I wipe my tears again and try to steady my emotions. I want to speak with conviction, with heart. And I do. I tell them about how Cooper and I met. How he’d call every day when he was on campus and we’d see each other every day when he was in town. I mention the jealousy Cooper felt for Luke, but how he restrained it. At least at the beginning. Then he started to do strange things like calling me in the middle of the night to make sure I was alone, that I wasn’t with Luke. He’d call my work, make sure I was there when I said I would be. He didn’t like me talking to guys. Any guys. And I’d never been in a serious relationship before so back then, I thought it was kind of flattering—the jealousy. He got me a car for my birthday, and I found out later that he installed a GPS tracking device in it. He did the same with my phone. When I realized, I was too scared to go home.” I look over at Tom. “That’s when you found me sitting in my car on your driveway and I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t.” I go back to the detectives, tell them how whenever I wasn’t with Cooper, he stalked me from a distance. He knew where I was at all times. I tried to leave him during winter break. I said it was too much for me, and he promised he’d stop. New Year’s Eve, I was alone in a room on a houseboat and I was sick and I was scared and I needed Luke, he’d always been there in the past. So I called his brother’s phone because Cooper had blocked Luke’s number, and I knew they’d be together. Cooper came down a few minutes after midnight and caught me talking to someone. It feels strange to say “caught me” as if I was doing something so terribly wrong. In truth, I was negligent with Cooper’s wants, his needs, and those are the types of excuses I made throughout the entire relationship. I tell the detectives that New Year’s was the first time Cooper hurt me physically. He pushed me against a wall, and I collapsed to the floor and my glasses went flying. When I went to reach for them, he stomped on my hand and then stomped on the glasses and he picked me up, his hands tight on my upper arms. He shook me and yelled and shook me some more until I puked all over him, all over myself. He made me clean it up while he went back to the party, to the loud music that hid the evidence of what he’d done to me. I had bruises on my upper arms, but I didn’t tell anyone. I hid the truth, hid my shame, hid my guilt. Then I tell the detectives about how when school started again, things got worse. Cooper was under a lot of pressure. Again with the excuses. He had to maintain a certain GPA and his classes were killing him and his training was just as bad. His dad was threatening to kill him because his dad’s a monster, another excuse, and he started taking amphetamines so he could stay awake, stay alert, but they just made him crazy, paranoid. He became manipulative and vindictive and destructive, and every weekend I spent with him felt like I was walking on eggshells. He’d always go for the places I could cover up: ribs, back, hips… and he knew I wouldn’t tell. He used my weakness to his strength. I tell them about the time Cooper took me to a business dinner with his dad and some of his clients and Cooper’s dad kept talking down to him, saying that he would amount to nothing and running track wouldn’t earn him a degree and Cooper got so mad, so livid, and we got in his car and he pulled over in an abandoned parking lot and smashed my head against the window. It came out of nowhere. I screamed, and he covered my mouth and then he forced me to…

I stop there.

At the point where Dad releases me, and all I feel is shame.

Then I hear him cry and I look up, but it’s not him, it’s Tom. Swear, there’s nothing sadder than watching a 6”4’ man hunched in a seat, his head in his hands, shoulders bouncing, sobs slicing the air.

Mayfield asks, “He raped you?”

My eyebrows pinch, confusion swirling. “No. I mean, I was his girlfriend and I was scared, so I just let him…”

“Oh, Laney,” Tom groans, rubbing his face. He looks up, his eyes locked on mine. “Why didn’t you come to me, sweetheart? I understand if you were afraid to tell your dad or Lucas, but all these years you’ve been like a daughter to me. You could have told me.”

I break down. Shut down. It hurts too much. Physically and emotionally. I grasp onto Dad, use his shirt to catch my cries. “Can we please stop now? I don’t want to do this anymore.” I look up at him, speak through my sobs. “Please, Dad, make it stop?”

LUCAS

I didn’t kill Cooper.

Instead, I go outside and get some air, away from the bullshit media and the bullshit cameras and the bullshit reporters who have nothing better to do than wait around a hospital, digging for their next fucking angle. I go far away, more than a hundred yards, so I don’t break my bullshit restraining order.

I find a bench under a tree. I sit. I think…

The glasses.

The clothes.

The blocking me from her phone.

The distance.

“We’re still together. It’s just hard… you know…”

“There’s so much I want to tell you…”

He was controlling.

Unpredictable.

“I managed to escape—”

“I’m so tired, Lucas. Of everything.”

“I’m finally free of him.”

The darkness during sex.

“Be gentle with me, Lucas.”

How did I not see this?

How did I not save her?

“Is this seat taken?”

I look up to see a familiar face. Mrs. Kennedy’s standing in front of me, huge sunglasses covering her eyes. She clutches her purse as if I’m here to steal her fucking money, as if she’s not the one who approached me. Fuck you. “No, ma’am. Seat’s free.”

She sits next to me, crosses her legs. “I didn’t know kids still say ma’am.”

I look straight ahead. “My mother taught me manners.” She taught me a lot of things, like not to beat on women. What the fuck have you been teaching your son?

I’m sure she knows who I am, but she’s faking it, and I’ll play her fucking game and I’ll win because I’m sick of fucking losing. My mom. My freedom. My perspective. My goddamn mind.

She pulls out a stick of gum from her purse and offers it to me.

“No, thank you.”

We’re not friends. We don’t share gum. What the hell does she want?

“So polite,” she mumbles.

“Like I said,” I lean back on the bench. “My mother taught me manners.”

“It’s Katherine, right? Your mother?”

I hate this so much. I hate that my mom’s name left the mouth of his mom. I start to leave, but she says, “Lucas?”

I sigh, sit back down. “With all due respect, Mrs. Kennedy, what do you want from me?”

“So you know who I am?”

“I saw you at the hospital the night your son tried to kill my best friend.”

“I thought she was your girlfriend.”

I face her. “She’s both.”

She nods, smiles like she has a right to. “I met your mom once, at this charity event. She was dancing with your dad, and I remember looking at them and being so jealous. They loved each other very much.”

“Love,” I correct.