Naked (6 page)

Chapter Nine

I
take in a few deep breaths before I step into the one class I’ve actually been looking forward to—art. Drawing used to be one of my favorite things to do. Maybe it can be again.

There’s a large gray-haired teacher sitting behind a desk at the front of the room, but he doesn’t even look up from his papers, so I head to the back, sit quietly at an empty table, and pretend to be busy with something.

The teacher doesn’t say anything, not even after the bell rings for the start of class. He’s probably just in his own world. After a few minutes, he gives one quick intro, then sits at his desk and lets everyone work on some random project.

I spy on a few of the kids closest to me. Most of their artwork resembles fourth-grade drawings, but one catches my eyes. It’s pretty spectacular. I wish I could draw like that.

I pull out a piece of paper and begin to doodle. Seems right since that’s what everyone else is doing. Except that they’re using pastels and charcoal and other random art supplies I’ve never used. And I’m using a pencil and notebook paper.

I draw my city—New York—though I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who would know it’s New York. Westchester isn’t that far from the city, so I’m sure a few of the other students have been, but my rendition includes the people you only see if you’re there all the time, because really, they’re who make it spectacular.

Each line drawn on the stupid notebook paper gets me closer to that old dream, takes me deeper into my mind, where everything is fine. Good even.

Soon, I forget where I am. Forget the uncomfortable seat beneath me, the frumpy mom jeans and who bought them for me, the disappointment in my father’s eyes.

I jump when someone speaks. “Interesting. New York, I’m guessing?”

I lift my head but don’t turn to see who it is standing over me. Based on the age in his gravelly voice, I’d say it’s the art teacher.

“Maybe,” I say.

He doesn’t speak for a moment, but I see eyes drifting toward us.

“Well, wherever it is, it’s clear you love it,” he says simply. I don’t answer, but apparently he doesn’t need me to. “But is it the city you love, or is it the drawing?”

Now I look at him, curious.

“What do you think?” I say.

“Both,” he decides. “A beautiful city captured in beautiful art.”

I’m not sure he’s right, but I like that he believes it. It feels a little like he believes in me.

“Next time ask me for the proper supplies,” he says. “A good artist deserves the right tools.”

I actually smile as I nod at him. For the first time, I feel like a real student.

The bell rings, and I’m impressed with myself when I don’t jump. I grab my things and follow the rest of the class into the hall.

“Miss Rodriguez,” the teacher calls out. “I think you may have talent.”

I’m surprised to find he knows my name, but it doesn’t take much for me to realize oh, of course he knows my name. He has a list of the students in his class.

I give him a look that most people would take offense to. I hope he doesn’t.

“I don’t know if I have talent,” I say.

He smiles. “Some people can draw effortlessly, others can’t, but that’s not the kind of talent I mean. It may take you more time to learn the technique, but you have the passion, and that is much more important.”

I nod, because, well, I don’t know what else to do.

I walk into the hallway and pause to find the right direction and walk through the crowd. The stares seem less obtrusive now somehow. Maybe it’s just having someone actually on my side that helps. I used to like crowds in the city because I could blend in. No one noticed me. It could be the same here.

One kid shakes his head at me as I walk past. “How many?” he says.

“Huh?” I say, but I keep walking.

“How many guys?”

Now I stop. “What did you say?”

“I heard you like to sleep around.”

Funny, really funny.

I flip him off, which only shows them it’s getting to me.

“Maybe I could be your next date,” he says.

I should keep walking, ignore him, but I’m still high on confidence from Jackson and art class.

“Go screw yourself.”

The guy’s face scrunches up. I’ve seen that look before, like he means business. I steel myself, but before anything can escalate, I hear someone behind me.

“Is there a problem here?” a deep voice says. No normal human’s voice should be that deep. I freeze.

If I thought the other students maybe finding out about my past was scary, hearing this voice… My skin breaks out in a cold sweat, my entire body goes numb, my heart pounds in my ears, my head throbs.

I turn around, and the second my eyes rise high enough to see his face, my stomach twists and my head spins.

Calm down. Calm down.

I don’t know him. He’s just a middle-aged white man with a scraggly beard and bloodshot eyes.

But he looks so much like someone I’d give anything in the world to forget. That might be the only thing I’d turn Luis in for—to forget that man, that night.

Luis didn’t care that the guy had paid for three sessions up front. He kept the money and made sure the guy knew to never come back.

