Livia Lone

26-THEN

Livia passed the first day of spring semester in a daze of nausea and shame. The day before, Mr. Lone had come to her room. That much she had been expecting-it had been almost two weeks since the last time, and with Rick and the sons gone, and Mrs. Lone at her bridge club, one of his visits was inevitable. Livia had just wanted for it to be over so she wouldn’t have to dread it again, at least for a while.

But it didn’t happen the way it usually did. Mr. Lone had screamed that he had found her pads, the ones she used for her period. He accused her of hiding things from him again. And then he shoved her onto the bed, knelt on her back, pulled down her sweatpants and underwear, and pushed his fingers inside her, all the while whispering, “Now we’ll see, now we’ll see,” while Livia cried and struggled.

She hadn’t slept at all that night, and no matter how hard she tried, the next morning she couldn’t push away the memory, the disgusting invasion of his fingers moving and stabbing inside her, the helplessness of being held down like that. The worst part was that as awful as it had been, she knew it was nothing compared to what Skull Face and the other men had done to Nason, and knowing this only magnified her own pain.

She wandered outside at recess and stood in the shadow of one of the oak trees at the edge of the school grounds. The day was warm, and an impromptu touch football game was underway on the grass on the eastern side of the building. Other children were clustered around the rows of picnic tables alongside the school’s brick wall, watching the game, laughing as they squinted against the sun, talking with each other. Livia felt apart from all of it, as though some secret pollution had made its way inside her, a pollution the other children must have sensed even if they couldn’t really know.

She noticed a boy come through the doors at the back of the building-the new boy, Sean something, an eighth grader like her who the teacher had introduced in homeroom. Sean’s father had been hired for an important job in Mr. Lone’s ammunition factory, the teacher had explained, and that’s why Sean had transferred to Llewellyn in the middle of the school year. The teacher had invited Sean up to the whiteboard to say a few words about himself. Livia had watched him, small for his age, walk slowly to the front as though agonized by each step, and she realized he was shy, maybe even more shy than she was. He had caramel-colored skin peppered with freckles, almond-shaped eyes, and dark, kinky hair. It looked like one of his parents was black, and the other Asian. Maybe it made him feel awkward, because almost all the other students at the school were pasty white. If so, she understood how he felt.

But when he tried to speak, Livia realized his shyness was something else. Sean stuttered. Only a little at first, but the moment it happened, the other children started laughing, and then the stuttering got worse. The teacher tried to stop them, but succeeded only in converting outright guffaws into suppressed sniggers. Sean managed to stammer out a few more words, then returned to his seat, his eyes downcast, his caramel-colored cheeks inflamed. Livia felt sorry for him, and wanted to yell at the other children to stop, but she knew all that would accomplish would be to make them laugh at her, as well.

He paused now at the corner of the building and looked over at the football game, at the children sitting at the picnic tables. Holding his books in one hand, he placed the other against the brick wall as though seeking reassurance, then stood there for a moment, his head poking past the corner, his body behind it. He didn’t notice Livia, and no one else seemed to notice him. Then he turned and started walking back toward the entrance.

The doors opened again, and Eric, the ninth grader who liked to taunt her about her accent, strode out, his two bully friends behind him. Livia instinctively tightened her hold on her books.

“Hey,” Eric said loudly. “It’s Stutter Boy.”

Sean stopped and looked at Eric and the other two, his expression worried.

Eric came closer. He smiled. “Say something, S-S-S-Stutter Boy.”

Sean shook his head and took a step back.

Livia felt paralyzed. She wanted to help. She knew she should. And in her life before, before everything that had been done to her and Nason, before she’d been brought to this horrible place, before Mr. Lone had made her feel so poisoned and alone and helpless… she would have.

At the same time, she was relieved that Eric and the other two were bullying someone else. And even as she realized it, she was engulfed by a wave of shame.

Help him, she thought. But she felt so weak. So useless. So afraid.

Eric took a step closer. His smile faded. “Say something, Stutter Boy. Or I’ll make you say something.”

