Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Sonja K. Solter
Cover art copyright © 2020 by Elliana Esquivel. Cover design by Marcie Lawrence. Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Solter, Sonja K., author.
Title: When you know what I know / by Sonja Solter.
Description: First edition. | New York ; Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 2020. | Summary: Over the course of a year, ten-year-old Tori endures a difficult and emotional journey after revealing that she has been sexually abused by her uncle.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019013415| ISBN 9780316535441 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316535410 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316535434 (library edition ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Novels in verse. | Sexual abuse—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.5.S64 Whe 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019013415
ISBNs: 978-0-316-53544-1 (hardcover), 978-0-316-53541-0 (ebook)
E3-20200212-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
TELLING
PART ONE
THAT FACE
BELIEVE ME
TRAPPED
NOT ONE WORD
THE TEST
GHOST GIRL
MONSTERS
CHOIR
BREAK
THE COLD
MISSING
MISSING, ROUND TWO
MY VOICE
LIAR
TELLING, AGAIN
PART TWO
ALIEN
NOO!!!
THE NEXT MORNING
SCHOOL
LITTLE FISH
THE FIRST TIME
THE PHONE CALL
GRANDMA
LAILA
BUT THEN I REMEMBER ALL THE THINGS I DIDN’T TELL HER…
RHEA AND MASON (AND ME)
I FIGURE IT OUT
LET ME IN
TAYLOR
SISTER SURPRISE
EMPTY
SORRY
SOCKS
NOT HERE
GROWN-UPS ARE CRAZY
MR. JENKINS’S LIE
MEATLOAF CHAT
LOST
GETTING BETTER
A QUIET CHRISTMAS
MAYBE I SHOULDN’T HAVE TOLD
PART THREE
IS THAT ME?
DAD’S REALLY HERE
THE STRANGER
BEV’S DINER
SHE’S OKAY
LUNCH MATH
SCOOTING
BEST FRIEND BLOWUP
JEALOUS
A CLASSROOM LIST
I TOLD HER!
AIR
THE RAT
GETTING HER BACK
(NOT REALLY) FINE
NOT UP TO ME
THE GOOD GIRL
TAY AND ME
THE SEARCH
HOW OLD?
STILL WEIRD
GUESS WHO?
WHY GRANDMA’S HERE
A START
PART FOUR
SPRINGTIME
WHAT THEN?
THE OTHERS
NOT YET
A JOKE
MAYBE
LOST AND FOUND
THE SPOT
NO GOING BACK
LAILA (FINALLY) CONVINCES ME TO TALK TO MOM
BELIEVE ME, TAKE TWO (WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM LAILA)
I’VE GOTTA ADMIT…
LOTS MORE MAYBES
WHY THAT OLD WIRE CAGE IS SITTING NEXT TO MY DESK AGAIN
MY UNCLE
THE GIFT
DIFFERENT
A DAY LIKE TODAY
EPILOGUE
THE LAST WORD
AUTHOR’S NOTE
RESOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For all the healing journeys, both told and as-yet-untold
TELLING
When you know
what I know,
you’ll wish you
didn’t.
It’s not the kind
of thing you can
talk about
at school or
at the park
or anywhere,
with a new friend
or an old one
or even with your sister.
(She’s too little.)
But it’s everywhere
once you know,
once you can’t
not know.
In your face,
under your eyelids.
If you turn
your back on it,
there it is anyway.
THAT FACE
I keep catching a glimpse of
That Face in the mirror,
That Face from right after,
locked in the bathroom,
after He was gone,
praying Mom would just
get back, come home.
And I want to shat-
ter the glass shat-
ter That Face haunt-
ing me with her
dead eyes.
And never
have to see
That Face
again,
That Face
that is mine.
BELIEVE ME
She didn’t believe me.
She—
my Mom, Mommy, Mama—
she said,
Oh!
—no.
Uncle Andy?
Didn’t believe me.
No—no, he
wouldn’t do that.
Didn’t believe me.
Honey, you must have
misunderstood.
You know how he
plays around,
how goofy he is—
just like you.
And it was like she put
a pillow over my
brain and I couldn’t—
couldn’t breathe,
couldn’t think anymore.
Was it—was it
possible? Did I—
DID I misunderstand?
And then a whooshing-wave-
of-fire-and-ice-cold
roared up my legs and
out my ears and blew
off the top of my head.
Believe me.
Please…
Believe me.
But she didn’t.
TRAPPED
I sit,
pasted to my bed
stuffed with a hush
that drowns my mind.
I stare;
the red curtain folds
flick-flick-flickering
above the heater vent.
I blink;
metal wires pop out
at me: the cage
next to my desk.
Suddenly its bars trap me
inside the memory
that floods my mind as if
it’s happening right now—
Chittering laughs of children
at my eighth birthday party.
Nestling softness in my palms;
Uncle Andy’s deep booming voice.
His hands cup mine, giving me
the best present of all time:
a hamster.
I standupwalkovercrouchdown
alittlenosepokingsniffingsmelling
through the metal wire.
And I reach out
—not to her—
to the door
in the middle
the one we NeverEver
Open.
NOT ONE WORD
Rhea and I tell
each other
everything.
Always have.
And here she is
sitting next to me
at lunch on Tuesday.
Rhea who told me
when she got her period
so young, even though
she looked like she
wanted to die.
what to do
what to do
what to do.