You hurt my girl, I hurt you.

My hands start to shake as I fight to keep calm, to keep my head grounded in reality. The guy’s wearing a blue jumpsuit and pushing a cleaning cart. He must be the janitor.

But he smells like cigarettes—
his
cigarettes—and suddenly all I can feel are that old man’s hands on me, forcing me onto the bed, undressing me, pushing me down, and I want to fight him, to call for help—

I close my eyes.

It’s not him. This isn’t real. I’m fine.

Everything is going to be okay.

I open my eyes and expect to see the real world again, but all is see is a large fisted hand coming right for my face.

I trip backward and fall hard onto the ground. I bring my arms up over my face, and one part of me knows it’s not real, it can’t be, but the other part can’t escape the past.

A scarred fist crashing into my face.

A burst of pain.

The pressure of a huge body shoving me down onto a filthy, lumpy mattress.

Stinging. The horrible pressure of the man holding me down. Pinning me beneath his disgusting weight.

I scream, but the pressure only gets worse.

I push, but the weight only gets heavier. He takes and takes, and he doesn’t stop.

I can’t breathe. Can’t see. Can’t think.

Please. Make it stop.

Chapter Ten

I
barely register the bustle around me as someone shoos away the gawking students and asks someone to call my parents.

I force my brain into the present, and by the time I have enough control over my body to open my eyes, it’s not the janitor looking at me anymore. It’s a young female teacher who leans over me and asks if I’m okay.

I nod, pull myself up, and walk with her down to the nurse’s office without speaking a word. I don’t look at anything around me, don’t listen to the people. I don’t let myself think. I’d rather be numb, kind of like when you’re in the fuzzy almost-drunk place. I don’t want to feel. Don’t want to hurt.

After a while, Sarah and my mother come into the nurse’s office. No sign of my father. Never have I been so glad how much he works.

They share a whispered conversation with the woman behind the desk, and I try my best to ignore it, to pretend I don’t hear what they say about me, but really I wish they weren’t saying anything at all, because my mother really doesn’t need more reasons to think I’m completely insane.

It’s Sarah who turns to me first¸ eyes full of sympathy and worry.

I don’t like looks like that.

I mean, I get it. I’m a wreck, and that’s how you look at people like me.

But I still don’t like it. I want to be strong. Impressive.

If I want this to work, I have to be.

My mother turns, and at first she keeps her eyes cast to ground, but then she glances at me, and I see a hint of what I saw the other day when she spoke over my father, a woman who maybe cares but doesn’t know what to say any more than I do.

“I’m going to talk with the office,” Sarah says. “I’ll be back in just a second.” Her lips flicker up into a sad smile.

My mother shifts on her feet and rubs her hands together awkwardly. I don’t say anything. Even if I knew what to say, I wouldn’t have the energy to make the words.

I wonder if it’ll stay like this. If they’ll drop me off at home without asking me what happened. Maybe they already know.

My mother sits on the stupid plastic bed across from me and stares into her hands.

“Sarah…has some things she wants to talk with you about before she goes back to New York.” She watches the clock, the computer in the corner, the cracked stone tile. “So she’s going to take you to lunch and then home. I’ll…see you there.”

“Okay,” I say.

Maybe she heard something in my voice, because she finally looks up. Her eyes are red, her cheeks flushed. She takes in a deep breath, and her voice shakes when she says, “I want to help you, Anna. I don’t know how, but I’m going to try.”

Then she stands, and before I can give in to the temptation to ask her what that means—how she plans to help—she leaves the room.

When Sarah comes back and looks around, I don’t say a word, I just stand and walk past her into the empty hall.

She leads me outside to her car and opens the passenger door for me. Once I’m inside, the door closes with a
thunk
that makes my head pound. Sarah gets behind the wheel and pulls out of the school parking lot before she finally speaks.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head, and she nods like she already knew the answer.

“I think you should see someone.”

I curl my legs up, wrap my arms around them, and lean my forehead against the cool window. I watch the streetlights, cars, trees, and buildings fly past.

“Anna?” she asks.

“What kind of someone? Like a therapist or something? Isn’t that what you’re for?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m here to help how I can, but there’s only so much I can do.”

She’s right about that. But I doubt a therapist is going to be much better.

“It was nothing,” I say. “I didn’t eat breakfast. You ever not eat breakfast?”

