go in the bag like she asked.
When I get out of the shower and into my robe, she’s gone. So is the bag of my clothes. For a minute, I wonder if she’s left me here. If she’s finally decided it was better to just save herself, instead of both of us.
Can I blame her? I had the same thought on the beach.
But then the hotel room door swings open, and there she is again. The relief has my knees turning watery, and I want to cling to her like I’ve never clung to anyone in my life, but I can’t.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize,” she says, and I realize that’s what’s spilling from my mouth. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.