Where the Heat receded
處暑 [5] / [7]
"Why is that relevant?"
she asked.
That cool, collected expression was still there, but it masked eyes unmistakably filled with daggers.
"Like I said, I'm just trying to figure out what happened. I do think it odd that you two broke up, and he didn't try to retaliate in some way. Like, for instance, releasing that sex tape."
"I don't see how that is relevant to what he did to me," she said, echoing her previous point.
“Just answer my questions, please,"
replied Alexander.
"You should know that I can't precisely testify to everything since it happened to me everyday."
She said this with a blank face. He jiggled his pen while observing her expression. He drew a table on the paper.
"Specify his deeds by kind. You said rape, assault, threats. Just testify to one thing for each crime. That would be more than sufficient to get Ed in serious trouble."
He said this in the way akin to kindly persuasion. She hesitantly began to speak again. He arranged her statement.
"You should check his phone. He has videos of me on the phone. I don't think he deleted them,"
She said, before pausing again.
"Did you get injured by his punching you?"
"Yes. Bruised."
"Do you have any pictures of that?"
"No."
"Did you visit a doctor for treatment?"
"No, I didn't."
"Why not?"
"Should I have? They were only bruises!"
"They didn't impact your daily life, did they?"
"Of course they hurt me. But I didn't visit a doctor. I had no money, and you know, I got injured like that countless times when I was younger,"
she said.
He remembered she was a victim of child abuse.
Still, there was something about her testimony here too that took him aback. She came to make a statement, and claims she was hit, but she didn't bother to tell anyone at the time, let alone consult a physician.
Even more than that, she was characterizing what happened to her so nonchalantly, and with such little memory of the event, as if this were no big deal, while simultaneously feeling that she was sufficiently victimized to warrant a police investigation. He continued his line of inquiry.