“Yeah.” She’s quiet for a few beats of my heart. “Anna, the teacher said you were crying out.”

My eyes grow wide. “That’s embarrassing,” I whisper.

“From what I understand, this was after the hallway was cleared. Not that it changes what you said.”

“What did I say?” I ask, my voice cracking on the last syllable.

“You called for Luis.”

Ice-cold horror fills me. I don’t know how much she knows. I haven’t been brave enough to ask.

“What did he do to you, Anna? Did he rape you?”

“Who?” I ask, shocked. “Luis? No.”

She doesn’t say anything, I guess giving me space to say more if I want to. But I don’t want to.

It’s quiet again until Sarah asks me if I want something for lunch, much more upbeat than seems at all appropriate. I take this as a sign that she’s done interrogating me, and I relax a little. Only a little.

My body sags against the car door, exhausted. I’d kind of rather just go to bed, but then my stomach rumbles. I really didn’t eat breakfast. Some food actually would make me feel better.

We stop at a local diner and eat. I get a grilled cheese and fries and she gets a salad. Funny. She looks like a salad kind of person.

Which means she probably hates New York, land of hot dogs and pizza.

She doesn’t press me any further with the thing at school, which is good, because I’m not talking any time soon. I wish I had as much control over my brain as I do my mouth. My mind keeps switching back to that night. My nightmare.

I wish I could be one of those people who blocks that kind of stuff out, you know? I’ve heard of people who experience something traumatic but forget the memory as a way of protecting themselves, or something.

Not me. Nope, my mind must think I’m strong as fuck, because I remember every damn detail. Every time I think I’ve pushed it deep down where it can’t find me, it rises back up, more fresh than ever.

After the man finished—the man who paid for three sessions and then hit me, like he’d also paid for the pleasure of beating on me—he threw a ten-dollar bill on the ground and called it a “tip.”

“There’s more where that came from if you put that pretty little mouth to good use.” Even his words tasted like cigarettes. “And I’ve got you for two more dates, so there’ll be plenty of opportunities.” He stood up and walked out, just like that. Like he was leaving a dentist’s appointment.

Luis came in after him and ran up to me. He knelt next to the bed and pulled me into his lap. He wiped the blood off my mouth and pulled his sweatshirt over my naked body and started to sing.

“Everything’s gonna be all right, be all right.”

I started to cry, and he shushed me. Apparently that guy had paid extra, up front, for the privilege of being with someone as young as me. Like that was all that would do it for him.

But he wasn’t supposed to get that rough. Or so Luis said.

The next day Luis bought a gun.

He said he wanted us to be ready in case that ever happened again.

He said he wanted me to be safe.

He said he loved me.

Maybe, in the end, he just loved the money more.

“A
re you feeling better?” Sarah asks me when I clear my plate.

After thinking about how the one person I thought loved me betrayed me in the end, I should feel terrible. But with food in my belly and the hope that whatever comes next, at least the past is behind me, and I guess I do feel a little better, after all.

“I’m okay,” I say.

“Good. Because I have something to talk to you about. Something I’m not sure you’re going to take well.”

“Like?”

“I have some things to ask you. Important things.”

My eyebrows rise. “I thought we were done with the question part of our relationship. I already told you all I have to say.”

She shakes her head, and her face turns serious, her hands folded all businesslike. She picks up a briefcase off the floor by her feet and pulls out a manila envelope that’s thankfully not near big enough to hold all my secrets.

I stifle a laugh.
I’m
not big enough to hold all my secrets.

“When I questioned you before,” she says, “I had enough to take you back home. I didn’t need much, really, once we knew who your parents were.”

I nod. I know this.

“That was always most important, but there are other things that are important, too. Like making sure what happened to you doesn’t happen again.”

My eyebrows pull down over my narrowed eyes. I have to admit, the thought of that kind of shit never happening again is appealing, but I’ve heard this kind of promise before.

“How can I do anything about that?” I ask.

“By telling me who did it to you.”

I take a long sip of my soda, anything to avoid Sarah’s eyes.

“Where did you live? Who did you live with? Who was your pimp? All of those things would help us greatly.”

I close my eyes. I don’t like those questions. Especially the last one. Those are the questions cops ask me.
Who is your pimp?
they’d scream at me.

She wants me to tell the truth. But I’ve seen what telling the truth gets you.

I was nothing to the cops. Worst of the worst of the street scum, and they always got away with doing whatever they wanted to get me to talk.

