‘Her senior year, she was dating some football jock who was possessive and abusive. I was off at college when I got the first phone call from my mom. Shelley came home after one of the games, her arms covered in red scratches which she attributed to mosquitoes. Of course, there were no bites, which my mother pointed out. Shelley became defensive and angry – something she never did – she was just never that kind of teenager – so Mom let it go until the next morning when she noticed something even worse than the scratches.’

The tic in Cord’s jaw sped up as he stared out the windshield, and Alyssa’s galloping heart caused the blood to pulse in her ears, making it more difficult to hear or concentrate because she was suddenly sure she knew where this story would end, and she wasn’t certain she wanted to know this anymore. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss, and there was a reason her partner said he never spoke about it anymore.

Memories stormed across his face. ‘Shelley’s throat was red, with strange lines circling her neck, like someone had been squeezing it. And when she spoke, her voice was hoarse and raspy. She tried telling our parents it was nothing but a cold and a sore throat from yelling. But if it came from yelling, it wasn’t from the cheering kind. Anyway, Mom pulled out her old Polaroid camera, and when Shelley went to lay down for a nap later that afternoon, she snuck into her room. That’s when she saw some of the old bruises that dotted her stomach. She snapped as many pictures as she could before my sister woke up. She wanted to have evidence.’

‘Cord, I’m so sorry,’ Alyssa said. ‘You don’t have to say anymore. I understand.’

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her, his voice lower still, filled with strangled anguish. ‘I talked to Shelley, and then Mom and Dad made her break up with him, but three months later, towards the end of the school year, in May, Bradley Morrison and one of his buddies talked her into going to Morrison’s parents’ cabin where he beat and raped her. Repeatedly.’ A single tear rolled down his left cheek as he choked on the words.

‘My parents thought she was with some of her girlfriends, so when Shelley missed her curfew, they didn’t worry right away. After all, she wasn’t with Bradley anymore, and they didn’t want to overreact. But when she wasn’t home by three that morning, Mom knew something was wrong and called the police, then me. Shortly after they made the report, a jogger came across Shelley lying in some trees, barely alive, “painted in blood,” that’s how the witness described it. When he first spotted her feet sticking out, he almost ran by, thinking she was just some drunk sleeping it off. But the closer he got, the more evident it was… that it was… more than that.’

The emotions played across Cord’s face – anger to helplessness to heartbreak and back again – as he returned to that dark time in his life.