iBoy by Kevin Brooks Read Free Book Online

bedroom then. She smiled at me — a fairly vague kind of smile — and said, “Don’t be too long, Tom, all right? She’s not used to seeing people yet . . . she gets really tired.”
    I looked at her.
    She smiled again, indicating the open bedroom door with a slightly wobbly jerk of her head, and I guessed that meant that I was supposed to go in. I glanced back at Ben, saw that he was immersed in the TV, and I went on into the bedroom.

     
    The curtains were closed, and the only light came from the pale orange glow of an electric heater standing on the floor. There was something about the room that made it feel like a sick person’s room. The stuffy air, perhaps . . . the low light, the lack of energy. I didn’t know. It just felt like a room without any life.
    Lucy was sitting on the bed with her knees scrunched up against her chest. She was wearing a baggy old sweater, loose-fitting jogging pants, and big woolly socks. And as I stood there in the doorway, doing my best to smile at her, I could see straightaway that she wasn’t the same Lucy anymore. Her face was very pale, her skin very dull, and there was something about her that seemed to have shrunk. It was as if her entire self — her body, her mind, her heart — was trying desperately to retreat from the world. And even in the muted light, I could see the depth of pain in her eyes, the faded bruises on her face, and — more than anything else — I could see that she’d been through the worst thing imaginable. It was in her, it had become part of her.
    She’d been violated.
    She smiled weakly at me. “Hey, Tom . . . do you mind shutting the door?”
    I closed the door.
    “Sorry, about the mess,” she said, looking around the room. She indicated a chair by the bed. “You can sit down . . .”
    I went over to the chair.
    “Sorry,” she said again, realizing that the chair was piled up with clothes and books. “Let me —”
    “It’s all right,” I told her, clearing the clothes and books off the chair.
    “Sorry,” she said once more. She smiled anxiously. “I don’t know why I keep saying sorry all the time . . .”
    “Sorry?” I grinned.
    She smiled weakly back at me.
    I sat down in the chair and looked at her. I’d always loved the way she looked — her messy blonde hair, her pretty blue eyes, her slightly crooked mouth . . . I’d always liked that crookedness. It had always made me smile. And another thing that I’d always liked about being with Lucy was that we could look at each other without feeling uncomfortable . . . we could just be together, and look at each other, and neither of us felt self-conscious about it. But now . . . I realized that Lucy kept touching her hair, pretending to fiddle with her bangs, and I guessed that what she was really doing was trying to cover up the ugly yellow bruising around her right eye. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to cover it up for my sake, but I wasn’t sure if it was an appropriate thing to say. I mean, if she wanted to cover it up, if it made her feel better, who was I to tell her any different?
    The truth is, I simply didn’t know what to say to her.
    What do you say to a girl who’s been raped?
    What can you say?
    “It’s all right,” Lucy said quietly. “I mean . . . you know . . .”
    “Yeah,” I muttered.
    “How’s your head?” she asked.
    I instinctively reached up and touched the wound. “Yeah, it’s OK . . . it doesn’t even hurt anymore.” I looked at her, wanting to ask her how she was . . . but I didn’t know how. Instead, and kind of stupidly, I said to her, “This isn’t your room, is it? I mean, this used to be your mum’s room . . .”
    “Yeah,” she said, absently looking round. “Well, it’s still my mum’s room, really. I just . . . well, I just couldn’t sleep in my own room anymore.” She lowered her eyes. “That’s where it happened, you know . . . that’s where . . . in my room . . .”
    “Oh, right . . .”
    “I can’t go