Thief Read Online Free Page B

actions because I don’t even know the person I was that night. But, it doesn’t matter.
     I was the one who committed the crime. And I accept your terms for friendship. Or maybe we are not friends, maybe it is the
     wishful part of me saying that. But, whether or not I am your friend, you can count on me to be yours, even if I never hear
     from you again.
    I read Breville’s letter through a few times sitting down there on the dock, and then I tucked the thing under my towel so
     it wouldn’t blow away. Yet even after I lay down on the hard boards and pillowed my head on my arms and drifted in and out
     of sleep, I kept thinking about Breville’s words. It wasn’t lost on me that, in Breville’s position, any letter, even one
     filled with anger and insults, might be a welcome variation in the day. In that sense, as long as I kept on writing, I was
     giving him something he wanted. But it seemed to me my letters were serving as some kind of penance. Breville took what ever
     I wrote to him— took it and told me it was good for him— and that somehow disarmed me.
    Maybe it was the combination of that thought and being down by the water, daydreaming and sleeping in the sun, but after a
     while I began to feel a kind of forgiveness. I don’t mean that I forgave Breville for raping the woman in South Minneapolis,
     or that I forgave Frank L—— for raping me.
    What I mean is I began to forgive myself for being raped all those years ago.
    By reading Breville’s account of the rape, I’d come to understand something about why I’d been raped at sixteen. In his letter
     Breville said he had intended only to steal, but when he saw the woman standing there, he decided, just like that, to rape
     her. He claimed he never would have done it if he hadn’t been drinking, but what ever the rationalization, it was clear his
     decision to rape had nothing what ever to do with the woman. When I realized that, I understood for the first time that my
     own rape had nothing to do with me. I had been the random focus of someone else’s decision, but the decision had nothing to
     do with me.
    Which is to say: I was raped for no reason.

6
    I USUALLY CALLED JULIAN in the early evening— after he had time to slough off the day but before he headed out to a movie or for drinks with friends.
     Sometimes he ate his dinner while I talked to him, since he told me that was what he missed most about me: the two of us sharing
     a swordfish dinner on the terrace of our favorite Greek restaurant.
    This night as he ate, I wanted to tell him what was going on with Breville, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
     Instead I told him how I’d been sitting on the dock that afternoon, dangling my feet in the water, when I felt a tiny tap
     on the bottom of my foot. It was so gentle it didn’t startle me, and when I looked down, I saw a painted turtle lazily swimming
     and floating through the water.
    “I think he was napping,” I said. “I think he just drifted into my foot.”
    “Aren’t there any groups you can join up there?” Julian said. “Any people you can meet?”
    “I don’t want to join a group. What do you mean?”
    “The only person you talk to is that old man. Aren’t there any Greens you can get to know? Some nice bleeding heart liberals?”
    “So funny. I bet you could go onstage with that humor,” I said. “Do I sound lonely?”
    “I think you’re getting isolated.”
    “That was the plan,” I said. “I’m an introvert. If I don’t have to make small talk with people until I’m back in the teachers’
     lounge, it will be fine with me.”
    I could hear Julian’s fork go down on his plate, and, in a little while, a match striking and then an inhale. It made me miss
     him.
    “Okay,” he said, exhaling. “Maybe I’m wrong. But I think you need to connect with some people.”
    “All right.”
    “Go out to lunch with somebody.”
    “All right already,” I said. “I know you’re right.”
    But