The girl nodded, eyes shining with tears.
“Okay,” she said.
They went to the counselor together. By the end of the day, the stepfather was out of the house. The girl hugged Elo in the hallway.
“Thank you,” she said. “You saved me.”
“You saved yourself,” Elo replied. “You spoke up.”
At thirteen, Elo testified before her state legislature about child protection laws. At fourteen, she was invited to speak before a Congressional panel in Washington, D.C. Her testimony helped shape a bill that would later pass as the Eloin Act, strengthening protections for children in medical research and making it harder for anyone to bury harm in fine print.
Through it all, Sky was there.
Sky, who went to a different middle school but texted constantly.
Sky, who sat in the front row whenever she could, nodding encouragement from a sea of strangers.
Sky, who dragged Elo to the mall to try on ridiculous hats and eat too much candy when everything got too heavy.
In high school, Elo tried to live as normally as a teenage survivor-advocate could.
She joined the debate team. She made the honor roll. She went to football games and school dances and spent too many late nights studying.
One day, a girl in her English class approached her.
“My boyfriend gets really mean sometimes,” the girl said. “I don’t know if it’s normal.”
“What kind of mean?” Elo asked.
“He calls me stupid,” the girl said. “Says nobody else would want me. He reads my messages and tells me who I can talk to.”
“That’s not normal,” Elo said. “That’s emotional abuse.”
“Really?” the girl asked.
“Really,” Elo said. “You deserve better. Everyone does. You should talk to the counselor.”
“Will you come with me?”
“Of course,” Elo said.
By the end of the week, the girl had broken up with him and started seeing a therapist.
“You helped me see I deserve better,” she told Elo.
“That’s all you,” Elo said. “You chose yourself.”
At sixteen, Elo got her driver’s license and took her first solo road trip—three hours to the ocean with Sky singing off-key beside her. They ran into the waves fully clothed, shivering and laughing.
“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” Elo said, floating on her back and staring up at the huge open sky.
“You’re free now,” Sky said.
“I feel free,” Elo whispered.