The man was still there. He was staring quietly through the hole in the wall with a cigarette in his hand. The floor on his feet was covered with cigarette ash.
I found a place to sit next to him and stared at him and he seemed to stare at me too.
The T-shirt that he wore had long turned yellow. He turned his gaze back to the hole in the wall and took a long drag of the cigarette. I could see that the blood stain on his fingers was still there.
I asked him that night, "Do you want it?"
Cockroaches crawled up the pipes and mold flaked off the walls.
He looked at me through his teary eyes. His breath labored. "Amy, we've met before," he said, then licked his cracked lips.
I lifted my skirt and sat on his lap. "You know, I won't charge you."
The damp weather in Gavaresh was unbearable, the air reeked of moss.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He hesitated for a while, then raised his hand to touch my face. "He hit you."
I stopped moving my hands.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
The police had said I had three broken ribs and there were signs of abuse on my body.
“It’s him! He’s the one who killed my daughter!” my mother screamed in court.
“Your Honor, you must make him pay!”
