Page 105 of The Way I Used to Be

It takes hours. I have to say everything a million times by the end, and then she hands me my own clipboard and pad of paper and a pen, and I have to write it all down while she sits there watching. My hand cramps up after the first couple of pages. I stop and shake it out, extending my fingers.

“I guess it’s pretty awful that I never told anyone?” I ask her.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, what if I would’ve told, and then he wouldn’t have—I mean, maybe I could’ve stopped all of this from happening?”

“When someone threatens your life, those aren’t empty words,” she states matter-of-factly.

“But what if—”

“No. No more what-ifs,” she tells me firmly. “You did the right thing by coming in, Eden.”

“How can you be sure what’s right?” I ask her, thinking about how everything has to change now.

She smiles soberly and says, “It’s my job to know the difference between right and wrong. This is right.”

I try to smile back.

“We’re going to get this little bastard,” she says. “I’m sure of it. And he won’t be able to hurt anyone else, okay?”

“Do you know about what happened to him?” I clear my throat. “When he was a kid—with his uncle, I mean?”

“Yes,” she answers. Her face doesn’t change, though. She just continues looking at me, unflinching. “That was a terrible thing—yes. But it’s not a free pass. Not an excuse.”

My heart floods, so full of every emotion I’ve ever known, all at once. Because she’s right. It’s no excuse. Not a free pass. Not for him. And not for me. I nod my head.

“I won’t lie, Eden,” she tells me. “It’ll get harder before it gets easier, but everything will be okay, I promise.”

“Everything will be okay” always sounds like a generic, useless thing that people just say when there’s nothing else to be said for a situation, but those words coming out of her mouth—it sounds like the most profound thing anyone has ever said in the history of humankind.

Outside, it’s dusk. Nearly night already. I can just make out the white-and-green awning. I start to descend the stairs, but I sit down on one of the steps instead. I breathe the cold air in deeply and it fills my lungs in a new way.

I take my phone out and dial a number I had memorized years ago. It rings.

“Hello?” Mrs. Armstrong answers, sounding just exhausted.

“Hi, Mrs. Armstrong. It’s Edy. Is Amanda there?”

“Honey, I’m not sure she feels like talking right now. Wait—hold on a second.” And I hear her hand cover the receiver, her words muffled. Something’s happening. Static and movement. It seems like a long time passes.

Then finally: “Hi,” Amanda says quietly. “Sorry, I had to go in my room.” And suddenly she sounds like herself again, the girl I used to know.

“Hi,” I respond, but I don’t know what else to say to her.

“I had to tell,” she says, not wasting any time with chitchat. “I just had to.”

“Amanda, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too—about everything—I’m sorry for things you don’t even know I should be sorry for, Edy,” she admits.

“How did you know?” I ask her.

“I could just tell. The other day at school. I could just feel it—I don’t know.”

“Did he really tell you we actually slept together, like you said?”

She pauses, and says, “You know, I always looked up to you so much when we were younger. I don’t know if you ever knew that. He knew that, anyway. And he tried to make me believe that it was okay. Normal. That you—if you did it, wanted to, I mean—then, you know, what could be wrong with that?” Her voice breaks up, as she tries not to cry. “The sickest part is that I actually believed him—about you—I believed every word. Until the other day.”