Chapter 2
Ms. Alvarez didn’t open her folder right away.
She set it on the floor beside her shoe, as if the papers inside weren’t more important than my face. The teacher stayed near the door. She didn’t sit behind me, and she didn’t stand over me. I could see both of them without turning my head.
“Before we begin,” Ms. Alvarez said, “I want you to know you can say you don’t understand a question. You can ask me to repeat it. You can ask for a break.”
“Can I go home?”
She didn’t pretend not to hear me.
“We’re going to decide whether home is safe for you tonight.”
That answer made the classroom feel colder.
I looked at the teacher. She had put her pen on the desk now. Its tip pointed toward the wall instead of toward me.
Ms. Alvarez noticed the movement of my sleeve. “Would it be all right if I looked at your arm?”
I pressed both hands against my stomach.
“Do I have to?”
“No. But the marks may help us understand whether you need medical care or protection.”
I didn’t want anyone touching them. I also didn’t want them to disappear before somebody believed me. Slowly, I pushed the sleeve down.
The bruises looked darker in the morning light than they had before. Some were round. Some were narrow and yellow around the edges. I kept my arm still while Ms. Alvarez looked. She didn’t make a face. She didn’t say it was terrible. She only asked whether I knew when they happened.
I shook my head.
“Did someone hurt you?”
I nodded.
“Who?”
I stared at the floor.
“Was it your stepmom?”
My throat closed. I nodded again.
Ms. Alvarez waited. She didn’t ask me to prove it.
The teacher’s chair creaked behind me.
I heard myself say, “I'm not allowed to sleep at night...”
Ms. Alvarez leaned forward a little, but not enough to make me pull away.
“What happens at night?”
I rubbed the edge of my sleeve between my fingers. It had a loose thread near the cuff.
“Emily, why? What happened to you?”
The teacher’s voice sounded different when she said it again. Not shocked this time. Careful. Like she was placing each word somewhere it wouldn’t break.
I looked at her, then down at my arm.
“My stepmom makes me clean the dog kennel, then she makes me stay inside it. I'm scared to sleep.”
Nobody answered immediately.
The silence didn’t feel empty. It felt like both adults were making room for the words.
Ms. Alvarez wrote something in her folder. The sound of the pen moving across paper made my shoulders rise.
“Does she make you stay there every night?”
“Most nights.”
“What time do you come out?”
“When it gets light. Sometimes before.”
“Is there water?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is there a blanket?”
I shook my head.
Ms. Alvarez’s face tightened around the mouth, but she kept her voice even. “Does anyone else know?”
“I don’t tell.”
“Why not?”
I looked toward the closed door. “She says people will take me away. She says nobody keeps kids who cause trouble.”
The teacher stood up, then stopped herself. Her hand closed around the edge of the desk instead.
Ms. Alvarez asked, “Who picks you up from school?”
“My stepmom.”
“Has she called the school today?”
“No.”
“Do you know where she thinks you are?”
“At school.”
Ms. Alvarez nodded once. She took out her phone. My body went stiff.
“I’m not calling her from here without making a safety plan,” she said. “You’re not going to be sent out to the parking lot while we figure this out.”
My eyes filled before I could stop them.
The teacher moved a box of tissues across the desk. She didn’t push it into my hands.
I took one.
Ms. Alvarez asked whether I had pain anywhere else. I said no. She asked whether I had a safe adult I could name. I thought about the question for a long time.
“The teacher,” I said.
The teacher looked down.
Ms. Alvarez wrote that too.
Then she explained that I would leave school with her, not with my stepmom. She said I might stay somewhere temporary while adults checked what was happening. She didn’t promise it would be easy. She promised she would tell me what she knew.
The teacher came closer only after asking permission. She crouched beside my desk.
“You did the right thing by telling us,” she said.
I wanted to ask if the right thing could still send me back. Instead, I held the tissue in both hands.
Ms. Alvarez stood and made a call near the window. Her voice became low, but I heard enough to know she was arranging a place for me to go.
The teacher picked up her pen.
“May I keep this?” I asked.
She looked at it. “The pen?”
I nodded. I didn’t know why. Maybe because it had been there when the sleeve slipped. Maybe because it was the one thing in the room that had stayed exactly where it was.
She placed it in my palm.
“It’s yours for now,” she said.
When we walked out, I held the pen inside my closed fist. The hallway smelled like floor cleaner and crayons. At the end of it, the front doors showed the parking lot through the glass.
May you like
My stepmom’s car wasn’t there.
For the first time that day, I took a full breath.
