“Yeah.” She places her hand on her injured abdomen and gives me a crooked smile, as if to relieve the tension caused by her brutal honesty. “The stuff Professor Brown is doing? The cigarette burns and mild violence—it’s not that bad. It only hurts me, and only temporarily. It doesn’t put my future at risk, and it doesn’t put any possible children in danger. I can live with the kind of abuse that doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“It hurts me,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t have to choose between being raped and being hit.”
“What are the alternatives? Choosing to starve. Choosing to sleep in abandoned warehouses with drug addicts.”
“Some group homes aren’t that bad,” I tell her—but that hasn’t really been my experience.
She rolls her eyes. “Really? Choosing to be completely ignored. Choosing to have a shitty education. Choosing to be treated like crap by the other teenagers who are really messed up, and worse than the professor. Choosing to be locked in a box.”
“I guess… for now, maybe this isn’t the worst place for us,” I admit, but I hate the possibility that it could be true. I don’t want to be so defeated that I believe that this is an acceptable situation. I want to hold on to my memories of better times, and work hard to somehow make them real again.
Scarlett nods, glancing at me. “Trust me, Cole. It really isn’t that bad. Besides, you’re here, aren’t you? I thought that it was bullshit when my social worker decided to place me in a home with a Mensa kid, and I expected you to be an annoying, arrogant nerd. But… I like talking to you. You’re kind of… a sweet boy.” Her cheeks darken a little and she tilts her head to the side teasingly. “Besides, I’ve never had a role model before.”
I scoff at this. “There’s nothing I can teach you, Scar. You’re doing so well in school, and you’re tough as nails. Compared to you, I’m a spoiled brat, and I should take a page out of your book. How the hell did you get so smart?”
“Libraries are free to the public,” she explains with a shrug. “I just read a lot, as much as I can.”
Shaking my head in amazement, I stare at her. “How do you manage to impress me a little more every single day?”
“I do?” she asks, in surprise.
I nod. “My parents spent a lot of money homeschooling me with the best tutors, and I grew up pampered with tons of attention. I took it all for granted, and I never knew what I had until I lost it. If you had grown up with the opportunities I had—you would probably be working at NASA or something by now.”
“You’re just saying nice stuff to make me feel better,” she says shyly. “Maybe I have a little skill with computers, but… that doesn’t really matter if my computer is smashed, does it?”
“I will replace it,” I tell her. “I promise.”
“Please don’t make promises to me, Cole.” She lets her face sag forward into her hands with a heavy sigh. “Everyone always breaks their promises. I can’t bear to hear any more empty words.”
“I always mean what I say,” I tell her earnestly. “Cross my heart and hope to die. You’ll see, someday soon. But in the meantime, I believe it is my duty to teach you a very important lesson—something I learned from my parents while they were still around. When it comes to abuse, the only policy you should have is a zero tolerance policy. When you overlook these things, and let them continue for too long… it takes a toll on you. It changes who you are.”
“I know that,” she says softly. “But what can I do? A zero tolerance policy for abuse sounds like a fairy tale. Come on, Cole. If I walked away from everyone who hurt me, I would be living on a deserted island somewhere, foraging for fruits and nuts.”
“We can still change this,” I tell her, rising to my feet and offering her my hand. “We need to do something about Mr. Brown, and make him stop hurting you. Let’s go confront him.”
“Cole,” she says hesitantly, “that will just make it worse. I’m fine with the way things are.”
“I’m not,” I tell her firmly. “And I’m not going to let him get away with this. He’s just an insecure jackass and a bully, picking on someone much smaller than he is so that he can feel like more of a man. If we stand up to him, I guarantee he’ll back down.”
She shakes her head in refusal. “You can’t talk to him now, when he’s drunk out of his mind like this. You’ll only make things worse. Go back to bed, Cole.”
“No way in hell. I can’t just go back to bed like nothing happened.”
“You’re very heroic,” she tells me slowly, “but heroes often fail.”
“I already failed to save my parents. You’re the closest thing to family I have had in years—I couldn’t live with myself if I just sit around and do nothing while you get hurt. What if Mr. Brown goes too far one night? What if he breaks something more important than your laptop?”
Scarlett looks at me as if I am insane. “There is nothing more important than my laptop.”
“You are more important than your laptop.”
“Whatever,” she says stubbornly.
I study her face and see that she is genuinely upset by everything that has happened to her, and not just on this night. If I rock the boat, we could end up getting removed from this home and separated, and that wouldn’t do either of us any good. I take a deep breath. “All right,” I tell her, grabbing a pillow from her bed. “I will take some time to think about how to approach him, and I’ll deal with him in the morning. But for now, I’m going to sleep here.”
“What?” she says in surprise.
I place the pillow on the floor, halfway between
