“Neither do I.…” They were walking along side by side. “I don't think I've ever felt so helpless or been so mad.…” And then suddenly Billy Durning's face came to mind, and she visibly winced, “Well … maybe once.…”

They suddenly felt closer than they ever had before. Tana almost wanted to put an arm around her to protect her from more hurt, as Sharon glanced over at her with a gentle smile. “When was that, Tan?”

“Oh a long time ago.…” She tried to smile, “… like five months.…”

“Oh yeah … a real long time ago.…” The two girls exchanged a smile and walked on as a car sped by, but no one bothered them, and Tana wasn't afraid. No one would ever do to her again what Billy Durning did. She would kill them first. And there was a strange ugly look in her eyes as Sharon glanced at her. “Must've been pretty bad.”

“It was.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Her voice was as soft as the charcoal gray night, and they walked along in silence for a time as Tana thought. She had never wanted to tell anyone about it before, not since she'd tried to tell her mom.

“I don't know.”

Sharon nodded, as though she understood. Everyone had something they didn't want to share. She had a secret like that herself. “It's okay, Tan.” But as she said the words, Tana looked at her, and suddenly the words burst from her, almost of their own.

“Yeah, I do.…” And then, “I don't know … how do you talk about something like that?” She began to walk faster as though to run away, and Sharon followed her easily on her long, graceful legs, unconsciously Tana ran a hand through her hair nervously, looked away, and began to breathe harder than she had before. “There's nothing much to say.… I went to a party after I graduated in June … my mother's boss's house … he has this real little shit of a son … and I told my mother I didn't want to go.…” Her breath was coming in little short gasps and Sharon knew she wasn't aware of it as they hurried along. She knew that whatever it was, it was torturing the girl, and it would be better if she got it out. “Anyway, she said I had to go anyway … she always says that … that's the way she is, about Arthur Durning anyway, and his kids … she's blind to what they are, and…” the words stopped, and they walked on, hurrying, hurrying, as though she could still run away, and Sharon kept pace, watching her as she struggled with the memories and then began to speak again, “… anyway, this dumb boy picked me up and we got there … to the party, I mean … and everyone got drunk … and the dumb guy who brought me got drunk and disappeared and I was wandering around the house … and Billy … Arthur's son … asked me if I wanted to see the room where my mother worked, and I knew where it was.…” There were tears running down her cheeks now, but she didn't feel them in the wind, and Sharon didn't say anything to her, “and he took me to Arthur's bedroom instead and everything was gray … gray velvet, gray satin … gray fur … even the rug on the floor was gray,” it was all she could remember, the endless field of gray and her blood on the floor afterwards and Billy's face, and then the accident, she could barely breathe thinking of it, and she pulled at the neck of her shirt as she began to run, sobbing now, as Sharon followed her, keeping close, staying near. She wasn't alone anymore, there was a friend running through the nightmare with her and it was as though she sensed that as she went on, “… and Billy started to slap me and he pushed me down … and everything I did…” she remembered the helplessness again now, the desperation she felt, and suddenly in the night air she screamed and suddenly she stopped, burying her face in her hands, “… and I couldn't do anything to make him stop … I couldn't.…” Her whole body was shaking now as Sharon took her quietly in her arms and held her tight, “… and he raped me … and he left me there with blood all over me … my legs and my face … and then I threw up … and later he followed me all down the road and he made me get in his car and he almost hit this truck,” the words just wouldn't stop now as she cried and Sharon began to cry with her, “and we hit a tree instead and he cut his head and there was blood all over him too and they took us to the hospital and then my mother came.…” And suddenly she stopped again, and with her face ravaged by the memory she had tried to flee for five months, she looked up into Sharon's eyes, “and when I tried to tell her, she wouldn't believe anything I said … she said Billy Durning wouldn't do a thing like that.” The sobs were deep and wracking now, and quietly Sharon held her tight.

“I believe you, Tan.”

Tana nodded, looking like a bereft little girl. “I never want anyone to touch me again.”

She knew exactly how Tana felt, but not for the same reasons as her friend. She hadn't been raped. She had gladly given it, to the boy she loved. “My mother never believed a single word I said. And she never will. The Durnings are gods to her.”

