Fighting Words: Chapters 31–47

Her smile evaporated. Her eyes flashed fire.

She looked so frail and scared and I still felt like punching her.

"But punching him escalates the situation," Dr. Penny continued. "If someone does something to you, you need to tell a teacher, Della."

I got in-school suspension. That meant I had to sit and do worksheets in a corner of the library all the rest of the day.

The person you are is tough and resilient and loving and kind.

Some people get hurt so badly they lash out. They hurt other people.

My stomach lurched.

Dr. Fremont and I had talked about that at the end of our visit. It was called consent.

"The doctors know. My therapist knows. That means the police have to know too. Doctors and therapists are mandatory reporters."

I said, "Did you know grown-up wolves have no natural predators?"

Trevor'd been leaving me alone since I punched him, but halfway through our session, when we'd moved on from drills to playing half-court scrimmages, he came up to me, reached out one finger, poked me, and said, "Touch."

"Every touch is not necessarily a foul."

I waited for her to say yes, but she didn't. Her smile faltered. She said, "I absolutely swear I will always do my best."

I looked at my own smooth wrist, the veins running either side of the tendons in the center.

"You use semicolons when you don't want to use a period," Suki said. Her eyes were sparkling. "This is to remind myself. My sentence—my story—it's going to keep going on."

Coach Tony was standing near the front door, wearing his official Food City shirt and a pair of khaki pants.

Most of the books have half-naked cowboys or swooning long-haired white women on the cover, but there were usually a couple of kids' books too, Sesame Street and Disney princesses, and sometimes cookbooks or books about gardening or trucks, down on the bottom row.

It wasn't a baby coloring book, either—it was some kind of fancy one, and the wolves were swirly and intricate and fierce.

Dr. Fremont and Francine both say Suki and I have to live in the present. I get that, but the past keeps sneaking up on us and walloping us upside our heads.

She started talking, long stern sentences with words like harassment and safe learning environment.

"Disrupting class" gave you a Reflection Recess, which meant sit and think about what you've done.

Dr. Penny said I would be disciplined appropriately.

Suki's eyes went wolf-like. Wary. She put her fork down and stared at me. "Why do you need to talk to the lawyer, Della?"

The riverbanks quit eroding. The rivers grew deeper and more stable.

"Here's something else I found. The Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps." The pictures showed a bunch of kids Suki's age, wearing yellow hard hats and tan shirts.