The Way I used to Be

MY HANDS ARE SHAKING
as I hold her business card. As the phone rings,
I just read her name over and over and over.
Caelin drives me downtown, to the precinct. I bite my nails until they
bleed. Caelin keeps taking these enormous breaths that he doesn’t seem to be
exhaling. But neither of us speaks until we’re walking up the massive,
terrifying steps of the building.
“Caelin, you don’t have to come in with me,” I tell him, wanting to spare
him. I don’t think I could bear for him to hear the details.
“No, I’m not leaving you here by yourself, Edy.”
We have to empty our pockets and walk through a metal detector; police
officers in bulletproof vests wave those wands over our arms and legs. And
then we follow the signs that lead us on a winding path to the fourth floor. I
slowly push through the double doors and search the large room full of desks
and computers and chairs and phones ringing and people rushing around
with clipboards and serious looks on their faces, scanning for Detective
Dorian Dodgson.
“Eden, I’m so glad you could make it down here so quickly,” she says,
appearing next to us. “Caelin. Good to see you again. Shall we find a quieter
place to talk?”
“Detective?” I start.
“Dorian, please,” she corrects.
“Okay, Dorian. Caelin doesn’t need to stay, does he?”
“Not at all.”
“Edy, I’ll stay,” Caelin insists.
“Sometimes,” Dorian tells him, picking up on my fear, “with this kind of
discussion, the fewer people present, the better. You understand,” she says.
He nods, and I think he’s partly relieved, too. “I understand,” he says to
her. “Call me when you’re done, Edy, and I’ll come pick you up. I’m gonna go

---

to that bar right up the street, the one with the white-and-green awning, so
I’m not far.”
He holds out a hand to shake with Dorian’s, and nods, very gentlemanly.
“Thank you for bringing her in, Caelin,” she tells him. “You take care
now.”
She leads me to a room that has a window and a plant and a couch and a
coffee table, not at all like those interrogation rooms you see on TV.
“It may be difficult to remember some things,” she cautions as she sets a
Diet Coke down on the table in front of me, “but just try, as best you can, to
describe exactly what happened.”
I wish it was difficult to remember.
“He came into my room. It was 2:48—I looked at the clock—by 2:53 it was
over,” I tell her, but that’s not the complete truth.
Five minutes. Three hundred seconds, that’s all it is. It can seem like a
short amount of time or a long amount of time, depending on what’s
happening. You press the snooze button and wake up five minutes later—
that’s no time at all. But if you’re giving a speech at the front of the classroom
with all those eyes on you, or you’re getting a cavity filled, then five minutes
can feel like a long time. Or say you’re being humiliated and tortured by
someone you trusted, someone you grew up with, someone you loved,
even . . . five minutes is forever. Five minutes is the rest of your entire fucking
stupid life.
But there’s no way to really explain his mouth almost touching mine. No
way to describe how completely alone I felt, like there was no one in the entire
world who would be able to help me or stop him. Ever. No way to say how
much I truly believed him when he said he would kill me. I take a breath and
look Dorian in the eye, and try to find words to explain what words could
never explain.
I tell her, as best I can, every gruesome detail.
She says things like, “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm . . . in what way
was he restraining your arms? Can you show me? And he penetrated you?”
God, that word, “penetrate,” how could she say it? “How much force—would
you say excessive? Was this before or after? Could you yell for help at that

---

point? Can you describe, again, exactly how he inserted the nightgown into
your mouth? Did you lose consciousness at any point? Did you, at any point,
fear for your life? And he told you that he would kill you if you told anyone
what happened?”
It takes hours. I have to say everything a million times by the end, and then
she hands me my own clipboard and pad of paper and a pen, and I have to
write it all down while she sits there watching. My hand cramps up after the
first couple of pages. I stop and shake it out, extending my fingers.
“I guess it’s pretty awful that I never told anyone?” I ask her.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, what if I would’ve told, and then he wouldn’t have—I mean, maybe
I could’ve stopped all of this from happening?”
“When someone threatens your life, those aren’t empty words,” she states
matter-of-factly.
“But what if—”
“No. No more what-ifs,” she tells me firmly. “You did the right thing by
coming in, Eden.”
“How can you be sure what’s right?” I ask her, thinking about how
everything has to change now.
She smiles soberly and says, “It’s my job to know the difference between
right and wrong. This is right.”
I try to smile back.
“We’re going to get this little bastard,” she says. “I’m sure of it. And he
won’t be able to hurt anyone else, okay?”
“Do you know about what happened to him?” I clear my throat. “When he
was a kid—with his uncle, I mean?”
“Yes,” she answers. Her face doesn’t change, though. She just continues
looking at me, unflinching. “That was a terrible thing—yes. But it’s not a free
pass. Not an excuse.”
My heart floods, so full of every emotion I’ve ever known, all at once.
Because she’s right. It’s no excuse. Not a free pass. Not for him. And not for
me. I nod my head.

