Safe With Me Part 10

"Hi!" a young woman chirps as she slides in next to Olivia. "This seat isn't taken, is it?" She is a tiny thing with almost white-blond hair and pale blue eyes-more like the negative image of a picture than an actual girl. She wears a light blue broomstick skirt and a snug matching T-s.h.i.+rt. When she lifts her arms over her head to take off the book bag that is slung crosswise over her chest, Olivia sees a quick flash of her flawless pale stomach, and she can't help but think of the thick, red scar across her own daughter's flesh.

"Nope," Olivia says. "It's all yours."

"Thanks!" The girl plops down next to her and drops her bag to the floor in between her legs, quickly pulling out a small laptop and placing it, along with her cell phone, on the half desk in front of her. She presses a b.u.t.ton to boot up the laptop, and suddenly, Olivia is embarra.s.sed by the three-ringed notebook she bought at the campus bookstore. She glances around the room to see that the majority of students are sporting s.h.i.+ny silver netbooks or iPads. Apparently, the method for taking notes has changed since Olivia last went to school. She suddenly feels very, very old.

"Do you know anything about this professor?" the girl asks, keeping her eyes on the screen of her phone, rapidly tapping out what Olivia a.s.sumes is a text message.

"I don't," Olivia answers. It amazes her, how many technological tasks teenagers are able to juggle simultaneously. Maddie doesn't watch television unless her laptop is in front of her, too, or she's playing Angry Birds on her phone. She's always plugged into something-usually two or three things at a time. There doesn't seem to be a nonstimulated moment, a chance for her brain to breathe. It worries Olivia sometimes, that Maddie spends so much time interacting with what other people's imaginations have dreamed up that she'll never learn to imagine things on her own.

"I've heard she used to be a cop and is kind of a bada.s.s." The girl glances away from her phone and looks at Olivia. Her eyelashes are so pale, they're almost invisible. "I'm Natalie."

Olivia introduces herself, too, and just as she speaks her name, a short, broadly built woman enters from the side door of the auditorium. She charges up the steps to the stage and makes her way over to the podium, moving with a decided swagger-a don't-mess-with-me swing of her shoulders and hips. She wears black slacks and a blue b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt with thick-soled, no-nonsense black shoes. Her blond hair is pulled tightly into a bun at the base of her neck, and as far as Olivia can tell, she's not wearing a st.i.tch of makeup. She looks like a cop-hard and unyielding. Maybe Natalie's right.

"h.e.l.lo?" she says, then blows into the microphone. "Is this thing on?" The chatter in the auditorium continues, ignoring her question, and so she leans closer to the microphone and opens her mouth again. "SIT!" she bellows. This unexpected noise causes Olivia to jump and all the conversation and movement in the room to cease.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Natalie says under her breath as the rest of the students silently find their seats.

Satisfied, the professor smiles-a beautiful movement that suddenly makes her appear warm and thoughtful instead of hard sh.e.l.led and rough. "I'm Regina Lang," she continues in a pleasant, normal tone. "Please call me Professor Lang or Regina. Mrs. Lang is my mother." Everyone t.i.tters appropriately at her joke, and she goes on. "If you're not supposed to be in Criminology 201, you should leave now. Otherwise, let's get started." She flips open a laptop in front of her, and a large theater screen behind her lights up with an image of a man choking a woman. His fingers are wrapped tightly around her neck, and he is grimacing, the muscles in his arms straining beneath his skin in ropy cords. The woman's face is red and her eyes are bulging, her hands tear at the man's wrists, seemingly trying to get him to release her. And even though Olivia knows these people have to be actors-the picture can't be real-her muscles immediately go rigid. Is that what I looked like ten years ago? she wonders. Before Maddie got sick . . . the night I first decided I needed to leave James? She pushes those thoughts down, trying to breathe, wanting to hear what Regina says next.

