She thought a moment. “Okay, I know what you can do. Pretend it happened to someone else. Pretend you are a reporter writing the story. First, how did he get you to go with him?”
I looked away. Why did she want to know all this? I took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to stop until I did tell her.
“He spoke Spanish well and acted as if he wanted to be my friend and help me find my way here in America. I thought he was very nice. One day, he picked me up when I was walking home from where the bus stopped, and he asked me to accompany him to check on a house he and his father were redoing to sell. I didn’t want to go, but he made it sound as if it would be very quick. He was Sophia’s boyfriend, so I didn’t think I should be afraid. I thought he simply wanted to impress me with his accomplishments, but when we got there…”
“Yes? What?” she said, leaning forward.
“He forced himself on me, held me down. It was horrible.”
“Where exactly did he do that?”
“Where? In the house…on the floor.”
“So…you didn’t enjoy any of it?”
“No,” I said, amazed at the question. “It made me feel dirty inside and out.”
She sat back, looking a little disappointed.
“He tried to get me not to tell, and then he tried to get me to go with other boys.”
“What a creep. I remember him well. He was a good-looking boy, and of course he wanted me to go out with him, but there was something about him that turned me off.”
“You were lucky.”
“He wouldn’t have dared try to do that to me,” she said. She stared at me a moment and then smiled. “What do you think of Adan?”
“He’s very nice and very good-looking.”
“He’s a man, not a schoolboy,” she said. “I’m sure he’s been with many women. I imagine that you are quite frightened about being with a boy since the rape, right? You probably have nightmares all the time.”
“No. I am sure not all boys are as cruel.”
She studied me again. “There isn’t anything really going on between you and your cousin Edward, is there? You can tell me. I don’t gossip. A secret is as good as locked in a vault when it is told to me.”
“Nothing like what Sophia is telling people. Edward is my best friend, and so is Jesse.”
“I didn’t think so. He doesn’t look AC/DC to me.”
“What is this AC/DC?”
“Someone who goes both ways. You know, a boy who likes boys and girls, too.”
I shook my head. “There are so many confusing things to know about boys and romance, I understand why some women want to become nuns.”
She thought that was very funny.
“I am not joking.”
“I don’t imagine you are. Come to me if you have any doubts or questions.”
“How did you learn so much? Have you had many boyfriends?”
“No, I haven’t had that many boyfriends, but I have a built-in sex-trap detector,” she replied.
“What is this thing, this detector?”
“It’s like an alarm that goes off here,” she said, pointing to her temple, “and tells me to back off, stay away from this one or that.”