for. I knew exactly where it was. It was the newer one at the end of the row with so many roses on it. Magda had loved roses. It didn’t matter what color so long as they smelled like they should. Usually I brought her one when I came to visit, but I hadn’t planned on visiting her until Friday.
I set my book bag on the grass left of her headstone and sat right on top of the mound that covered the hole where she’d been buried. I pulled a weed from the base of the heart-shaped stone her mother had erected that simply had her name, her birthday and the date she died engraved upon it.
Usually when I visited, I talked to her and told her what was going on in my life. I would tell her about our favorite TV shows, the books I’d read, local gossip, but today I didn’t feel much like talking. I just wanted to be near her, so I sat there, on the grass, and let the sun warm me.
A little while later, I heard footsteps behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was. I already knew.
“I thought you weren’t coming until Friday,” he said.
I didn’t look up, but moved a little to the left so he could sit down beside me. We always shared the mound and never made the other sit on the flat grass.
Gabriel and I came here a lot. We never planned to be here at the same time, and sometimes we weren’t, but when we were it was okay. Once you cried on someone, it wasn’t such a big deal if they saw your grief again.
Magda’s older brother was tall and lean with long dark hair and even darker eyes. Like his sister he was gorgeous, and seemed naively unaware of it. He was more cynical, though. Magda had seen good in everybody; Gabe knew it wasn’t true.
“Rough day?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
I’d known Gabriel since I was five years old, so when he put his arm around my shoulders I leaned into him, my cheek resting on his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, and for some reason that made me incredibly sad and happy at the same time.
That’s when the tears finally came, because I hadn’t felt happy since before my best friend had her rape smeared across the internet. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be happy now, when I should have been the one to save her, and had failed.
I had Aikido class that night, in a strip mall located on West Main Street. The instructor was a great big guy named José, who was very strong, and surprisingly light on his feet. He smiled a lot, which made him look completely unthreatening. I liked him. I’d started taking his class a couple of years ago. It was one of the few things Magda and I hadn’t done together. She tried it, but just didn’t like it. She didn’t like hurting people—or getting hurt.
“We have a special guest tonight,” José said. “Detective Diane Davies from our local police station. She’s going to talk to you all about how you can use aikido to protect yourself from an attacker.”
Detective Davies was tall. She wore a T-shirt and sweatpants, and I could see muscle definition in her arms. She’d seemed nice at the time, like she really wanted to help. But in the end, she’d let Magda down too.
“I need someone to help me demonstrate these moves,” Detective Davies said. “Would anyone like to volunteer?”
I put up my hand before I could stop myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to be helpful, but that I was hoping to have the chance to punch her in the face. Not a particularly sane thought, but I was just so angry. Angry that Magda was gone. Angry that Jason Bentley hadn’t known who I was. Angry that everybody was just going about their regular lives like nothing terrible had happened. My best friend was dead, and she had been for months. My life hadn’t been the same since she was attacked, and it never would be. I was always going to wonder what Magda could’ve been, what she could’ve achieved, and about the fact that four assholes had made certain she’d never do any of it.
So yeah, the chance to unload a little violence—with no ramifications—on one of the people who had let Magda down was too tempting to pass up.
And maybe she’d land a couple of strikes on me, and I could let the pain inside me go somewhere else. Take the punishment I deserved.
Detective Davies met my gaze as I approached the front of the dojo. When we stood face-to-face she smiled at me, and said, “I know you. It’s Hadley, right?”
So she did remember. “Yes.”
Her smile faded a little. Good. I hope she remembered Magda, and that she felt at least a little guilt standing there with me.
“First I want you to come at me,” she instructed. “I’ll defend myself against you, then we’ll break down the moves, and then you’ll use them on me.”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
She moved a few feet away from me. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I didn’t run toward her, or lunge. But I quickly closed the distance between us and aimed a kick I had learned in tae kwon do at her sternum. She was fast, way faster than I anticipated. She grabbed my leg, using my momentum to throw me off balance and facedown on the floor.
I sucked in a deep breath to replace what had been knocked out of me, and pushed myself to my feet. She was good. And I was pissed at myself for not being at least as good.
The detective addressed the class. “You all know that aikido is about displacing the energy of an attack. I didn’t have to strike out, and I avoided being hit simply by using Hadley’s momentum to my own advantage and against her. Now, Hadley, would you mind helping me break the moves down so that everyone can see before you use it against me?”
I walked back to the center of the mat with her. We went through the movements again, this time in slow motion. I paid close attention to how she grabbed my leg and twisted her own body. This time when I hit the mat it was with barely any force at all, and I was able to catch myself.
“Now,” Diane said. “I will attack you.”
Obviously she knew other martial arts as well, because she came at me fast with a confident kick aimed at my midsection. Remembering her moves, I grabbed her leg and with a sharp pivot of my body, brought her crashing to the mat. I hoped she found it as hard to breathe as I had.
I offered her my hand to help her to her feet. She took it. As she rose to her feet she gave me an odd look, like she knew what was going on in my head. It made me uncomfortable.
“Very good,” she told me. “Why don’t the rest of you pair off and take turns practicing on your partners?”
Not everyone had shown up for class that night, so I was left without a partner. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, because it would’ve meant I got to spar with José. This time, however, it left me with the cop.
“You’re very good,” she told me. “Though I don’t believe aikido is meant to be used with such anger.” She actually smiled when she said it.
I wanted to tell her off, but even I wasn’t that ballsy. “Sorry.”
She laughed. “Don’t apologize. If you’re ever attacked, I want you to be angry about
