Chapter 259

• When all of the questions were done, we just sat there for a bit, saying nothing. Every now and then I’d look over to see Kim sitting up with her legs together and her hands on her lap on the recliner. She looked terrified and nervous. She had stopped crying, but the streaks from her earlier tears were still visible on her cheeks. She wouldn’t look up at me, she just kept staring at the floor. I noticed that there were scratches and some small bruises on her arms. Some looked like fingernails, other like she had small objects thrown at her. Her hair was now even worse than it had been when she came to the door, as she had messed it up more while telling me what had happened by bringing her hands to her head a lot. What I took before to be a streaky bruise on her cheek was actually a bruise on her cheek covered in makeup that was coming off. I don’t know whether the bruise was there before the fight with her mom or not, and it led me to wonder if there were other days Kim had come to school with makeup covering bruises on her face.
• Suddenly, and without saying anything, I got up and walked down a short hallway to a linen closet. I grabbed a spare towel and headed back to Kim. I tossed her the spare towel and said, “Take a hot shower. Or a bath if you want to. Clean yourself up, and then just relax. Take as long as you want. When you’re done, we’ll figure out what to do.”
• Kim looked up at me with a thankful look in her eyes, opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it and looked down at her lap again. She mumbled, “Thanks,” under her breath. Then she grabbed the towel and headed to the bathroom.