It’s too hard
to say
even
one
word.
So I just chew my lip
and don’t talk to my
best friend until she
gets in a huff
and leaves to
sit at another table.
And I chew and chew and chew—
but not my food.
THE TEST
What if I hadn’t gone down to the basement?
(He said not to follow him down there. He said that.)
What if I’d stopped wrestling around last year?
(Back when Mom said, Aren’t you getting too old for that?)
What if I hadn’t tickled him on the tummy that other time?
What if I’d gone over to Rhea’s that day?
What if I hadn’t laughed at first?
What if he didn’t really mean it like that?
What if he thought that’s what I wanted?
What if I’d told him to knock it off?
What if these What-Ifs are right?
What if I’m wrong?
What if I’m just paranoid?
What if it’s—what if—it’s me—what if I—what
if I made a—what if it was a mistake?
What if what if what if
what if what if what if what if
what if what if what if what if what if what
if what if what if what if what if what if what if
what if what if what if what if what if what if w
hat if what if what if what if what if what if wha
t if what if what if what if what if what if what i
f what if what if what if what if what if what if w
hat if what if what if what if whatif whatif whatif
whatif whatif whatifwhatifwhat—
Class, put your pencils down.
I watch my test packet
shuffle forward
row by row
to Mr. Jenkins’s desk.
Somewhere in that huge pile
of papers:
my blank one.
GHOST GIRL
What are we, six?
Rhea uncaps a glue stick
and adds final touches
to her Halloween decoration.
I nod, which some part of me
knows doesn’t make sense.
But I’m not really listening to her
usual wanting-to-be-older talk.
A white noise hum
purrs away
inside me.
I let it lull me away from
everything out there.
Class 5J: preparing us for kindergarten
instead of middle school.
Now Rhea’s frowning at me
so I’d better say something.
Otherwise she might ask me
What’s Wrong.
(And I can’t tell her.)
I point to her wispy ghost girl.
Yours looks good, though.
Yeah, I’ll admit
I kind of like her.
Rhea lifts her up and
whooshes her shredded
tissue skirt around.
The hum inside gets
more intense,
pulling me back.
But.
I lift up whatever it is that
I made. A ghost too, I guess.
Rhea’s eyes widen.
Whoa, yours looks—
Modern? Abstract?
Dead, I say.
Rhea nods. That’s appropriate.
MONSTERS
Are you sure?
Are you sure
you don’t want to
dress up this year?
Go trick-or-treating?
Mom drops the fabric
onto the counter,
the shimmery blue fabric
I chose six months ago:
shimmery blue because
I’d decided to be a genie,
six months ago because
Halloween is was
my favorite holiday.
I lie and tell her
my friends aren’t dressing up
this year.
I channel Rhea:
too babyish,
too last-year.
Her gaze lowers,
disappointed eyes
look down at the fabric,
hands smooth it.
But you love Halloween.
Used to—I used to love it, I say,
which is the truth.
Then I shrug like I don’t care,
and the shrug is a lie.
I don’t tell her
that people dressing up
to be different
to be not-themselves
just doesn’t sound fun
anymore.
CHOIR
Thursday after school,
has it only been
three days?
Three days
since It
happened.
Now, sounds
scratch at
my brain.
Everyone’s singing
yelling.
The piano clanks
and clunks
and the soprano next to me
screeches.
My hands itch to
cover my ears
but Ms. Radkte
glances my way
so I force my lips
to move instead.
Then the hum is there—
here in me—
filling me up
with its emptiness.
I keep moving my lips
with the now-muted song.
The world has gone
silent
like my voice.
The vibrations of the piano
of the singers
shake my feet
rattle my bones
but they don’t reach me
anymore—
not really.
So much silence in
all that noise.
BREAK
Mom’s distracted,
lost in her checkbook,
cheeks sucking in
from unhappy surprises
at every other number
; in front of her.
He’s late with child support again!
she announces.
Perfect time to slip this in:
I’m thinking about taking a break
from choir.
Mom pauses, unfocused eyes
only half with me.
Because of homework, I rush on.
Just for a little while.
Well. She blows a strand of hair
off her cheek. It’s your decision.
We can’t afford a sitter but
I guess I could ask Grandma
and Uncle Andy
if either of them could stay
for a couple of hours on
Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Thank God THEY’RE reliable.
Her gaze is already back
on the checkbook as
everything goes cold,
colder. The hum buzzes
angrily in my head,
frantic to save me from
her words echoing
inside my skull:
Uncle Andy
Uncle Andy
Uncle Andy…
I stumble backward
into a chair, and
my ankle screams pain
at me from somewhere
outside the cold,
from somewhere
far below…
I hear myself babbling:
—just thinking about it—probably
won’t. I’m not sure yet. About
the break.
The word “break”
is magic.
As I say it
the cold pierces
my mind, numbing
the buzz to stillness,
shattering my thoughts
into icicle pieces that
fall down and
away from here.
THE COLD
I plunge in-
-to a deeper
cold, a freezing
lake, the ice
layer block-
-ing me from Mom,
from what she said.
I don’t want you to worry
about money,
Mom calls after me
as I somehow
make it past
the chair.
I shouldn’t have said that
about your dad.
He’ll get me his checks.
He always does.
Your dad’s just busy with the
new baby and all.
But her voice
can’t reach me now.