Once I reach the kitchen, my mother is in the corner, rubbing Jen’s shoulder. I only have a moment of jealousy before my mom sees me and gestures to come closer. When I’m close enough, she takes my hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“For what?” I ask, taking a page out of her book and pretending nothing is wrong at all.

“Everything.”

I blink and consider asking her again. Does that mean what I think it means? Is she sorry for letting my father get away with hurting me for so long? Even when he didn’t hit me, it hurt. I’m not sure which pain was worse.

My mother’s calm facade is back in an instant, and I know my moment has passed. She’s covering up her emotions again. “Anything to drink, Jen?” she asks.

I take in a breath and look out the window as my father chains the dog in the backyard.

Can I blame my mother for not doing anything to help the dog? I’m just sitting here, too. Because to stand up to my father would mean asking for him to turn his anger on me.

After an orange soda and a few minutes of small talk, Jen is calmed down and ready to work. I tear my eyes away from the dog in the backyard and focus on the books Jen pulls out.

We work on math first because that’s my biggest problem area. Math seems to come back pretty quickly though, at least the basics. Once I get a chance to work out some of the kinks, I remember the multiplication and even the division just fine. Then it’s a matter of following the equations and doing it right.

My mom is nowhere to be seen now, which kind of surprises me. Usually she’d be standing over my shoulder, making sure I didn’t do something wrong.

I used to think she didn’t want me to embarrass her. But after seeing her with Czar, her attempt to protect the dog by keeping it on the straight and narrow, I wonder if she was really trying to protect me, too.

“That was a good session,” Jen says. “I guess I’ll go now.”

I take my opportunity and ask something I’ve been wondering about.

“You know Jackson well?” She seemed to know him yesterday morning, so I’m hoping she’ll be able to answer my question.

“Sort of. Why?”

I shrug. “Just something someone said this morning. What’s his deal?”

“What did they say? I don’t know what his ‘deal’ is. He’s a nice guy, that’s about it. He’s cute but doesn’t really date much. Not anymore.”

He’s definitely nice. And hot.

And he doesn’t date much? There’s got to be a reason for that.

“Some girl said something about him being a virgin and that I should just give up on him now or something.”

Jen’s eyebrows shoot up. “Pretty brunette with freckles?”

I nod.

“Well, that’s kind of old news. Her name’s Liz. Jackson and her…used to date.”

“What!?” Okay, not what I was expecting.

“A while back, freshman year I think. It was for a long time though. Once they broke up, Liz got all popular and started dating seniors and stuff, and Jackson, well, didn’t. He never really moved on.”

“Why did they break up?”

“She cheated on him. The rumor is that he was too scared to have sex with her, so she dumped him for a more experienced guy.”

“That’s ridiculous.” And kind of weird. Shouldn’t that go the other way around? Isn’t the guy supposed to be the one to push sex and get mad when the girl holds out on him?

She shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

“Why wouldn’t he have sex with her?”

Jen blinks. “What?”

“It’s weird, isn’t it? Don’t guys want it all the time?”

Jen doesn’t speak for a second. “Not all of them. I don’t know. I guess he’s being careful.”

I hold back a bitter laugh. This kid just gets better and better. The celibate hot guy who has no idea he’s befriending the whore.

I’m probably going to be the worst thing that ever happened to Jackson Griffin.

“Like I said, it was a long time ago. Jackson’s usually left alone now. I’m surprised she even said something. They don’t talk about it much anymore. I usually try not to give them anything to say. But I guess if you don’t give them something, they’ll make the drama themselves.”

Jen doesn’t look at me now. She’s kinda hard to figure out. She seems so crazy shy on the outside, but she doesn’t seem like it when she talks. And the way she spoke about the “incident” with Marissa’s boyfriend, I wonder if she had as much of a choice as people say. I know all about doing things you don’t want to do just because you can’t see a way out.

Guess the suburbs have some darkness, too. They’re just better at hiding it.

Chapter Fourteen

The worst times are the in-between times. Between classes, when I have to deal with the stares. Between tutoring sessions, the quiet time after Jen leaves and dinner is done and I’m all alone in my bedroom. The silence, the stillness.

Like now. I try reading the book Jen gave me for English—I’m desperate—but give up ten pages in. How do I read about someone else’s messed-up life when mine’s even worse? So tonight I sit on my bed and watch as the shadows shift and change in my room with the setting sun.

I stand and walk over to my desk. There’s a pile of old sketches in the corner, almost all of them of New York, and for a moment I actually miss it. I stepped off the train at Grand Central with a brain full of postcard-perfect images of New York. The Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty.

It was Luis who showed me the real city—the spice and excitement beyond the tourist-friendly lights. He knew where to score the most realistic knockoff bags, the tastiest cannoli, and the party spots. He knew the city, and he taught me how to know it, too.

When things got hard, I’d close my eyes and pretend I was riding the aboveground train in Brooklyn. Cold brown seats beneath me, but a whole new world around me, flying by. The buildings, the people, the cars.

It feels good to think about that now. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. New York hasn’t betrayed me. Not the way Luis betrayed me, or the way I’m being pushed to betray him. It wasn’t always Luis that was my escape, it was my city.

How do I feel about him now? I’ve loved him since I was thirteen, and I’m sure that he loved me. He must have. But one day it just changed.

Three years of us, together, perfect, and then all of a sudden…

I don’t know why he gave up on me.

I wonder if this is how my mother felt when I left.

That I just abandoned them suddenly. They didn’t see the signs. I was good at hiding the drinking, the smoking, the boyfriends. Even though they found plenty else to be disappointed about.

I suppose it’s easier to blame all of your problems on someone else instead of owning up to them yourself.

So what were the problems with Luis that I was blind to? Can I really picture him as a monster, after everything he taught me? After he saved me and protected me?

Was Luis ever in love with me? Was I too young to hold his attention long enough? Did he only do it for the money?

All I know is that I loved him.

But he sold me. Not just all those times he sold me to other men for slivers of my life I’ll never get back. He sold me that final time, when he gave me away to someone else for good.

I close my eyes. I don’t want to think about my old life.

My head spins. Old life.

It’s so strange knowing that life is gone forever. Yes, there are things that I want to leave behind forever. But now that it’s gone, now that New York and Luis and my freedom are all gone, I don’t know what to think about it.

I want to be happy. If you’d asked me a week ago, I wouldn’t have thought I could be.

A week ago my life was full of johns and forced sexual favors.

Now that hole’s filled with controlling parents, sure. But it’s also a nice boy, new friends, a mother who just might care more than I expected her to, and just a tiny little bit of hope that I can finally start over.