“All that matters is that you're okay, Tan.” Sharon led her to a tree stump, where they sat down and Sharon offered her a cigarette, and for once Tana took a puff. “And you are okay, you know. A lot more so than you think.” She smiled gently at her friend, deeply moved by her confidence and she wiped the tears from her cheeks as Tana smiled at her.

“You don't think I'm awful because of that?”

“That's a dumb thing to ask. It's no reflection on you, Tan.”

“I don't know … sometimes I think it is … as though I could have stopped him if I tried hard enough.” It felt good just to say the words, just to get them out. They had haunted her for months.

“Do you really believe that, Tan? Do you really think you could have stopped him? Tell the truth.”

She thought about it for a long time and then shook her head. “No.”

“Then don't torture yourself. It happened. It was horrible. Worse than that. It was probably the worst thing that'll ever happen to you in your whole life, but no one will ever do that to you again. And it wasn't really you he touched. He couldn't touch the real you, no matter what, Tan. Just cut it off. Dump the memory. And move on.”

“That's easy to say,” Tana smiled tiredly, “but not so easily done. How do you forget something like that?”

“You make yourself. You don't let it destroy you, Tan. That's the only time a guy like that wins. He's sick. You're not. Don't make yourself sick over what he did. As awful as it was, put it out of your mind, and move on.”

“Oh Sharon…” She sighed and stood up, looking down at her friend. It was a beautiful night. “What makes you so smart, for a kid?”

Sharon smiled, but her eyes were serious tonight, almost sad, as Tana looked down at her. “I have my secrets too.”

“Like what?” Tana felt calmer now than she ever had in her life, it was as though a raging animal had been released from her, as though Sharon had let it out of its cage and set it free, and Tana was finally at peace again. Her mother hadn't been able to do that for her five months before, but this girl had, and she knew that whatever else happened after that, they would always be friends. “What happened to you?” Tana searched her eyes, knowing now that there was something there. And she was sure of it when Sharon looked up at her. She didn't mince any words. She had never told anyone, but she had thought about it a lot, and she and her father had talked about it one night before she left for Green Hill. He had told her the same thing she had just told Tana, that she couldn't let it destroy her life. It had happened. And now it was done. And she had to let it stay that way, and move on, but she wondered if she ever could.

“I had a baby this year.”

For an instant Tana's breath caught and she looked at Sharon in shock. “You did?”

“Yeah. I've been going with the same boy at home since I was fifteen and when I was sixteen he gave me his senior ring … I don't know, Tan … it kind of seemed so cute … he looks like an African God, and he's smart as hell, and he dances…” she looked pretty and young as she thought of him.… “He's at Harvard now,” her eyes grew sad, “but I haven't talked to him in almost a year. I got pregnant, I told him, and he panicked, I guess. He wanted me to have an abortion from this doctor his cousin knew, and I refused … hell, I'd heard about girls who died.…” Her eyes filled with tears at the memory, and she forgot that Tana was standing there, looking down at her. “I was going to tell my mom, but … I just couldn't … I told my father instead … and then he told her … and everybody went nuts … and they called his parents, and everyone cried and screamed, my mother called him a nigger … and his father called me a slut … it was the worst night in my life, and when it was all over, my parents gave me a choice. I could have an abortion at a doctor's my mother had found out about, or I could have the baby and give it up. They said,” she took a deep gulp of air as though this were the worst part, “that I couldn't keep it … that it would ruin my life…,” her whole body shook, “to have a baby at seventeen … and I don't know why but I decided to have the baby, I think because I thought that Danny would change his mind … or my parents would … or a miracle would happen … but nothing did. I lived in a home for five months and I kept up with all the work for my senior year, and the baby was born on April nineteenth … a little boy.…” She was trembling and Tana wordlessly reached out and took her hand, “I wasn't supposed to see him at all … but I did once … he was so little.… I was in labor for nineteen hours and it was horrible and he only weighed six pounds.…” Her eyes were a thou- sand miles away thinking of the little boy she would never see again, and she looked up at Tana now, “He's gone, Tan,” she whimpered almost like a child and in many ways she still was a child. They both were. “I signed the final papers three weeks ago. My mother drew them up … some people adopted him in New York.…” She couldn't stop the sobs as she bent her head, “Oh God, Tan, I hope they're good to him … I never should have let him go … and all for what?” She looked angrily up at her friend, “for this? To come to this dumb school to prove a point, so that other colored girls can come here one day. So what?”