Page 32 of One Breath After Another

He stiffened. “Did you follow me—”

“I went to check on her, actually. I thought I might have made her uncomfortable, and I don’t want her to feel that way around any of us. She’s important to your sister, you know?”

He did.

Too well.

“I don’t think she means to be rude,” Luca said about Penny, and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “But I don’t think she knows how to deal with ... people, either.”

For a brief while, his mother only stared at him, saying nothing. Her palm came up to find his cheek with a soft pat that had him smiling.

“She’s not rude. She’s hurting.”

“That, too,” he murmured. “But I don’t know ... she said something to me earlier, and it made me think.”

“About?”

“If I should be talking to her at all.”

Katya frowned. “Did she tell you to leave her alone or—”

“Not quite.”

His mother said nothing.

Luca sighed, admitting, “I think she might have a crush on me. Silly, right? I just ... she’s only seventeen, and I don’t want her to think I’m encouraging any—”

“Imagine,” Katya interjected, “what it must feel like to be the girl everyone knows was raped. Every person who looks at you knows that about you first. The one fact they do know is that you’re a victim. It creates a complex in your head almost ... every time you walk into a room, and people look at you, even if you don’t know them, you wonder if that’s the first thing on their mind. Your rape. Your constant victimhood.”

He swallowed hard, taking in his mother’s words. If anyone could relate to Penny at her current stage, it would be his mom. Before she came to be his father’s wife, she had been the property of a man who used her and her body as he saw fit. He allowed others to do the same to Katya without regret or regard for her.

Yet, she survived.

She was amazing.

Katya didn’t relent, adding, “It’s going to take time for Penny to be Penny without feeling like that is also a part of her identity. Maybe it’ll take months. It could be years. It might be something that never really goes away, either. She will, however, learn how to deal with it. The rest of us shouldn’t treat her differently while she does it. That won’t help. She doesn’t want to be different, Luca.”

Fair.

But ... “How does that have anything to do with me or what I said?”

Katya smiled. “Because she is still a woman.”

“No, she’s a girl.”

“No, she’s a young woman, Luca. And just because she’s also a victim and a survivor doesn’t change that while she’s dealing with her recovery, she’s also going through the same things every seventeen-year-old woman does. She feels the same things. Does the same things. Even if she’s doing them in her own way. That includes ... you.”

“What?”

“Boys. Men. Noticing they exist. It’s just a little more complicated for her ... it has to be considering the circumstances. She talks to you, though,” Katya said, shrugging. “Which at the very least, means she thinks you’re safe to do that with. Talk. Like you. You don’t have to do anything other than that, and I don’t expect you to. You know how to behave.”

“Huh.”

“There are men in the world that teach women monsters do exist, but then there are other men who help us learn that not every man is one. If you’re already safe to her, don’t be someone who proves her wrong. I’m sure she’s had enough that have.”

Yeah.

He bet.