"I want you to think about what you would do if you were this man's lawyer," Professor Lang begins. "If this scene is what the police walked in on after a neighbor called 911 and the woman in the picture decided to press charges against her husband for attempted murder." She pauses. "Is there any defense for this man? If there are pictures of his finger marks around his wife's neck? If she has years of hospital records listing numerous broken bones-spiral fractures of her forearms, a shattered cheekbone?"

"He's indefensible," a girl's prim voice pops up from somewhere in the auditorium. "And she's an idiot for not reporting it sooner."

Her words make Olivia feel ill. She leans forward, arms over her stomach, and Natalie puts a hand on her back. "Hey, are you okay?" she asks, and Olivia straightens. "I'm fine," she whispers. "I just didn't have breakfast."

Natalie reaches into her bag and pulls out a cereal bar-the kind Maddie can't eat because of her celiac disease. Olivia gives Natalie a brief smile and thanks her, taking the bar, even though she doesn't think she can eat it. She turns her attention back to what Professor Lang is saying to the girl who called the woman in the picture an idiot.

"And what do you base your judgment of this woman upon?" Professor Lang's expression is blank, and Olivia can't tell if she agrees with the girl's proclamation or not. "Do you know her? Do you understand there are a hundred possible reasons why she might not have reported her husband's abuse?" She pauses, runs her gaze over all the students. "Anyone want to hazard a guess at a reason?"

"Maybe he's threatened to take custody away from her," Olivia says loudly, unsure why, exactly, she speaks up, but that it likely has to do with the fact that Regina seems to understand something Olivia thought no one else could. "Maybe he's extremely powerful and respected in the community. She knows if she presses charges against him, he'll find a way to prove her unfit and she'll lose her children."

Professor Lang peers at the back row, making a visor out of her hand. "Can you say that again, please? It's a large room, and I don't think everyone caught it."

Olivia takes a deep breath before repeating herself, and is ridiculously pleased when the professor nods in agreement. "That's right. People tend to have this image of abused women as weak, low income, and uneducated, when in fact, the opposite is often true. Many women stay because their husbands are upstanding, successful men and they think no one will believe them if they tell the truth about what's going on behind closed doors. Abusers are expert manipulators-of their victims and everyone else in their lives." She pauses, moving her gaze over the room. "But here's my point-and the reason I opened cla.s.s with this particular picture. If you feel like you can make a case to defend the husband, then you should think about focusing your studies on defense law. If your heart aches at the plight of the wife and you feel like you sort of want to tear the husband's eyes out, you might do better in prosecution. I use the picture to show you how polarizing legal issues can be, and how varied and muddy our individual reactions are, too. We're all shaded by our personal experiences and perceptions. That's the most difficult aspect of working in the legal system, whether you are a cop, lawyer, or judge. Staying neutral, relying on process and procedure to do its job, can seem impossible. And yet, if you remain in this program, you'll need to learn how."

The room is silent again, everyone seeming to allow her words to sink in, and for the rest of the cla.s.s, during which Professor Lang goes over the syllabus and discusses the literal definitions of probable cause, Olivia is haunted by the image of that woman on the screen. She wonders if becoming a lawyer is really such a good idea, considering her life with James. Would she be better off prosecuting the men who abuse their partners, or defending the women who sometimes snap and kill them? Will she be too close to the issues involved to do her job? When she was younger and working as a paralegal, she'd always imagined herself as a defense lawyer, researching case law to vindicate her wrongly accused clients. But what would she do if her client were guilty-if he wrapped his fingers around his wife's throat and squeezed until she was almost dead? She isn't sure if she could defend a man like that now. She's afraid she might just shoot him instead.

These questions concern her deeply enough that after cla.s.s ends, Olivia works up the courage to approach her professor on the stage. She waits as the other students talk with her then walk away-she doesn't want anyone else to overhear her. When the last of the other students is gone, Professor Lang looks up and smiles at Olivia. "Ah, a grown-up. What can I do for you . . . ?" She trails off, waiting to hear Olivia's name.

