"Tell me you're not serious!"

"I guess I am."

"But really, couldn't you find someone better?"

"Yeah, but he's important!"

"But he's Virgin Camden!"

Simon froze, regretting that he'd even begun to listen to the conversation.

"I know, but here's the thing, as rank as he is, if I date him, my parents will believe I'm dating other "good boys" too-and they won't get on my ass anymore."

"Still, a date with Virgin Camden-ick!"

"I know, beyond ick, but all I have to sacrifice is tonight, and then I can go out with anyone."

Simon had been surprised when Isa asked him out, but he hadn't realized she'd just been using him! "You mean you're just using me?"

"You shouldn't interrupt, Simon," her friend said.

"Simon, you couldn't expect someone like to me to have anything to do with someone like you without an ulterior motive!" Isa exclaimed. "I assumed you'd figure it out yourself."

"No, I thought you might be a decent person!"

"Simon, you're a junior. Naïveté stopped being cute a long time ago."

"Then I'm not taking you out tonight!" Simon scrabbled to win the argument.

"Fine then. I'll just say I'm meeting you some place, and my plan still holds true. Even better, I don't have to spend any time with you. Thanks Simon that works out way better" Isa turned away.

Simon slammed his locker and hurried out. And just this morning he'd been looking forward today so much. A Friday, and a date with the coolest girl in school at the end of it. He carefully did not scream while he was still on school grounds. Driving home, before he picked up Ruthie, he pulled over in the Glen Oak Park and Forest. "God!" he screamed. "If we're supposed to be so protected by you, why do things like this happen to me! Why don't I have any friends? I hate you! I hate you!" God didn't answer, and Simon drove away.

Ruthie was unusually silent on the way home, asking only, "Who's your date with tonight?"

"Oh, you don't know her."

"Are you sure? I know lots of people?"

"And I know that we're almost home," Simon managed to duck his mother.concern wasn't something he wanted to deal with right now, and "Kids Today" not something he wanted to explain. 'Sometime you guys'll have to realize that that 'Teen Depression' Newsweek cover was no accident,' he thought to his parents, 'but I don't have anything left in me right now.'

'I need to be alone.'

'But anyone will just waltz into my room if they feel like they need something. Mom and Dad's room is right out, so's the girls' room, and Kevin took over the garage apartment,' he stopped in mid-frantic pace. 'What am I gonna do? The bathroom! No one'll barge into the bathroom!'

* * *

At first he thought he had just walked in on Lucy. She was standing very still, staring into the mirror. He realized that what he'd first took to be a very short white shirt was really a bra. Simon turned bright away, and began to back out the door when his sister turned to face him full on. There were tears, silently pouring out her eyes, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs and she wasn't making a sound. Her arms were bruised and there was a still-bleeding cut on her stomach.

"Ohmygod. What happened?"

"Kevin," she managed to get out.

"You're kidding!"

She turned away, and her eyes spilled over.

"But he seemed so." he wanted to say nice. He felt like he should say nice. But seeing his sister in front of him. His sister. Bruised and battered. Like a statistic. And all he'd thought was, 'Why can't Lucy marry the guy and move out. Is this partially my fault?'

Yes.

Lucy, the girl he'd known through his entire life, was suddenly standing in front of him, beaten, her head down, her eyes from crying, a total stranger. And she began to whisper. "It didn't start out this way." She looked Simon in the eye, briefly, the looked back down, as if frightened. "He would bop me, with his hand or something. Once a rolled-up newspaper. I never fought back or anything. I thought it was just a phase. This girl at school and her boyfriend used to play-fight all the time."

"Play-fighting doesn't make you bleed!"

"I guess the line was too thin, or I'm too stupid. But then He was hitting me. Real hits, the kind that leave marks and make you cry. This one," she pointed to a bruise, "is because I 'didn't know to stay out of his personal life.' This one," and another, "is for looking at another guy. I didn't realize what I'd done until he explained it to me. That really big purple one is for keeping a diary. I should share all my thoughts with Him. I don't even remember how I got most of the others. Not doing something right or being too nosy. He slapped me for insulting his partner, but that didn't leave a mark so I don't suppose it matters."

Simon felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't stand to listen to the terrible monologue anymore. This had been going on, and he hadn't even noticed it. His sister, the girl he used to look up to, who he'd believed had passed on the Curse of the Middle Child to him. But she'd kept it. He wanted to run, to get out of there, to be able to deny any relation between the weeping, battered girl standing in front of him, and himself.

But he could not.

"And this last one, the one that's from just a little bit ago. He came at me with a kitchen knife and said I was too fat." The tears had stopped, though their tracks were still plainly visible.

"Lucy, let me help you."

"Don't you have more important things to do?"

"No," Simon said emphatically. He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out gauze and surgical tape. Very carefully, he attended to his work, still not wanting to believe what he was doing. "There." Simon hugged his sister.

"This is why I won't marry him, you know. If I married him, this would never stop. And I could never marry someone who might harm my children."

"Don't worry, Luce, I'll help you."

She pulled away. "I don't think anyone can."