---

“I won’t lie, Eden,” she tells me. “It’ll get harder before it gets easier, but
everything will be okay, I promise.”
“Everything will be okay” always sounds like a generic, useless thing that
people just say when there’s nothing else to be said for a situation, but those
words coming out of her mouth—it sounds like the most profound thing
anyone has ever said in the history of humankind.
Outside, it’s dusk. Nearly night already. I can just make out the white-and-
green awning. I start to descend the stairs, but I sit down on one of the steps
instead. I breathe the cold air in deeply and it fills my lungs in a new way.
I take my phone out and dial a number I had memorized years ago. It
rings.
“Hello?” Mrs. Armstrong answers, sounding just exhausted.
“Hi, Mrs. Armstrong. It’s Edy. Is Amanda there?”
“Honey, I’m not sure she feels like talking right now. Wait—hold on a
second.” And I hear her hand cover the receiver, her words muffled.
Something’s happening. Static and movement. It seems like a long time
passes.
Then finally: “Hi,” Amanda says quietly. “Sorry, I had to go in my room.”
And suddenly she sounds like herself again, the girl I used to know.
“Hi,” I respond, but I don’t know what else to say to her.
“I had to tell,” she says, not wasting any time with chitchat. “I just had to.”
“Amanda, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too—about everything—I’m sorry for things you don’t even
know I should be sorry for, Edy,” she admits.
“How did you know?” I ask her.
“I could just tell. The other day at school. I could just feel it—I don’t
know.”
“Did he really tell you we actually slept together, like you said?”
She pauses, and says, “You know, I always looked up to you so much when
we were younger. I don’t know if you ever knew that. He knew that, anyway.
And he tried to make me believe that it was okay. Normal. That you—if you

---

did it, wanted to, I mean—then, you know, what could be wrong with that?”
Her voice breaks up, as she tries not to cry. “The sickest part is that I actually
believed him—about you—I believed every word. Until the other day.”
“I never knew any of that, Amanda, I swear.”
“I hated you. So much. As much as I should’ve hated him—I hated you
instead. I don’t know why. It’s all fucked up, isn’t it?” She laughs, even as she
cries.
“Yeah. It’s all fucked up,” I agree. “But I think it’s going to get better now.”
“It has to,” she says.
“It will.”
As I walk the two blocks up the street, the air feels different, my steps against
the ground feel different, the world—everything—feels different.
I push through the heavy wooden door at the bar and I’m strangled by
smells of beer and smoke. I spot Caelin right away, down at the end of the
bar, looking pathetic and crumpled, his hand curled loosely around a shot
glass.
“Hey, hey, hey, you—girl!” the bartender yells at me. “ID.”
“No, I’m just here for my brother—over there,” I yell to him, pointing at
Caelin.
The bartender walks down the length of the bar and raps his knuckles
twice on the shiny wooden counter in front of Caelin. He raises his head
slowly. “Time to go, buddy,” he tells him, nodding his head in my direction.
Caelin turns toward me, wobbling a little as he stands, moving slowly as he
reaches for his wallet. “Edy, I said I would pick you up,” he says while
ushering me out the door.
“It wasn’t that far. I felt like walking anyway.”
“I don’t like you in there,” he mumbles.
We walk in silence to the parking garage.
“I should probably drive, huh?” I ask, watching him sway back and forth.
“Here,” he says, tossing his car keys to me.

---

After I adjust the seat and mirror, I decide to light a cigarette—no more
secrets. He looks at me like he’s about to chide me, his kid sister, but then he
looks forward and says, “Can I bum one?”
I feel myself grin as I hand him mine and light up another.
He tries to smile at me. We drive home, finishing our cigarettes in silence.
I park the car in the street. “Edy, wait,” he says as I start to get out.
“Yeah?”
Uncomfortable, he does one of his half-shrug-head-shake gestures and
opens his mouth, taking a few extra seconds for the words to come. “I don’t
know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Edy.” He looks me in the eye. “I’m your
brother. And I love you. That’s all. I don’t know what else to say.”
I think that’s really all I ever wanted to hear from him. “You’ll stay with me
when I tell Mom and Dad?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
He holds my hand as we walk up the driveway. It feels like it’s a million miles
away, like it’s taken a million years to finally get here. But it gives me a chance
to think. And I think: Maybe I’ll explain this to some people. Maybe Mara.
Maybe I’ll apologize to some people. Maybe Steve. Maybe I’ll try a real
relationship someday, one without all the lies and games. Maybe I’ll go to
college, even, and maybe I’ll figure out that I’m actually good at something.
Maybe he’ll get what he deserves. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll never find it in my
heart to forgive him. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that, either. All
these maybes swimming around my head make me think that “maybe” could
just be another word for hope.

---

Though this book is a work of fiction, I recognize the millions of real-life
teens who have, in some way, shared Eden’s experience. Unfortunately, theirs
are not new stories, but they are ones that need desperately to be told. Over
and over and over.
If you need to speak with someone, there are people who will listen. There
are people who will help. For free, confidential, secure support, visit the Rape,
Abuse & Incest National Network at 
rainn.org
 or call the RAINN hotline: 1-
800-656-HOPE.

---

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must acknowledge the tenacity, passion, and extraordinary work of Jessica
Regel, who helped to shape this book in ways that far exceeded anything I
could’ve ever imagined or expected from an agent—thank you, Jess, for
believing in this book and fighting so hard to make sure it saw the light of
day!
Sincerest thanks are also due to my editor, Rūta Rimas, for being such an
incredible partner on this journey, for taking a leap of faith on a new author,
and most of all, for your sensitive, thoughtful, and discerning work on this
book—thank you for being one of those rare people who just 
gets
it.
And an extended shout-out to all the wonderful, dedicated, and talented
people at Margaret K. McElderry Books, Simon & Schuster, and Foundry
Literary + Media, who have helped to turn what was once a dream into
reality.
I am infinitely indebted to my family, to my inspiring and supportive
friends, and to Holly, my best friend and the brave soul who graciously served
as this book’s first reader way back when.
Lastly, I am grateful for life’s many mentors and guides, for the good and
the bad, for the never-ending ebb and flow.

---

AMBER SMITH
grew up in Buffalo, New York, and now
lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her two dogs. After graduating from
art school with a BFA in painting, she earned her MA in art history. When
she’s not writing, she is working as a curator and an art consultant. She has
also written on the topics of art history and modern and contemporary art.
The Way I Used to Be is her first novel. Visit her online at
AmberSmithAuthor.com
.