Olivia introduces herself, then s.h.i.+fts her weight from foot to foot, gripping the straps on her shoulder bag, as though this might keep her from running away. "Well," she begins, haltingly. "I was hoping I could ask you about a hypothetical situation."

"Of course," Professor Lang says, tilting her head toward one shoulder, slipping both hands into the pockets on her slacks, then rocking forward and back, toe to heel.

"Great-okay-thanks," Olivia says, hurriedly, squeezing the words together so that they almost come out as one. "I'm wondering . . . what if you had a student who is interested in the law, but she's not sure if she would be a good candidate for becoming a lawyer."

"Why not?" Again, Olivia can't tell what her professor is really thinking from the expression on her face-it's careful and measured, something she must have learned from her years on the police force. She confirmed her previous career during her lecture, citing a back injury for her early retirement from the force and subsequent switch to teaching.

Olivia swallows to help wet the case of dry mouth she's suddenly developed. "Maybe she's had some trauma in her life," she says quietly, not making eye contact with her new teacher. "And she's worried she'd be too personally influenced by this to do a good job . . . as a defense lawyer or a prosecutor." She pauses, finally looking up. "Do you have any advice I could pa.s.s along?"

Professor Lang blows out a quick shot of air from between pursed lips before speaking. "Well, that depends. What kind of trauma are we talking about?"

Olivia hesitates, unsure how close she should keep her hypothetical situation to the truth. "Let's say she's been attacked. More than once."

"Like raped?"

Olivia's face burns and her stomach twists at the sound of this word. She's struck silent by images of James on top of her after he's. .h.i.t her-after she's told him no over and over again-pus.h.i.+ng himself into her anyway, like he is jabbing her body with a knife. Is it rape when your husband tells you he's only doing it to show you he's sorry?

She bobs her head, trying to keep her expression clear of the revulsion she feels. "Yes," she finally says. "And beaten." She thought she could do this without falling apart. She thought if she made it seem like it happens to an imaginary woman, she wouldn't give herself away. Professor Lang's expression-blond brows st.i.tched together, the deep curve of a concerned frown-tells her different. She knows Olivia is talking about herself.

"I would tell her that she needs to get serious professional help before she makes any kind of commitment to this career path. Or any other, for that matter. Things come up when you're trying cases . . . triggers that spark all sorts of weird emotional baggage. Victims of abuse can sometimes turn their past suffering into motivation to help other people, but only if they've dealt with it on the deepest levels." She gives Olivia a good, long look. "Even then, it's a challenge for them to work within a system that betrays them more often than not."

All Olivia can manage to say is "Oh." She is reeling-not only from the images of James swirling in her head but from the realization that if she ever leaves her husband, if she ever works up the courage to confess how he treats her, she won't be seen as the woman who n.o.bly endured years of abuse in order to protect her daughter-she'll be seen as a victim. The idiot woman who let her husband beat her. Who let him rape her and never said a word to anyone. Shame burns through Olivia's body, making her feel ashy and weak. She suddenly wants nothing more than to escape this room. What the h.e.l.l was she thinking, talking to her professor about this?

"Does that help any?" Professor Lang asks.

"I think so," Olivia says, forcing a weak smile. Yes, it helps. It helps Olivia realize that she's made a huge mistake, attending this cla.s.s. And another mistake, talking to her teacher. "Thanks for your time. I appreciate it."

"That's why I'm here." Her professor closes up her laptop and slides it into a carrying case, then looks at Olivia again. "It was you, right?"

"Me?" The word barely squeaks out of Olivia. Is she going to make me admit what James does to me? Oh G.o.d. I'm so stupid.

Her professor nods. "Right. You spoke up in the back row, at the beginning of cla.s.s?"

