“Yes, yes, that!”
“I can’t tell you yet. You have to trust me. Just as I’m trusting you, by telling you this much. Do you understand? I’m telling you because I trust you, Livia. But if we tell anyone else, even Mrs. Lone, it creates danger for Nason. I’m doing all I can. Now, do you trust me?”
She felt her arms trying to move in front of her. She stopped them.
“Yes. That’s right, Livia. That’s a good girl. You trust me, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“And you respect my position as head of the household, yes?”
Again she nodded.
“Then show me you trust me. Show me you respect me. Show me.”
What could she do? She looked down and parted her arms while the tears ran down her cheeks.
He reached behind him and picked up the towel, then stepped close and wrapped it around her. She felt a sob shake loose, and bit down hard to stop the next one.
“Don’t do that with the door again,” he said.
She shook her head and managed to say, “I won’t.”
“When I have updates about Nason, I’ll want to know I can share them with you. Privately. In this bathroom, in fact, where no one else can hear us. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Look at me, Livia.”
She did. And for a moment, her fear, her confusion, even her thoughts of Nason . . . it was all gone. She stopped crying, feeling nothing but an overwhelming, burning hate. It felt like a force, like something radiating from her yet also somehow separate. Something that was new inside her and still relatively small, but that one day could become big. Terrifying. Could he sense it? How could he not?
“Tell me you understand. Say it.”
She let her vision defocus, so she was looking more through him than at him. That was better. Yes. It was better not to have to see him.
“I understand.”
He nodded. “That’s a good girl.” He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll talk again soon. I promise.”
She pulled on clothes the instant he was gone. Then stuck her head under the faucet in the bath and washed her hair again, scrubbing the spot his lips had touched.
Nason. Was she really all right? In danger of some kind, yes, but still, all right?
Part of her thought she shouldn’t believe Mr. Lone. But how could someone lie about something like that? And besides, she had to believe him. She just had to. She had to believe that Nason was all right. That somehow, soon, they would be together again.
She stood in front of the mirror, pulling a comb through her damp hair. She was amazed Mr. Lone hadn’t seen her hate. But she could tell he hadn’t.
She couldn’t say why, but she realized she needed to hide her hate. Her hate had made her feel strong. And it was better if he didn’t know she was strong. Because her hatred . . . could be a kind of warning.
And she didn’t want to warn him. She wanted to surprise him.
With what, she didn’t know yet. But something.
22—THEN
School was horrible. Livia had thought her English was good enough, but it turned out that listening to Nanu and the other tutors in a quiet room where she could see everyone’s face was one thing. A noisy room from far away, and without being able to ask questions if she didn’t understand something, was another.
Some of the teachers were nice, but she didn’t like the children at all. At best, they ignored her. A few treated her as a curiosity, staring at her and asking if it was true they ate bugs where she came from. Livia wanted to tell them that when you’re hungry enough, you eat anything, but she knew they were stupid and had never gone to bed with anything other than full bellies and they would never understand. So she didn’t bother answering.
Some of the children were mean. They made fun of her accent and her struggles with English. They had heard she was Lahu, and spread rumors that she liked to eat dogs, warning the other children to be on the lookout for their pets when Livia Lahu was around. One group of bullies in particular, ninth graders led by a blond boy named Eric, would sometimes surround her and chant, “La-hoo, La-hoo,” drawing out the second syllable in long, mocking high voices. Other times, one of them would sneak up from behind and knock her books out of her arms, then run away while the others laughed at her helpless fury. And they’d repeatedly ask if she was going to jump out a window onto a fence and kill herself. That taunt she didn’t even understand.
She hated them. She hated anyone who took advantage of people who were smaller or weaker. And she hated herself almost as much, for being so small and weak. She told herself the bullies were stupid and soft, that none of them could handle an a-taw, or stalk a bird in the forest, or avoid the plants that could make you sick and find the ones that could be used as medicine.