What you know (Hamilton cast)

Seventy-seven

"Kels? What are you doing up?" I ask, entering her room to find her sitting up, looking out the window. I sit down next to her on the bed at the window. Her phone lights up next to her.

Jackson- 2 messages

I sigh. I like him, but again, she always turns to him first.

"I owe you this." She says, locking her screen and putting her phone on the other side of her, farther away. "I ran away because my dad threatened you guys and I lead him away."

"Oh."

"He followed me to Ohio. Caught me just before I got to Indiana. I called the Police and just got on a train. I don't know. I just couldn't think or decide and I got off in Illinois and kept walking down any street I recognized. My phone was dead. I needed to call someone. I was standing in the rain near Ambers apartment and I didn't even know." She pulls her knees to her chest. "I couldn't feel. I hadn't eaten. All I knew was that I'd decided that no one would ever hurt me like that again after he went to jail. But I did get hurt. And then he came back. And he hurt me again." I watch her, the only light on us from the city outside the window. She studies the bridge. "What am I doing wrong?"

"Nothing. It's not fair. You can't control if they hurt you."

"I can close it all off. But my dad was out to get me. And kill me in the end."

"He was?"

"Rape and murder. Such a cliché."

"Kelsey, you're alive."

"Yeah. I don't know. It's just never over."

"Kels?"

"Yeah?"

"You were a prostitute."

"Thanks for the reminder. Do you think I should put it on my resume?" She jokes.

"You've never talked about it. And I can get just about anything else out of you."

"I don't like to think about it." I wait, hoping she will say more. "Why would I do that? God, I don't even know how many men I had sex with." She says to herself silently. I reach to comfort her as she stares at the wall on the other side of me, hugging her knees. I stop myself just before I tap her and put my hand back down. "I hate talking about my life, Lin. Why do I have to?"

"Because you just can't hold it in anymore. Thanks for telling me. You can always talk to me."

"I know. You tell me that a lot. But I don't know why I deserve that."

"I just care about you. I want you to be as close to okay as you can be." I wrap my arms around her shaking body and stay there until she falls asleep.