Relieved this is what Professor Lang wants to know, Olivia bobs her head, once, and turns, ready to walk away, but then her teacher stops her with a hand on her arm. "A person like that could talk with me anytime she wants . . . okay? I can help." She pauses and gives Olivia another look that leaves no doubt she sees right through her. "My hypothetical door's always open."

Olivia pulls away, feeling her professor's eyes on her back as she leaves the auditorium. She walks quickly to her car, knowing she needs to get home, and suddenly, no matter how hard she fights them, she's unable to stop the memories she pushed down earlier from tumbling through her mind-the image of that night ten years ago, the first time James put his hands around her neck and took her breath away.

Maddie

I was six the first time I saw marks on my mother's skin. I hadn't been diagnosed with my liver disorder yet, so I was like any little girl-I went to school and played with other kids at the park. I still spent a lot of time with my mom, though, because my dad was at the office more than he was home.

"He has to work hard to take care of us," Mom told me when I asked why Dad wasn't going to come to my dance recital like he'd promised he would. I was going to be a purple flower and I wanted my daddy to see it. I was going to do the splits.

"But I want him to come," I replied with a stomp of my foot. I wanted a daddy who spent time with me, who built forts in the living room and gave me airplane rides in our front yard, spinning me in circles until I was too dizzy to walk. What I had was a daddy who'd rather be at work, buying money, which is what he once told me was his job. "Buying and selling money, peanut," he said, giving me a quick tweak on my nose. "People give me money to make them more money. Everyone wants more money . . . don't you?"

He looked at me expectantly, so I nodded solemnly, knowing he wanted me to agree with him, and I, as always, wanting to make him happy. Part of me believed that if I was just good enough-if on the nights he came home before I went to bed, I remembered to fold my napkin in my lap at the dinner table and not slurp from my gla.s.s of milk-he would stop being gone so much. If I picked up my room and didn't leave Legos on the floor for him to accidentally step on with his bare feet in the middle of the night, he would be like the fathers I saw drop their daughters off at school, giving them kisses on the head and quick hugs by the front doors for everyone to see.

"I know you do, baby," my mother said, tucking my blanket up around my neck. "I'll talk with him, okay?"

Later that night, I woke to the sound of my parents fighting in their bedroom, my father's angry voice and my mother's quiet cries as familiar to me as my own. Pus.h.i.+ng back my covers, I tiptoed out of my room and down the hall to theirs, standing as still as possible so they wouldn't know I was awake. I pressed my palms and one ear flat against the door and listened.

"Are you saying I'm a bad father?" I heard my dad say, the words sounding more like an animal's growl than a man speaking. "Are you saying I don't provide the both of you an amazing life? A beautiful house? Everything and anything you might need? Is that what you're saying to me, Liv?"

"She needs you, James," my mother responded. "She needs her father to be with her. She doesn't need more things or more money. She's only six. She loves you so much and you just walk away from her over and over again." There was a brief moment of silence and I strained to hear if they were whispering. But then my mother continued. "Please. Come to the recital. Be the father you never had."

My father's feet pounded across the floor-I felt the vibration from where I stood. "I am not my father!" he shouted. There was a loud crash, and my mother gave a short, high-pitched scream before the noise was cut off and everything went silent, except for my father grunting. My heart pounded against the inside of my chest and my eyes filled with tears. I was desperate to open the door, but too terrified of what I might see. My mother cried out again, a strangled noise, a word I couldn't fully understand. It could have been "help."

"Shut . . . up," Dad spat the words more than he spoke them, with a distinct pause in between. I could picture his face, the way I'd seen it a hundred times before when they fought-puffed up and red, green eyes pressed into angry slits, the corners of his mouth pushed down into sharp points. "I've had enough of this s.h.i.+t. I am a good father. I take care of my family. I give you both everything you could possibly need, and still, it's not good enough for you. I saved you, Olivia. I turned you into the woman you are and this is the thanks I get?" I heard him take a couple of heaving breaths . . . I heard my mother struggling to speak, her words sputtering and blocked. What is he doing to her? I put one hand on the doork.n.o.b, trying to work up the courage to fling the door open and get him to stop yelling at her, but I couldn't do it. My chin began to tremble and I thought about calling 911, but what would I say? My parents are fighting? Was that a real emergency, like a fire or a robber? I didn't know.

