Ivy was taken aback.
“He grabbed you? Where?”
Rebecca was wearing a rust-colored sweater, loose, and she began teasing up her right sleeve.
“I told him to let go, then that’s when he said that stuff about his dad. Said that if Ieversaid anything about him cheating again, he’d ruin me. His... his eyes. I was so scared.”
Rebecca’s sleeve was up now past her bicep, and Ivy inhaled sharply. There were deep red marks on her pale skin, four of them. Circular. Half crescents outlined in purple.
“Jesus. He did that to you?”
Rebecca nodded.
“He grabbed me,” she repeated. “Squeezedhard.”
“Hold on—keep your sleeve like that.”
Ivy snapped a photo with her phone. Asked Rebecca to supinate her hand. There was a mark on the inside from Zeke’s thumb. She took another photo.
“You can put it down now.”
Rebecca did.
“I didn’t even want to come in today, I was so scared. Waited in the hall for everyone to pass. Only entered when I didn’t see Zeke. I’m scared, Dr.Reeves. Scared that if he knows I talked to you, he’s going to do something. Something worse.”
Ivy had felt the same fear when Zeke came up to her at the bar. She suspected that he was capable of violence then but didn’t want to believe it. The bruises on Rebecca’s arm left no doubt.
“You did the right thing coming to me. I’m going to speak with Dr.Moorehead, okay? You should go to the police. Tell them what he did to you.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened.
“No—I can’t. I do that, and he’s going to know. He’llknow.”
“You have to.”
“I can’t! I thought—I thought you’d understand.”
This made no sense to Ivy, but she understood the woman’s intense reaction. Knew what it was like to be completely overwhelmed by fear. It had happened to her at the fire.
She’d barely made it out alive.
“Rebecca, I want you to listen to me.”
“My scholarship, I—”
“Rebecca! Listen to me. I want you to go home, okay?”
“I have class, I need—”
“Go home. Take the rest of the day off. If any of your other professors give you any trouble, tell them to call me. In fact, you have your cell?”
Rebecca must have gotten it from Tristan already because she took it out.
“Good. Put my number in.” Rebecca did. “If you see Zeke again, anywhere, even if he doesn’t say anything to you, I want you to call me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Did you drive here?”
