“What the fuck are you talking about?” he screamed, and then pushed me away from him, hard, so that I fell back against the door again and this time it swung open fully, making a loud, scraping noise against the sidewalk. I felt myself tumbling backward, losing balance even before I hit the pavement, my elbows grinding as I tried to catch myself. My face still stung, my dress bunched up at my chest, and then he was suddenly out of the car, standing over me. “Get up,” he said, and behind me I could hear the party, the piano, now with voices singing along. “Get up!”

“Rogerson,” I said as I struggled to my feet. “Please”

“Get up!” he yelled, and grabbed me by the arm, yanking me toward him. I tried to duck my head, to turn away, but he was too fast for me. I saw his fist coming and it hit me right over my left eye, sending a flurry of stars and colors across my vision. I slid down, out of his grasp, onto the grass: It was wet and slimy against my bare skin. I lifted my head and he was standing over me, breathing hard. I knew I should get up before someone saw us but somehow I couldn't move, like those voicesall those voiceswere suddenly shaking me awake, pulling me to the surface. It was the first time he'd done it out in the open, not inside the car or a room, and the vastness of everything, fresh air and space, made me pull myself tighter, smaller.

“Goddammit, Caitlin,” he said, glancing at the house, then back at me. “Get up right now.” I tried to roll away from him onto my side, in the hopes of getting to my feet, but everything hurt all at once: my face, my fingers, the back of my head, my eye, my arms, my skin itself. Each place he'd ever struck me, like old war wounds on rainy days. He nudged me with his toe, in the small of my back. “Come on,” he said quietly. And I remembered the first time he'd said it, when all this had started, standing by that open door: Come on. “No,” I said into the grass, trying to tuck every bit of me in and hide, to sink into the cracks of the sidewalk beneath me. “Get up,” he said again, a bit louder, and now the nudge was hard, more like a kick. I rolled a bit, curling tighter, and closed my eyes. Out in the tent, the song went on to the rousing finish, then a burst of laughter and applause. “Get up, Caitlin,” he said, and I closed my eyes as tight as I could, clenching my teeth, thinking of anything else. Corinna, standing on a cliff in California with the blue, blue water stretched out ahead of her, with even Mexico in sight. Cass in New York, sitting in her window with a million lights spread out behind her. And then, finally me, left behind again. And look what I had become. I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket, bracing myself for the next hit, and felt something. Something grainy and small, sticking to the tips of my fingers: the sand from Commons Park. Oh, Cass, I thought. I miss you so, so much. “Caitlin,” Rogerson said, and I snapped back to reality as he reached down and yanked at my jacket, trying to pull me up with it. But I just shook it off, letting it slide over my arms and away from me, keeping the sand in my hand. My bare skin was cool, exposed under the streetlight with the white of the dress and the green ivy almost glowing. I was tired. Worn thin, my springs broken, spokes shattered. I felt old and brittle. I braced myself, waiting for the next kick, the next punch. I didn't care if it was the last thing I ever felt. “Caitlin,” Rogerson said again, and I felt him draw his foot back, readying. “I told you to” And that was as far as he got before I heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice. It was my mother. “Stop it!” she said, her tone steady and loud. “You stop that right now.”

“I didn't” Rogerson said. And in the distance, suddenly, I could hear sirens. Rogerson stepped back from me: He heard them, too. “Get away from her,” my mother said, crouching down beside me. “You lousy bastard. Caitlin. Caitlin, can you hear me?”

“No,” 1 said. “Wait” I could feel her smoothing my hair off my face, her own chest heaving against my shoulders. Then, suddenly, she said, “Oh, my God, Caitlin. Oh, my God.” I turned to her, but she wasn't looking at my face. Her mouth was open, horrified, as her eyes traveled over my arms, shoulders, back, and legs. Under the white of the streetlight, my skin was ghostly pale, and each bruise, old and new, seemed dark and black against it. There were so many of them.

Rogerson was backing away now, even as my mother wrapped her arms around me, so gently, sobbing as she tried to find a spot that wasn't hurt. The sirens were coming closer, and I could see blue lights moving across the trees. The front door slammed and I could hear voices gathering, getting closer. The piano music had stopped. It seemed like everything had stopped. “Margaret?” I heard Boo call out. “What's going on?”

“What's happening out here?” I heard my father say, his voice choppy as he ran through the grass. “Caitlin? Are you all right?”

“It's over now,” my mother said, still crying softly as she rocked me back and forth, smoothing my hair. “It's okay, honey. I'm here. It's okay.”

“What happened?” my father said, but no one answered him. The police car pulled up and I heard a door slam, a voice garbled and hissing over the radio inside. I looked up, trying to find Rogerson, but it seemed like the dark had somehow sucked him up and he'd disappeared. I could hear everything that was going on around me: the murmuring of the Fool's Party guests, my father talking to the policeman, Rogerson complaining angrily as the cuffs clicked shut. I could hear the streetlight buzzing and Boo crying onto Stewart's shoulder when she saw the bruises on my skin, the way she whimpered again and again, I should have known. I should have known. And all the while my mother was crouching over me, her voice steady, rocking me back and forth like she had the day Cass had cut my eye, saying everything would be all right. I couldn't even tell her I was sorry. I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he had been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved ones, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.