But then my mother's voice finally broke through, heavy sobs cutting her words into fragmented pieces. "Please," she begged. "No . . . more . . . I'm sorry." She took a couple of breaths, a ragged, hiccuping sound, then spoke again. "You're a good father, James. The best."

"d.a.m.n right I am," my father said, but his voice was shaky, too, and I wondered if he was crying. "Don't make me be like this, Olivia. You know I hate to be like this."

"I know," Mom whispered in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "I'm sorry. Let's just go to bed, okay? Let's just sleep."

I waited for my father's response, but when one didn't come, I was suddenly afraid he'd open the door and find me there, so I dashed down the hallway as silently as I could. I had just crawled back in bed when I heard their door open, and the distinct sound of my father's footsteps padding down the thickly carpeted hallway. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing enough that I'd appear asleep, in case he came into my room. He did that sometimes, when he got home late from the office. He'd pull a chair up next to my bed and watch me. Sometimes he'd run his hand over my face, or kiss my forehead, and sometimes, on my favorite nights, he even whispered that he loved me. But this time, when he came into my room, he climbed right into bed with me, cuddling me close, his thick, strong arms wrapped tight around me.

"Are you awake, Maddie?" he whispered. "Daddy needs to talk with you." He gave me a tiny shake, and I fluttered my eyelids open, pretending to just be waking up.

"Daddy?" I said, sleepily.

He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer. "You love me . . . right, honey? You know I'd never do anything to hurt you." His voice was high and strange, not the strong, confident tone he usually used. He sounded like a child.

"I know," I said quietly, wondering if his not doing anything to hurt me made it somehow okay with him that he hurt Mom. Why else would she cry like that, if he wasn't hurting her? My stomach twisted, imagining what he might have done to steal her words.

"I try so hard," he said, pressing his mouth up against my ear. His breath was hot, and it smelled like stale coffee. "I don't want to be like him. I don't, I don't." I a.s.sumed he was talking about his father, and then he confirmed it. "My father was a horrible man, Maddie. He used to whip me with the metal end of a leather belt. He beat me . . . he kicked me until I bled. He broke my arm once, and when I tried to run away, he locked me in a closet for two days." He sighed, a shuddery, broken sound, like he was trying not to cry. "I would never, ever do that to you. You know that, right?"

I nodded, scared to tell him the truth, which was that I didn't know anything when it came to him-that no matter how much I wanted to be with him more, part of me was terrified of his anger, of the odd, bright light that appeared in his eyes whenever he was about to yell. I was too afraid to say that he might not do anything like that to me, but I wasn't so sure he hadn't done something like it to my mother. "I love you, Daddy," I said quietly, knowing this was what he needed to hear, hoping this rea.s.surance was enough to make him leave my room.

He did, eventually, and in the morning, when I joined my mother at the breakfast table, he had already left for work. I hugged her like I normally did, and she cringed just the slightest bit as she squeezed me back, and I worried I might have hurt her. "Are you okay, Mama?" I asked, and she nodded. I pulled back to look at her, and she dropped her chin.

"What would you like for breakfast, sweet pea?" she asked with a false, light note. "Can I make you some rice flour pancakes? We have blueberries, I think, too." She turned her head toward the stove and that's when I saw them-the black and blue fingerprints on the sides of her neck . . . the red and swollen swath of skin across the front. She'd tried to cover them with pale, powdery makeup, but it didn't work. It reminded me of the time I accidentally spilled grape juice smack-dab in the middle of my white-carpeted bedroom floor and tried to hide it by moving a bright blue area rug over the mess-it was the first place my mother looked when she walked through the door.

