She was experiencing her first little romance, with all its excitement, nervousness, and endless messages.
Now she was sitting in our bathroom with a razor because the boy she liked had made her ashamed of her own body.
I wanted to take out my phone and call his mother immediately.
But Emma caught my wrist.
“Please don’t.”
“Emma, he had no right to speak to you like that.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you protecting him?”
Her eyes filled with fresh tears.
“Because I don’t want him to break up with me.”
That sentence silenced me.
She wasn’t asking whether Tyler had been cruel. She already knew his words had hurt her. She wasn’t asking whether body hair was normal. She had heard me answer that question.
She was asking whether she had to accept humiliation to keep someone she loved.
I sat beside her on the edge of the bathtub.
