“I’ll take your word for it.”

To his credit, his arms don’t have any bruises, and he didn’t seem afraid of his father. It’s weird. Is Jackson really so perfect that his dad never has to correct him?

Or is he just so good at hiding it that his dad never finds out? My mind flashes back to us at his hidden tree house, his hand caressing my cheek.

And then I remember I’m on his bed. In his room. And my face gets red all over again. I look down to hide it, but it’s too late.

He smiles, and the tension in his face fades. “Maybe that’s what we do our project on.”

“Cops?”

“Perception. We draw one man. Half of him is an evil-looking guy, a shadow over him or something. And the other half is kind with a smile.”

“Actually, that’s a good idea.”

Jackson stands suddenly and grabs a big piece of sketching paper.

“Horizontal or vertical?” he asks.

I ignore the opening for a dirty joke and just say, “Vertical.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Friday night my mom takes me to the mall. Not once since that night has she mentioned what she said to my dad, the reason we’re here shopping together at all. But it’s hanging over us, and it feels even heavier knowing what he said to her later that night.

The mall is different than I remember. In the food court, the carousel I used to want to ride is gone. Even most of the shops have changed.

No one looks at me strangely here, which is quite refreshing, and I think helps my mother to relax. She can be a normal mom with a normal daughter.

We take our time going through the shops. I’m not sure how much my mom is willing to spend on me today, so I don’t pick out much.

“What about these?” My mother holds a pair of dark-wash jeans.

“I don’t really need jeans,” I say.

“You always need jeans.”

I take them and keep looking through a rack of sweaters. No point in arguing if she’s going to buy me more clothes than I planned on.

I find a sparkly cream sweater and hold it up to her.

“Your tastes haven’t changed,” she says with a pinch of her lips.

I shrug.

She follows me to the fitting room, and I show her the clothes I have picked out. Despite how normal she’s trying to pretend we are, things still feel really tense. Like she can’t even trust my choice in clothes or something.

I come out wearing a black lace top.

“You sure that’s not too…” she says, but she doesn’t finish her sentence. I think I can guess where she’s going with it, though. It’s not like I’m trying to get knee-high stripper boots or fishnets.

I roll my eyes and take a few steps farther into the store and point out two other girls in similar tops. Neither of them looks slutty in the slightest. “It’s cute, Mom.”

I can see her weighing her options here. “What about if you get it in another color?” she asks.

A compromise. I supposed I can handle that. “Okay, can you go grab me the tan one?”

She smiles and hops up to grab the top. She comes back with a black jacket and a T-shirt. Both of which are actually really cute. And best of all, they feel like my style. Okay, one point in Mom’s favor. At least she’s trying.

Next is the dress shop. Super.

I have absolutely no idea what to look for here. I’ve never been to a dance, and it’s not like I have friends I can take cues from. Jen and Alex aren’t really the dance types.

My mom grabs a hideous high-collared dress that looks like something her mother wore in high school. Not cute. I can’t help but laugh.

“What?” she asks.

“How about no.”

Her mouth opens in surprise. But then she seems to get that I’m just giving her a hard time, so she smiles, shakes her head, and puts the dress back. “Fine, what then?”

I pick out a cute blue cocktail dress that’s probably a little too short for my uptight mother, but it would look good on her. Fantastic, even.

“Really?” she says.

I smile and shrug. “I don’t know any more than you do,” I admit.

She looks around for a second and then comes back with a lady who works at the shop. The lady pulls five dresses for me to try on.

At least we’re getting somewhere now.

One dress is floor length and red with a low neckline. Surprisingly, my mother likes this one. Unsurprisingly, she suggests the purple one instead of the red.

Another dress is puffy and hideous. We both laugh when I come out in it. I spin around like I’m a stupid fairy-tale princess.

“Stop, stop! Take it off.” She points behind me. “How about that black one with the pink lines?”

I close the fitting room door behind me to try it out.

I come out really hoping she likes this one. It’s more casual than the rest of them, but I kind of like that. I’d rather look like I just picked something out of my closet than look like I’m trying too hard.

“Ooooh,” my mother says.

“Do you like it?” I look at myself in the mirror. The dress is on the shorter side but still reaches my knee, with a black skirt that’s just a little flowy, and it has a cool pink zigzag pattern at the top.

“Do you like it?”

I smile. “Yes. I do. Now tell me if you do.”

The smile she gives me is the biggest I’ve seen on her in years. “I’d say we have a winner.”

We stop at the new food court for dinner, and it’s the first time things actually seem good with her. Not pretend-normal. Not trying too hard. It’s just me with my mom.

Maybe she finally feels like I really am her teenage daughter. Maybe she’s okay with whatever that means.

I figured we’d be done after dinner. I have my dress and some other clothes. But my mom seems energized now. She isn’t finished.

We go into a department store and end up getting me jeans, two pairs of shoes, five more tops, and a necklace. I’m feeling a little spoiled.

With a tug, I fall back into a memory. Me and Luis in a tiny New York boutique with an unpronounceable name. Tucked away from the sounds of shouting and traffic. He held out a necklace—a pendant of a golden swallow with tiny diamond eyes. I turned my back on him so he could put it on. His heavy hands circled my neck.

“Gotta make sure my girl looks good.”

It’s like every line is blurred with Luis. When we were together, I was his. When did that change from being his to cherish to being his to trade away as he pleased?

I drag myself back into the present. This is different.

My mom is doing this for me.

She doesn’t have to. I can live in the shitty clothes I already have. She’s just being nice. She’s being my mother.

And it feels really good.

Jackson and I spend the entire weekend working on our art project together, which is pretty incredible. He’s the only person to put me completely at ease, and when we’re working on art, my only real mental escape…it’s perfect.

Our project is pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.

Together we draw a man, nothing special or different about him at all, except a hat that says “police” on it. He wears a goofy blue-collared shirt. Then we draw a line down the center with pencil and each use our half of the canvas to make him into what we see.

I draw storm clouds at the top, rain pouring down, and a gray background. I put shadows under his eye and across his cheek on my side. He holds out a nightstick, something I’m more than familiar with, in his tense fist.

There’s something still missing about him, though. He doesn’t look real. The surroundings make it pretty clear what I think he is, but he doesn’t quite show the heart of my fear.

I close my eyes and think about the first cop who hit me. Officer Rodrick. How do I remember his name? The same way I won’t ever forget my first john. Maybe the better question is: how do I forget?

I erase the cartoonish man’s face and picture Officer Rodrick. He had hooded eyes with bushy eyebrows. Thin lips that made a weird squiggly line when he smirked at me. The kind of smile that makes your gut twist because you know he’s enjoying the pain he’s doling out.