Again, Sean’s only response was a shake of his head. It was the oddest thing-his face was frightened, but there was something in his posture that seemed… prepared, somehow. He had turned his body slightly so that his left side was facing Eric, and with one hand he was holding his books close to his chin, almost like a shield, while his other hand was up and open in a gesture Livia thought was meant to look placating, but that also looked… practiced, somehow. Deliberate.

Eric shot out a hand and knocked Sean’s books out of his arm. They hit the ground, but Sean didn’t look away. He kept his hands up, palms forward, elbows close to his body.

One of Eric’s bully friends laughed and said, “I g-g-guess you’re going to have to make him, Eric.”

Eric grunted a laugh, then reached for Sean. What happened next went so fast that Livia wasn’t sure what she had seen.

Sean grabbed Eric’s incoming wrist and pulled it hard. At the same instant, he planted a foot on Eric’s thigh and launched himself into the air in some kind of somersault. He caught Eric’s arm between his legs, and for a moment just hung like that, suspended upside down from Eric’s body, supported only by his grip on the wrist and his legs clamped on the arm. Eric was pulled into a crouch by Sean’s weight. He staggered once as he tried to keep his balance, then fell to the ground with a surprised yelp. Sean hung on to the arm, his ankles crossed over Eric’s chest, his back arched. Eric’s friends watched bug eyed, apparently too shocked to intervene.

“You g-going to bother me anymore?” Sean said.

Eric kicked and struggled. Sean arched his back more, and Eric yelped again, louder this time.

“You going to bother me anymore?” Sean said. Livia noticed that this time, he didn’t stutter.

Eric thrashed harder. “Let me go, you little fucking-”

Sean arched further. Eric yelled in pain.

Sean lifted his head so he was looking directly at Eric’s red, contorted face. “You going to bother me anymore?”

“I’m gonna kill you, you little-”

Again Sean arched. This time, Eric positively shrieked. Livia glanced over to the side of the building and realized some of the other children had heard it. They were looking left and right, but couldn’t see around the corner.

“You going to-”

“No! No! I’m not going to bother you anymore. Let me go! Let me go!”

Sean released Eric’s arm and scuttled off him, then came quickly to his feet. Livia noticed that he kept his hands in front of his face as he stood, as though in anticipation that the other boys might rush him. He took a long step back and watched them warily.

But if he was worried, he didn’t need to be. The other two were too shocked, and maybe too afraid, to do anything but gape at their fallen friend, who was cradling his arm now and actually crying. “Why did you do that?” he said, his voice high. “You broke my arm. You broke it.” Then he drew in a long, hitching breath and sobbed, “Oh, God, it hurts, it hurts.”

“It’s not broken,” Sean said. “Just sprained.” Then he added, “This time.”

After a moment, Eric managed to get to his feet. His friends didn’t help him. And when he walked back toward the school, cradling his injured arm and still crying, they didn’t even get the door. They just followed him, looking at each other and then at Eric and then at each other again. Before disappearing inside, one of them glanced back at Sean, and the hurt and resentment Livia saw in his eyes was the expression of a child outraged that someone had confiscated a favorite toy.

And then they were gone. Sean picked up his books and sat on one of the benches near the doors. Livia noticed he was shaking a little. He looked up and saw her watching, and she quickly looked away.

The bell rang, and the children who had been playing football and laughing at the picnic tables began to come around the corner and dutifully file inside, none of them even glancing at Sean as they passed him. After a few minutes, the area was deserted. Other than a few birds chirping in the surrounding trees, the schoolyard was suddenly silent.

Livia came out from behind the oak tree and started toward the building, her heart pounding, her books pressed across her chest. Sean watched wordlessly as she approached.

She stopped in front of him. He looked up at her, and she thought he seemed very sad. She didn’t know why, but she felt like crying. But hers wasn’t a sad feeling. Instead, she felt fierce, awake, electrified, as though for so long she’d been suffocating and suddenly had witnessed a way she could breathe. For the first time since the van had pulled up in the forest and Skull Face had gotten out, she wasn’t afraid of anything-only that this boy might say no to what she had to ask him.

“Please,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. “What you did? Will you teach it to me?”