Chapter 13: Midnight in His Kitchen

Wylie put a plate of eggs in front of me at midnight, and I couldn't eat them.

His kitchen was small and bright, with one stool and a window over the sink.

He had texted me at eleven: "The light's on. Come whenever."

I had stood in the lot for twenty minutes before I came up.

"You don't have to talk," he said. "You can sit."

"I have to."

"Then I'll sit too."

He took the counter across from me and folded his arms.

"My name was Annie-Rose Hancock," I said.

He didn't move.

His face did the thing I had been afraid of, and then it didn't.

It went still and waited.

I told him in order, because that was the only way I could do it.

The mall, the strawberry ice cream, and my mother saying "wait right here, baby."

The woman with the mole on her cheek and the cloth over my mouth.

His arms came unfolded at that.

He gripped the edge of the counter and kept his eyes on my face.

"The truck," I said. "Then a farm, and a shed with a padlock on the outside."

"Kristen."

"Let me finish, or I won't."

He nodded, and his knuckles stayed white.

I told him about the grown son who kept me, who was slow and not cruel, and who cried when I broke my leg in the ditch.

I told him about the volunteer teacher who found me at fifteen and drove me out in her station wagon.

When I got to the wrist, I turned it over on the counter.

He looked at the scar and not at me.

"A rope post," I said. "I was tied to it in the yard when the family went to church."

"Kristen."

"I'm not asking you to say anything."

"I know."

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