"What happened, Mama?" I asked, tears stinging my eyes. At the time, I wasn't exactly sure what he had done to her, but I knew it was bad. I knew those bruises hadn't appeared out of nowhere.

"Nothing, baby," she said. Her hand flew to her throat. "I'm just clumsy." She gave me a wide, shaky smile. "Now, what can I get you to eat?"

I remember that night now, as I sit in my closet again, talking with Dirk on the phone about our parents. For the last week, I've waited until I was sure mine were asleep to call him, not wanting my dad to freak out on me. He totally embarra.s.sed me when Hannah came over for dinner, and I'm a little bit worried that he might call Noah's father and find out that it isn't Noah whom I've been talking with every night. I hang out with him a bit at school, but only because our lockers are close together and we sit next to each other in computer science. Noah is nice, even a little bit cute in a nerdy sort of a way, but he hasn't even asked me for my number.

"Mine met when they were sixteen," Dirk tells me. "My dad moved from San Diego to Seattle because my grandpa got a job at Boeing, and ended up buying a house right next door to my mom's family. They got married two weeks after they graduated from high school and have been together ever since."

"Sounds like a movie," I say, wis.h.i.+ng my parents had such a sweet love story.

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" Dirk says. "They have their share of arguments, but they still sort of act like teenagers." He pauses. "What about your parents?"

I think about this a moment, unsure how to describe my parents' relations.h.i.+p. I used to think it was sort of romantic that my dad flew across the country every weekend for almost a year just to see my mom and then brought her to live in his beautiful house. But I realized how sad it was that in order to marry Dad, Mom had to leave behind everything and everyone else in her life, including her own mother. She lost contact with all her friends there and for the most part, was too busy taking care of me after I got sick to make new ones. That is part of why I like Hannah so much-she seems to genuinely like my mom. And maybe more important, she doesn't seem intimidated by Dad.

"If you met them, you'd think they're in love," I tell Dirk. "My mom is really beautiful and my dad is totally handsome and successful. They look great together, you know? In public, they're always smiling and laughing and holding hands. But that's not how it is at home."

"Your dad's always had a temper?" Dirk asks, hesitantly. It's the first time he has brought the subject up since our initial conversation.

"For as long as I can remember," I say, my voice almost a whisper. "He just . . ." I trail off, trying to figure out how to describe my father's unpredictable behavior. There are moments with him that feel normal, when we talk and laugh about things the way a regular father and daughter do, and then, something will change. A tone in my voice might set him off, or more likely, a tone in my mother's voice. "He's moody," I conclude. "And we never really know which mood we're going to get."

"Well, that sucks," Dirk says. "I'm sorry you have to deal with it." He waits a beat. "But I suppose the good news is you can move out pretty soon, right? Get some distance from him? My relations.h.i.+p with my parents got way better when I got my own place. I really like hanging out with them now. Because when I've had enough I can leave."

He's so nice, I think, once again feeling horribly guilty for lying to Dirk about my age . . . my looks . . . about everything. I keep telling him I'm not ready to meet him in person yet because I recently had my heart broken and I'm a little afraid of it happening again. He told me not to worry about it-that he is okay with just getting to know each other until I am ready, becoming friends, which only made me feel worse. I'm not sure how I got to this place-pretending to be someone I'm not. In the hospital, when I first created "Sierra's" Facebook profile, I was just messing around-playing virtual dress-up with someone else's life. It was an escape, something to think about other than the fact I was probably going to die. But I'm better now, and actually have a chance for a life of my own. The longer I wait to tell Dirk the truth, the harder it's going to be.

"You still there?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say, then take a deep breath, trying to find the right words. This is it. It doesn't matter that, because of Dirk, Hailey and her friends have decided I'm worthy of hanging out with them. It doesn't matter that I've been sitting with them at their table in the lunchroom, or that they invited me to come hang out with them at the mall this week. What I am doing is wrong, and I need to set things straight. "I have to tell you something," I say, haltingly.

