Nori suggested they ask one of the boys that they’d met down at the beach a few months earlier for help. It was taking a big risk: they hadn’t known them long, but Mariko and Franklin were already smitten, and Nori instinctively knew that Koji was the one they could trust. He was calm and attentive. He always stood still, while the other two boys moved around in whirling circles.

“What about Franklin?” Mariko had asked.

“Franklin has too much going on,” she said, hoping to appease Mariko.

Nori didn’t want to hurt her feelings and it seemed to work, although deep down, she wondered if Mariko knew, even then, that Koji was the reliable one of the two. They needed someone they could trust. Nori hoped it wasn’t a mistake. Fortunately, she’d been proven right. Nori watched Koji’s eyes when she asked him the following weekend and saw his care and understanding. He not only helped them with the rest of the money, but also insisted on going along with them when the time came. “Don’t know who you can trust, yeah,” he’d said. Nori was more than grateful to have him along.

In the end, Leia wouldn’t have made it back home without Koji carrying her to the truck he borrowed from someone at the plantation. Only years later did Nori ask Leia what had happened that long-ago afternoon.

* * *

Leia had just turned sixteen at the time, too young and scared to know that the decision she was making out of shame and fear would haunt her through the years. She’d never forgotten the dampness of the dark room, stinking of mildew and rot, thinly masked by the sharp, medicinal edge of rubbing alcohol. “Lay still.” She heard the older woman’s monotone voice, and felt the hands of another, younger woman pushing her down, holding her, pinning her arms hard against the table covered in newspaper, legs spread open, something cold entering her. She remembered screaming, like it was happening all over again, his awful smell as they fell to the ground, the weight of his body rolling over and pinning her, a rock pressing against her back, his dirty, rough hand smothering her breath as she gagged, vomit rising, trying to fight as he forced her legs apart, slapping her hard and pressing the blade against her neck. “Shut up! Shut up!” he’d told her. He wouldn’t hurt her if she’d just shut up and be still. All she could think then was that Nori was safe. It would be all right, it would be all right. Should she have fought harder, should she have screamed louder?

Leia opened her eyes to a blinding light from above, and a woman’s hand, half covering her mouth and smelling of eucalyptus, on her cheek. “Quiet, quiet now, don’t make trouble, yeah. It’ll all be over soon.”