The more they hit, the more I shut down.

Some other girls gave in. They talked. But it didn’t stop the police from hurting them. Or from hurting the people the truth identified.

I feel proud to say a cop never got one lick of information from me.

But I can’t say they didn’t fuck me up, inside and out.

“I don’t have a pimp,” I say.

Sarah must notice that I wince when I answer her question, because she presses her soft hands onto mine. I didn’t even realize how tightly I was squeezing them together.

She was the first person to figure me out, but I don’t feel ashamed of that. 1) She’s not a cop, and believe me, that makes all the difference. 2) I’m already convinced she’s psychic or has some kind of superpowers, and how am I supposed to contend with Superwoman?

“You don’t have one now, you’re right about that,” she whispers so soft and slow that tears form in my eyes. “But I know you did have one. And if we find him, if you help us find him, we can stop him from hurting other girls like you.”

I shake my head. Was he my pimp? Was he my boyfriend? I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to face it. And I certainly don’t want to tell anyone about it. Besides, who am I to decide Luis’s fate?

She opens up the file, spreads it over the table. “Honestly, Anna, we’ve already found some things about your time in New York, but we still need your help to fill in the holes.”

I look into her eyes, more scared than I’ve ever been. Not terrified, not like when I was raped or when I was attacked in Grand Central or when Luis and I were jumped that one time and he had to pull a gun to get away. Not that kind of fear.

This is bone deep. The kind that stings your eyes with a deep pain in your heart. The kind that you know you’ll never heal from because it’s not physical.

Doesn’t she get it? Doesn’t she understand that I want to forget about everything that happened in New York? Good. Bad. It’s over.

At least I want it to be.

“We know about Luis,” she says. “He’s going on trial and we need your help.”

I press my eyes closed and one small tear escapes, trickling down my cheek, exposing me. I wipe it away quickly, but the damage is done. If she was bluffing, she got the answer she was looking for.

She pulls out a mug shot of Luis. He’s not smiling.

This isn’t a picture of the Luis I knew, the man I gave everything for, and my world crashes in a way it hadn’t before. Even when he abandoned me, he still seemed alive. He still seemed like he had hope for the future.

The Luis in this picture is vacant, his eyes dead.

Is this because of me? Is he empty because I’m not there? Does he regret giving me away?

I shake my head and push away the picture, holding back the panic in the back of my throat. “I don’t know who that is. I don’t know him.” It’s a desperate tactic that I’m sure won’t work, but I have to try. I have to.

“Anna,” she whispers.

I shake my head.

“You don’t have to protect him.”

I keep shaking my head, back and forth, back and forth. My heart breaks, cracks slowly, splinters. Shatters.

“He’s already been arrested,” she says. “There will be a court case in a few months. We’re rounding up witnesses now. He’ll go to trial for quite a few things. Child prostitution, statutory rape—”

“Rape?”

“It means he’s too old to be sleeping with a sixteen-year-old girl. They consider you too young to choose for yourself. Especially since you’ve been with him since you were thirteen. The question is, how long were you sleeping with him?”

She acts like she knows so much.

“Look Anna, we need your help to put him away. We don’t need much, we just need you to testify…tell us what happened. Tell us the truth so we can give him justice.”

“What?”

“We want you to testify.”

“Against Luis?”

She nods.

Maybe Jackson was right. We’re nothing without hope, and as angry as I should be at Luis, as happy as I should be to see him suffer without me there, my very last hope was that he would be okay.

Now she wants me to talk. To help put him in jail.

I don’t know what he deserves, but I know I don’t want that power.

I stand. “That’s the reason you asked if he raped me. You just want to charge him with more things!”

I can’t believe she would do this to me. Or that she’d ask me to do this to Luis. She’s supposed to be a friend.

“I’m not looking to get him in more trouble,” she says. “But if he raped you—”

“No! He saved me. You don’t get it. He saved me!”

Sarah just looks at me. She still doesn’t get it and she never will. No one ever will.

Usually she knows everything, can see the things no one else does, but she’s missing the point here. I was a hooker, yes. I did have a pimp…sort of.

But the only reason he became my pimp—if you could even call him that—is because we didn’t have a better option. I had a dream, and he wanted to help me go after it. We needed money.

In the end, he abandoned me. He sold me to someone else, like I was property. I guess that shows what he was willing to do for money.