Liv snaps her fingers in front of my nose. “Are you saying you didn’t hear the story?”
“I just heard. I was in a car accident, in the hospital.” I hold up my splinted wrist. “I was discharged an hour ago. I snuck out of my house when my mother went to get the ginger ale I begged for. It doesn’t matter, never mind. I called you. I’ve been calling you,” I stammer.
She moves to the burnished-gold antique mirror and turns her cheek to it. “The story got around fast. A matter of hours, really.” She touches the edge of her bandage. “I guess the holiday break didn’t slow the rumor mill.”
“Shane is a criminal. He deserves everything he gets.” I search her eyes in the mirror for agreement. There is nothing. I had expected nothing; anything would have surprised me.
Which means it’s Go Time.
“I hear he’s going to jail for a long time,” I say. “Twenty years, maybe.”
“Nooo,” Liv says, drawing out the word as she tightens the belt on her jacket. “He’s going to juvie for six months.”
“That’s not long enough. Shane is pure evil. Calculating.”
“It’s over.” She moves away from the mirror and drops to her knees at the biggest suitcase, popping the buckles and setting the cover against the wall. She unclicks the crisscrossed straps and removes two sweaters. From a nearby bag labeled Blick Art Materials she slips a set of colored pencils in a wooden box sealed in plastic, along with a tablet of creamy, expensive-looking paper. She places them in the spot where the sweaters were and runs her fingers over them, smiling.
“Thank God it’s over.” I swallow hard and plow through. “In some ways, I feel like this was all part of Shane’s master plan, you know? Get his dream girl, then mark her in some ghastly, irreversible way that will make her forever his.”
“That’s ridiculous. Shane doesn’t have the brainpower to plan his own course load each semester, never mind mastermind ways to keep a girlfriend,” Liv says, closing the suitcase and snapping the locks.
“People don’t realize,” I say. “It takes a lot of courage and strength to break it off with an abuser. The fact that people experience domestic violence doesn’t make them inherently weak. Abusers like Shane are able to manipulate and coerce girls like you by chipping away at your self-esteem. It happened so slowly that you probably weren’t even aware of it. Then, bam! The violent attack happens.”
“Wait.” Liv stands and brushes off her knees, the round hall table between us. “What do you mean by ‘girls like me’?”
“Statistically, many victims grow up in homes where there’s abuse, physical or emotional. It’s the norm. It conditions them to accept dysfunction and unhappiness.”
Liv circles the table. “Conditions them. The victims?”
“Sure. Victims like you were raised to accept abuse as the norm. So, in some way, your mother orchestrated all of this.”
“My mother,” she says, shaking her head. “My mother doesn’t get credit here. Shane doesn’t get credit here.”
I reach out blindly and touch the table, trying to blunt the urge to run. “I was thinking. It’s a shame you weren’t able to hold him off.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just that he’s such a scrawny punk. So soft. Weak-seeming.”
Her eyes flash. “He had a knife, Julia.”
“Like Donald Jessup. Been there.” I laugh weakly, clear my throat, and back away, avoiding her eyes. “I was so afraid of that knife the first time I saw it. Nine inches of serrated stainless steel, I found out later. How big was Shane’s knife? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. When I pulled Donald Jessup off of you, I was sure he would swing around with that blade and get me. The thing is, with a knife, you have to control the attacker’s weapon hand. Kick ’em in the groin, gouge the eyes, strike the throat. Hurt their vulnerable targets. But skills can only get you so far. I didn’t have them that day in the woods. Kellan’s father says stopping an attacker requires innate bravery.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Liv’s voice quivers. She steps closer, her ear resting on her shoulder at an extreme angle. “Are you saying that I’m not as brave as you?”
“I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m devastated about what happened to your face,” I say.
“You think brave is answering someone’s cry for help in the woods. I call that an instinctual reflex: fight or flight. Some people choose flight. You happened to choose fight. You want to know what brave is? Brave is meticulous planning. Staying with the plan, even when you get cold feet.”
My stomach grips. “What plan?”
“Bravery is trading something you love for something you love more. Like your freedom.” Liv leans in close and says coolly, “I gave him the knife, Julia. Think about it.”