Lucca pulled out a cigarette. “We’ll go backwards.” He lit the end. “Tell him everything you know.” Then he flipped the lighter closed.
Chloe watched the smoke envelope her face and then looked down at the book. “I-I-I—”
Nero jumped in. “Let’s start slow. What did she tell her parents when she came home with bruises, scratches, and broken bones?”
Chloe tried to start. “A-at f-first—”
Lucca flicked his lighter on, weaving it through his fingers.
Chloe took a deep breath, staring into the flame. “At first, she tried her best to hide them by wearing lots of clothes. She told me she would slowly reveal a different mark each day to pretend it happened that day.” Chloe squeezed her hands tightly together. “Then, when they got worse, she lied and told them she’d joined soccer. She got away with it because they hardly left the house since her dad was still recovering. That made it easy for her. They didn’t get caught up in the details, worrying over his accident. Eventually, I think they got used to her getting hurt since she pretended to be so clumsy, so she was able to stop telling her parents she played soccer, and they just believed she was accident-prone.”
Nero squeezed the bridge of his nose. That was only the beginning.
He watched her turn numb, staring blankly into the fire Lucca held in his hands. She went through the pictures, explaining what had happened and who had done it. His body turned numb with hers, his mind taking in all the information, careful not to miss a detail. He had been taken through the first half of senior year, junior year, and sophomore year. When she got to freshman year, she told him about how Sebastian had taken a fucking book to her face and her arm.
Chloe turned the page, coming to the first picture of her and Chloe together. There weren’t any visible marks; however, that was when Elle’s hair was the shortest and Chloe’s scars the freshest. Chloe didn’t say anything about the picture.
Nero watched Chloe’s face turn from nothing into sadness. There was something she wasn’t saying.
He went into his pocket and pulled out a picture from his billfold. “I found this behind that picture.”
Chloe watched Nero toss a picture of Elle on top of the other one. She started shaking her head. “I d-don’t want—”
Nero leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Tell me.”
“I c-can’t do it. You’ll hate me.” Chloe couldn’t stop fidgeting with her hands.
“Maybe she’s had enough,” Amo told him.
Lucca flipped his lighter shut with a hard snap. “She’s fine.”
Nero looked at Amo, unable to hide the way he felt about pushing Chloe too far. He wondered if he should let her stop and just be satisfied with everything she had given him already.
No. “Tell me.” This time, he spoke a little harsher.
Lucca started back with the flicker of light. He moved it through his hands, starting and stopping the flame with a different finger from each trick he did.
Chloe moved the picture to uncover the one beneath it again. She returned to her numbness. “Cassandra started talking to me right when school started. She was popular, and I just wanted to fit in. She started saying mean things to people, and I would just sit there and listen to her. I felt bad and wanted to say something, but I didn’t because I was afraid she would start picking on me.”
Chloe took a deep breath. “One day, we were in the locker room and she gave me a pair of scissors. She said something to Elle about her father, and for the first time, I heard someone talk back to her. Elle started to walk away when Cassandra, Stacy, and Stephanie pinned her to the ground, hitting her head. When Cassandra asked me to hand her the scissors, I didn’t want to, but Cassandra asked me if I wanted to end up like her, so I gave them to her. She was jealous of Elle’s hair, so she cut it all off. That was the first time Elle and I ever met.”
Nero took a breath. He was disappointed in Chloe, but he understood the pressure of high school. He had known there was a reason why Elle had short hair after so many years of not cutting it, but that didn’t explain the picture of Elle clearly beaten to a pulp.
“What happened to her, Chloe?”
“C-Cassandra, Stacy, and Stephanie wanted to smoke behind the school with Sebastian during lunch. W-we met Elle on our way, and Cassandra told him she had talked back to her in the locker room. Sebastian dragged her outside and they all started kicking her and beating her.” Chloe started digging her nails in her hands.
Nero started to get sick. He noticed Amo and Vincent were having a hard time, as well. He knew that wasn’t all of it, though. There was something she didn’t want to tell.
“Finish the story.”
Chloe dug in a little more. “I-I was scared and just stood there. When they were done, they started to walk away, but Sebastian noticed I hadn’t joined in. He t-t-told me…He told me I better kick her.” Chloe removed her eyes from the flame and looked at the photo. “They had taken a picture of her and gave it to her later as a reminder. When I walked up to her and saw her like that, I couldn’t do it. Elle saw that I wasn’t going to, so she mouthed for me to kick her, and I heard her say it didn’t hurt anymore.” Chloe looked up at Nero. “I kicked her hard enough to make Sebastian happy so they would leave. When I looked at her eyes, she begged me to go with them, so I did. I don’t know why she cared about what they would do to me if I didn’t because I didn’t care about her enough to stand up for her.”
Nero took a long, deep breath, unable to look at Chloe any longer. He hated what she had done to Elle, but he knew Chloe had already clearly suffered. He figured her suffering was what had brought them together, yet that was a story Chloe wouldn’t be able to tell.