"It looked really bad."
"The pain goes away," Jay told me, sitting down on his bed carefully, moving like every muscle hurt, like his whole body was one big bruise. "It always goes away eventually. That's the thing you have to remember. It hurts and then it stops hurting."
"But you're bleeding."
"I've bled before. I'll heal." He looked at me with those dark eyes, so much older than fourteen. "You just have to get through it, Ivan. That's all. Just get through it and survive to the other side."
I haven't stopped thinking about that conversation since it happened. Just get through it. Like it's simple. Like it's easy. Like survival is just a matter of endurance and nothing more.
Tonight, we're in the barn, hiding in the loft like we've done a few times before. It's Sunday, which means Mr. Henderson started drinking earlier than usual, right after church let out and he came home in a foul mood. By four o'clock he was already slurring his words. By five, Jay grabbed my sleeve and pulled me outside without a word, just a look that said we needed to go now.
"We stay out here until he passes out," Jay said quietly once we were safely in the barn with the door closed behind us. "Could be a couple hours. Could be longer. You okay with that?"
I nodded quickly. I'd stay out here all night if it meant avoiding those hands, avoiding the unpredictability of a drunk man with a temper and no one to stop him.
The barn is cold but at least it's dry, at least it's shelter. There's old hay in the loft that's gone yellow and dusty with age, brittle and scratchy but better than nothing. We sit up there with our backs pressed against the rough wood wall, looking out through the loft door at the fields.
"Ivan, I need to tell you something," Jay says.
"What?" I respond, turning to look at him.
Jay's quiet for a second, and I can tell he's thinking about how to say something, choosing his words carefully. He does that sometimes. Goes quiet while he figures out the right words, while he arranges his thoughts into sentences that won't scare me too much.
"It's gonna happen to you eventually," he says finally. "You know that, right? He's gonna hit you too. It's not an if, it's a when. I won't be able to protect you from that forever."
My stomach drops, plummeting like a stone thrown into deep water. "Yeah, I know," I say quietly, because I do know it. I've known it since the first time I watched it happen to Jay.
"Could be tomorrow. Could be next week. Could be a month from now," Jay continues, staring out at the darkening fields. "But it's gonna happen. There's nothing you can do to stop it. You can be perfect, do everything right, never talk back, work until your hands bleed and your muscles give out, and it won't matter. He'll find a reason. Or he won't bother finding a reason at all. He'll just do it because he wants to, because he's drunk and mean and you're there."
I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. The hay scratches through my jeans, poking at my skin through the worn denim.
"I'm telling you this because I need you to be ready," Jay says, turning to look at me now, his eyes serious. "Not scared. Ready. There's a difference between the two."
"What's the difference?" I ask, genuinely not understanding.
"Scared means you panic," Jay explains patiently. "You cry, you beg, you make it worse for yourself. Ready means you know it's coming and you know you're gonna survive it. You prepare yourself mentally. You steel yourself."
I think about the belt coming down on Jay's shoulders, the sound it made—that sharp crack like a gunshot. The way he didn't even flinch, didn't give Henderson the satisfaction of a reaction.
"How do you not cry?" I ask. "When it's happening? How do you just stand there and take it?"
"You go somewhere else," Jay says, picking up a piece of straw from the hay beneath us, twisting it between his fingers absently. "In your head. You find a place that's just yours and you go there when the pain starts. The pain is still there but it's like... it's happening to someone else, someone far away. Does that make sense?"
"I don't know," I admit honestly. "Maybe?"
"You'll figure it out," Jay says with confidence I don't feel. "When it happens, you'll figure it out. Your brain knows how to protect itself. It'll show you the way." He looks at me intently, making sure I'm listening to every word. "But here's the thing, Ivan. The most important thing. You can't cry. Not in front of him. Crying makes it worse. He sees tears and it's like blood in the water to a shark, it makes him want to hurt you more. He wants to break you, wants to see you beg. If you cry, he thinks he's winning."
"What if I can't help it?" I ask. "What if the pain is too much and I just... can't stop the tears?"
"You can. You're tougher than you think. I can already tell. You've been in the system five years, you've survived this long on your own. You can do this too. I know you can."
I don't feel tough sitting here in this cold barn. I feel like a scared kid, small and vulnerable, waiting for a drunk man to pass out so I can go back inside and sleep in my bed with the poking springs.
"The pain is temporary," Jay says, and he says it like he's said it a hundred times before, like it's a mantra he repeats to himself. Like it's a prayer that keeps him alive. "It hurts and then it stops hurting. That's the nature of pain. A bruise takes a week to fade. A cut takes two weeks, maybe less. Bones take longer but bones don't break easy, and Henderson knows better than to break bones. You get through the pain and then it's over. Then you have another day."
"Another day of this," I say bitterly, gesturing around us at the barn, at this hiding place we need.
"Another day of being alive," Jay corrects me gently. "That's what matters. You survive today so you can survive tomorrow. That's the whole game. That's the only game we're playing here." He bumps his shoulder against mine in a gesture that's becoming familiar, comforting. "Andyou're not alone in this. Whatever happens, you're not alone. I'm right here. I'm always gonna be right here with you."
