"It feels bad," I say, because it does. My whole back feels like it's on fire.
"Sit down on your bed," he instructs gently. "I'll get a wet cloth and some ice if we have any."
He leaves the room and comes back a minute later with a wet washcloth and a plastic bag with ice cubes in it wrapped in a thin towel. When he presses the cool cloth against my back, I can't help but hiss at the sting, my body jerking away from the contact before I can stop it.
"You didn't cry," Jay says almost reverently, as he dabs gently at my wounds.
"You told me not to."
"You did good, Ivan," he says, and his voice cracks a little when he says it, emotion breaking through his usual calm. Just a little crack, but I hear it. "You did so good. I'm proud of you."
I close my eyes and let him take care of me, let him be gentle when nothing else in this world is gentle. The cloth is cold against my burning skin and my back is throbbing with every heartbeat, but I didn't cry. I went to my place like he taught me. I survived my first beating from Henderson.
"Jay?" I say after a few minutes of silence.
"Yeah?" he responds, still working on my back.
"Can we go to the barn tonight?" I ask. "After dinner? I need... I just need to go there."
His hand comes to rest on my shoulder, warm and steady and reassuring. "Yeah," he says softly. "Sure, we can go to the barn. We'll stay as long as you want."
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling it shake in my chest.
The pain is temporary. Another day of being alive.
Another day with Jay, who cares about me, who protects me, who sees me as someone worth saving.
That's enough to keep going.
Chapter 4: Jay
Six months now, and we've got a rhythm going, a pattern to our survival that's become as natural as breathing.
I know the sound of Henderson's truck coming up the gravel drive, can distinguish it from any other vehicle by the rattle of the loose exhaust pipe and the whine of the failing transmission.
I know the difference between how he slams the door when he's just tired from work and how he slams it when he's been drinking at the bar in town. The tired slam is quick and careless, the drunk slam is harder, more aggressive, followed by stumbling footsteps on the porch.
I know which floorboards creak and which ones don't, have memorized every squeaky board between our bedroom and the kitchen. I know that Mrs. Henderson goes to bed at exactly nine-thirty every night, sets her alarm and disappears into the bedroom, and that she sleeps like the dead once she's out, wouldn't wake up if the house was burning down around her.
I know that the best time to raid the kitchen for extra food is between two and three in the morning when even the dogs outside have stopped barking and settled into sleep.
Ivan knows all of this too now. I've taught him everything I can think of, every trick and survival technique I've learned in my years bouncing through the foster care system like a pinball, and he's a fast learner, quick to pick up on patterns and remember details.
He reads Henderson's moods almost as well as I do these days, can tell just from the sound of the man's footsteps whether it's going to be a good night or a bad one. He knows when to make himself scarce, when to disappear into the barn or our room, knows when to keep his head down and his mouth shut no matter what's happening around him.
He's tougher than he was when he got here six months ago, that skinny scared kid clutching his garbage bag like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth and preventing him from floating away.
He's still skinny, still gets scared sometimes when Henderson yells or reaches for his belt, but there's a steadiness in him now that wasn't there before, a core of steel that's been forged in fire.
I'm proud of him for that, even though proud feels like a strange word to use about survival, about a kid learning how to take a beating.
It's March and the weather is starting to turn warm, the Georgia spring arriving with its sudden heat and humidity. The trees are budding, the grass is turning green again, and that means the school is switching from indoor PE to outdoor activities, which means shorts instead of sweatpants and long sleeves.
Ivan comes home on a Tuesday afternoon with his face all twisted up in that particular way he gets when he's trying not to panic, when he's holding himself together through sheer force of will, and I know something's wrong before he even opens his mouth to speak.
"What happened?" I ask immediately, closing the door to our room behind us.
We're in our small shared space with the door shut tight, which is the only place in this entire house where we can talk without being overheard, the only place we have any privacy at all.