"You're finally going to take me up on dinner?" he asks, his voice so hopeful, so sweet, I feel sick to my stomach.

"No . . ." I swallow hard, once, to soothe the dry ache in my throat. "I'm still not quite ready for that."

"Okay, then. You actually are a weird old man living in his mother's bas.e.m.e.nt, eating Cheetos?"

I laugh. How can I hurt his feelings with the truth? And really, what harm is it doing, just talking on the phone? We're friends, that's all. As long as I keep refusing to meet him in person, I can make him believe I look like that picture of "Sierra"-and pretend I have a chance with him. It's not like I'm delusional. I know it won't ever actually happen. I'll eventually have to stop answering his calls-I'll have to block his email and instant messaging ID and tell Hailey that he and I broke up. But for now-just for now-I want to allow myself this one good thing.

"No, definitely not." I take another deep breath, and suddenly decide on a different truth I can tell him, something a little closer to who I actually am. "I just wanted to say . . . to tell you . . . well . . ." I clear my throat. "I used to be really sick. Like in-the-hospital-all-the-time sick."

"Really? What was wrong? Are you okay?" There is real concern in his voice again, and I can't help it-I flush with pleasure, thinking he already cares about me that much. And then I remember once again, he doesn't care about me . . . he cares about the hot girl in the picture.

"I'm okay now. I had a pretty bad liver disease, though, and needed a transplant. Which I got a year ago last July."

"Holy s.h.i.+t, Maddie," he says. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good. I had a couple of small infections after the surgery that I had to go back to the hospital for, but they treated me with a couple rounds of IV antibiotics and then I was fine. Now, I just have to take a bunch of pills every day to make sure my body doesn't reject the new liver. The survival rate is pretty high compared to like a heart or something, so, so far, so good."

"Wow. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I dunno. I guess I was scared to. It's kind of weird to talk about." I feel a strange sense of relief, telling him about the transplant, like maybe because of it, he might someday forgive me for lying to him about what I look like.

"Weird, like how?" Dirk asks, and because he sounds so sincerely interested, I tell him the truth.

"I'm walking around with a piece of a stranger inside me. It's just weird."

"Well, can you meet them? The donor's family, I mean? Then they wouldn't be strangers."

My throat clenches and my eyes fill, thinking of the girl who died last year, thinking about her parents who have to be wondering about the life their daughter saved, and I feel guilty for an entirely different reason than lying to Dirk. "No," I tell him. "My dad won't let us. He's worried about our privacy or something." I don't mention that my mom told me that he's also worried they might ask us for money because I haven't told Dirk that my dad is rich. If I did, that might lead to questions about what he does for a living and then I'd have to make up more lies.

"Shouldn't that be your decision?" he asks. "You're the one who had the surgery. If you want to write them and say thank you, you should."

He's right, I think. I'll only use my first name, so it's not like they'll know who the rest of my family is. I'll write the letter and send it to that nice coordinator at the transplant center who gave me her contact information in case I ever had any questions. My parents will never have to know. I've been overa.n.a.lyzing what I should say, how I should present myself to this family, when all I really need to do is tell them how much I appreciate the gift they gave me and how sorry I am that their daughter died.

I wipe away the few tears that have escaped down my cheeks, staring up at all the new clothes my mom and I bought last weekend. I realize that it's moments like that that I'm grateful to have-strolling through the mall with my mother, or sitting here, right now, talking with a boy on the phone. Tiny, happy moments that make up an entire life-a life that, until a year ago, I never thought I'd actually get to live.

"You're right," I say. "You're totally right." We hang up a few minutes later, with him promising to text me in the morning. And even though it's past midnight when I slip out of my closet and into bed, I turn on my bedside lamp and open up my laptop, determined to write the letter I've waited far too long to send.