Reaching forward to grab the hem of her t-shirt, I pull the fabric up to expose her abdomen. My eyes widen at the sight of her skin. “Shit,” I whisper, staring at the scars in disbelief. My fingers reach out to examine her wounds, and it takes a moment for me to be able to speak. “How long?” I finally manage to blurt out.
She shakes her head in response.
Little circular lesions are littered all over her side like ugly, unnatural freckles. They can only be one thing: cigarette burns. One of the wounds looks fresh, like it was made tonight, but several of the other marks look older and faded. I lift her shirt a little more, and I see blue and purple bruises on her skin, like she was punched repeatedly. Some of the bruises are turning yellow, so I know they are relics of past injuries. Unfortunately, it looks like there have been new bruises added to her pre-existing ones.
How did I not know this was happening?
I gulp down a bit of bile that has been gathering at the back of my throat. The muscles in my jaw tighten until it hurts. I suppress my urge to unleash a cavalcade of curses inappropriate for the ears of a young girl. “How long has he been doing this?”
“A while, I suppose.”
My blood is simmering to a boil beneath my skin. “You suppose?”
She shrugs and brushes her hands over her middle as if she could remove the pain as easily as pieces of lint. “It doesn’t bother me that much. I can easily block it out.”
“But…” I say slowly, trying to keep calm, “but I barely sleep. I would have woken up. I would have heard you scream before now.”
Scarlett shakes her head. “I don’t scream, Cole. I’m not weak. I mean… I guess I screamed tonight, but that was only because of my laptop. Not because of pain.”
“This ends now,” I say finally, rising to my feet. “The professor is right about me. I’m a useless piece of shit. I could have stopped this sooner. I had a feeling something was wrong, but I never came into your room to check on you…”
“It’s okay,” she says softly.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“No, no, Cole. Please don’t.” Scarlett grabs my hand with both of hers to keep me from leaving the room. “This isn’t a big deal. I swear. I’m happy here. Relatively. I’m happy-ish.”
“You’re happy?” I ask her incredulously.
“Yeah. You don’t know what my life has been like.” She gives me a small smile. It’s rare to see her smile, and it catches me off guard. Her voice grows softer when she speaks. “This is easy.”
“Easy?”
“Just sit down,” she says, tugging on my hand. “Relax. A few burns aren’t the end of the world.”
“Burns killed my whole family,” I remind her gravely.
She sighs and uses all her strength to pull me back down beside her. “Just sit with me for a minute. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I should call the police,” I say suddenly. “He should go to jail for this.”
“No!” Scarlett says sharply, fear flashing across her eyes. “We’ll be separated. They’ll take us out of this home and move us god knows where.”
I pause. “You—don’t want to be separated?”
She looks down and shakes her head. “No. I really just need some stability. It’s driving me crazy, moving around all the time. A new school, a new town, a new family. I’m so sick of it.”
“I understand,” I tell her softly. She’s right. If I call the cops, we will probably never see each other again. I’m not going to risk that. “Just let me get my baseball bat. What if he comes back?”
“He won’t. Professor Brown gets tired quickly when he’s this drunk. He will barely remember any of this in the morning.” Scarlett pauses and studies me carefully. “Cole… did I ever tell you why I ran away from my last home?”
“No. But you said you were adopted by a really rich guy who was paying for you to go to private school. I thought that sounded like a sweet deal.”
“It was,” she says, with lowered eyes. “It was great. Until I got my first period.”
I look at her in confusion. Fear grows in me as I study her expressionless lips. Is she saying what I think…?
“He was molesting me,” Scarlett explains.
My jaw muscles grow slack. A wave of heat washes over me, and I feel sick to my stomach. She speaks so calmly that it gives me chills.
“No one believed me,” she says as she stares at her broken computer. “My adoptive father was a well-respected member of the community, and anyone would take his word over some troubled orphan kid. He was a politician, you see. Everyone I tried to tell called me ungrateful for not valuing his kindness more. The local police were all his buddies—and the social workers considered him a hero. These were the people who were supposed to protect me.”
“Scarlett... that’s terrible.”
“Yeah, but I started to realize they were right. In my situation, I couldn’t afford to be choosy and I needed to try to see the bright side of things. It didn’t matter if Benjamin—that was his name—came into my room at night; I had a good life, a good school, many comforts I’d never experienced before. He wasn’t really hurting me that much; he was gentle. Most of the time, I just had to lie there and focus on something else, and it would be over quickly.”
“How old were you?” I ask her hoarsely, almost afraid to hear the answer.
She hesitates. “Nine. I was nine when it started,” she responds.
I feel like I’m going to be sick. I am caught between a violent surge of rage that makes me want to grab my baseball bat and break everything, and just wanting to cry into Scarlett’s shoulder and tell her how sorry I am. Her body is so delicate and small, even though she is now fourteen. Her wrists and ankles
