S usan stumbled a few steps down the hall, hugging her arms, before her bones seemed to give out and she fell against the wall. Archie was behind her in a moment, his hand on her shoulder. It was a comforting touch, nothing sexual about it. Susan wasn’t used to that. She turned away, pressing her forehead against the cinder-block wall so that he couldn’t see her blotchy face, the tears, her smeared lipstick. Archie moved around in front of her, never taking his hand off her shoulder, and then leaned against the wall, put his hands in his pockets, and waited. The sound of a door, then footsteps, and Henry was in the hallway, too, a guard, the lawyer. God, they had all seen everything. Susan wanted to die.
“Why don’t you give us a minute?” Archie said to them all, and they all slid back behind the observation room door, except for the guard, who glanced around awkwardly and then slipped into the interview room, where Gretchen Lowell still sat. When they were alone in the hall, Archie asked, “When did it start?”
The cinder-block wall was painted with glossy gray paint. It reminded Susan of an overcast winter sky, when the clouds appear solid, a canopy of ash. “When I was a sophomore. I ended it when I went to college.” She mustered up her dignity, drawing herself to her full height, lifting her chin. “I was precocious. It was consensual.”
“Technically, no, it wasn’t,” he said. She could see the color in his face change as he tried to suppress his frustration, his fists tightening in his pants pockets. “You should have said something. Did it occur to you that the victims were all fifteen-year-old girls? All raped.”
Susan shrank into herself. “He didn’t rape me,” she said. She felt defensive, ridiculous. “And I was going to tell you. But it didn’t seem relevant. You would have harassed him. He would have lost his job. Besides, you said he had an alibi.”
“Statutory rape is a crime. If the statute of limitations weren’t up, I’d go and arrest him right now. Did anyone know? Your parents?”
Susan laughed sadly. “Bliss? She didn’t know anything.” She twisted her mouth up. “She probably would have been supportive. She always hated setting boundaries.”
Archie gave Susan a dubious look.
And suddenly, with a little shock, Susan knew that she was wrong. “No,” Susan admitted. “She would have hated it. She would have made sure he went to jail.” She turned away. “But she didn’t know. Because I didn’t tell her.” She pressed her knuckles against the cinder block until she felt the rough cement break the skin. “I think I was mad at her for not figuring it out.”
“Were there any other girls?”
Susan couldn’t even look at him. “Not that I know of.”
“I can’t just forget we had this conversation, Susan. I have to report it. I will do everything I can to get him fired.”
“It was ten years ago,” Susan pleaded. “I seduced him. My father had just died and I needed comfort. Paul was my favorite teacher. It wasn’t his fault.” She looked away. “I was hardly a virgin.”
“He was an adult,” Archie said. “He should have known better.”
Susan began the work of cleaning herself up, wiping the tears off her face, tucking her tangle of pink hair behind her ears. “If you report it, I’ll deny it. And so will Paul.” She bit her lip so hard it felt like it might split. “I just wanted to explain.”
“Explain what?”
Susan looked away, fingers splayed as she tried to find the right words. Her knuckles were pink from where she had dug them into the wall. “Why I am the way I am. All those things Gretchen Lowell said in there. They’re true.”
Archie looked her in the eye under his heavy brows. “Gretchen says a lot of things in the hopes that one or two of them will stick and make you suffer. Believe me, I know this. Don’t give her that power. And don’t give Reston that power, either. He’s a creep. Adult men should not sleep with teenagers. Period. The ones who do have some serious issues.” He leaned close to her, so close that for a moment she had an impulse to press her forehead into his neck. “And those issues belong to them, not you.”
“It’s ancient history,” Susan said.
Archie gently took each of her wrists and lifted her hands away to reveal her tear-stained face. “I have to go back in there now, and it’s going to be a little while. Why don’t you wait out here.”
Susan’s face fell. “Can’t I wait in the observation room?”
Archie lifted his hand and wiped a tear that still hung on her cheek. “When I go back in there, Gretchen is going to give me her confession,” he said. “Every detail of how she tortured and killed Gloria Juarez.” His face darkened. “You don’t want to have to hear that if you don’t have to.”
He gave Susan a last pat on the shoulder and started walking back toward the room where Gretchen sat waiting for him. Susan watched him as he walked, one arm extended, the fingertips of his hand dancing along the cinder-block wall.
She wondered if he was this high all the time, or just on Sundays. She decided this wasn’t the time to ask.