He sits down next to me. “Of course I don’t hate you.”

“Even after I lied to you? Ever after you heard the kind of things I did?”

He joins me, shivering, but sits there with me. “I wish you’d told me the truth. Wish you’d trusted me with it.”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t, Jackson. I was so scared. How could I tell someone like you all the horrible things I’ve done?”

“Someone like me?”

“So good. You’re too good for me.”

He laughs. “That’s definitely not true.”

“If I told you that I was a prostitute…you would have run away from me.”

“Don’t think that. I mean, sure, it’s crazy to even consider, but…I would have still been your friend. Or whatever we are.”

“But I lied to you. And after everything you said about your mom…” I look down at the wooden table, handwritten notes scrawled all over it.

“Anna, I hate myself because I never got the chance to help my mom. She wouldn’t let me. And I hate that you wouldn’t let me help you. But I would never hate her no matter how many lies she told…and I will never hate you.” He straightens his shoulders. “I’m just glad I followed you outside at the dance. If I hadn’t…I don’t want to think what he would have done to you.”

After a moment, I ask, “You don’t think I deserved it?”

“Are you serious?” I don’t move, don’t look. He puts his hand on mine. “Anna.” When I look up, he’s waiting for me to meet his eyes, so intense he actually looks angry. “No one deserves that.”

Strangely enough, I believe him. Maybe that makes me stupid, or naive, but maybe that’s okay for once. He chose to believe in me. Maybe now I need to believe in him.

“Telling the truth is harder than it sounds,” I say, and I hope it doesn’t sound like an excuse. I know I was wrong but I’m just not sure what I could have done any differently.

“I wanted to sleep with her,” he says.

“Liz?”

He nods. “I just wasn’t ready. And I guess I didn’t mean enough to her to wait until I was ready, too.”

I put my hand in his, intertwining my fingers in his gently. I’ve always wondered what really happened. The full story. But he held it back until now. I don’t know what I did to deserve his trust, but maybe that’s not the point. Maybe we can trust each other because we choose to be worthy of each other right now. One step at a time.

“If I tell you the truth now, will you hate me? Do you even want to hear it?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll never hate you. And I won’t lie, I’m scared. But yeah, I want to hear it, because otherwise, I’ll always wonder. I’ll never understand unless you tell me, and neither will they.” He points into the lunchroom, where—I have to laugh seeing their faces up against the window—Alex, Jen, and Marissa are looking out at us.

The bell rings, but Jackson doesn’t move, and neither do I.

“They want me to testify,” I whisper.

He takes a deep breath. “Against that man?”

“No. I mean, yes.” Here it comes. The big one. “But someone else, too.”

“Who?”

“A man I lived with… He was my boyfriend.” I swallow. “He was my pimp.” The word feels so disgusting coming from my mouth. I hate it. I hate myself.

But I don’t see hate in Jackson’s expression, and there’s some comfort in knowing that as much as the lies hurt him—maybe because they hurt him—he’s ready for the truth, whatever it is.

He squeezes my hand. “And you don’t want to testify against him?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s complicated. He helped me. I know he hurt me, but if not for him, I’d probably have been dead. How can I do that to him?”

Jackson winces, but he’s calm. “You wouldn’t be doing anything to him. That’s not how court cases work.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ll decide if he broke the law. They’ll decide if he’s supposed to go to jail. Not you. All they want is for you to tell the truth. I know it’s scary, but it’ll hang over your head forever if you don’t.”

“But won’t it hang over my head forever if I do?”

He shakes his head slowly. “The truth is the only thing that sets you free. There are repercussions, sure, but you won’t be trapped anymore. You’ll be free.”

I blink. Freedom. That’s what I’ve always wanted. But will testifying against Luis really free me? I think about what it would be like to see him again. To face him.

I’m scared. Terrified. But I realize it’s something I have to do. I’ll never get the closure I need without it. I’ll never be free of Luis.

After we head back into school, I tell Jackson I’ll talk to him later. Then I pull out my phone and dial Sarah’s number.

“Anna?”

She must hear me breathing, because she waits for me to speak.

“I’ll speak…at Luis’s trial.”

“Oh, Anna. That’s terrific. But I want you to know, if you’re not comfortable with this, you don’t have to. We’ll figure something else out.”

“But I want to.”

“What?” It’s the first time I’ve heard her sound this surprised. She’s always so…calm.

“I want people to hear my story. I need to face them. To face him.”

Jackson’s right. Testifying doesn’t have to mean condemning Luis. I’m just there to tell the truth.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I get a text the morning of the trial from Jackson.

Good luck.

It’s small, but it’s enough. Enough to give me a pulse of strength, just for a moment. It’s an odd feeling, but those pulses have been coming more often.

Everyone knows today is the day. For the past week, the trial seemed to be all anyone talked about. Apparently everyone wants to hear my story.

I dress in an outfit Sarah picked out for me. Most of it is new. It’s much nicer than the clothes she bought me when we first met. It’s a pretty pink sweater that comes up past my collarbone, a pair of dressy black pants, and some low wedge shoes. She even does my hair that morning, pulling some of the strands back and pinning them with a flowery clip. I realize that the way she dressed me makes me look very young, and I guess that’s the point.

Even though my mom’s going to drive separately, she holds my hand and walks me to Sarah’s car and lets me know that she’ll be with me every step of the way, even when I can’t see her.

It’s a little more than an hour drive because we have to go all the way back to New York for the trial. A part of me looks forward to seeing my city again.

I look at the busy streets, shocked at how different they seem. They aren’t as bright today. Today they look dark and scary, like they know what I’m about to do.

Or like I don’t belong anymore. Maybe I don’t.

We arrive an hour early, but already there are people standing on the steps of the courthouse, groups of teenagers and parents standing protectively nearby. Some I recognize, some I don’t.

I’m actually surprised people really came. I mean, Westchester is only an hour from New York, but it still seems surprising that anyone came all this way to hear me talk about how I became a prostitute.

Sarah takes me in near the back.

“I don’t like the idea of this being such a public trial,” Sarah says once we make it inside and things quiet down.

She knows very well it’s what I wanted, what I asked for. There was a motion to control the people who could come, something about the nature of the crimes and my age, but I’m glad to see it must not have worked out. I want people to hear me. That’s the point.

I’ve been going over what I’m going to say. I will tell them about how Luis saved me, took me in, became my one and only friend. I’ll remember his warm, dark voice telling me I’ll be okay. I’ll remember the swallow necklace. And then I will tell them how his friends pushed themselves on me, and how that eventually turned into sex for money. It wasn’t Luis’s fault—it was theirs.

But now I’m scared.