The girl’s hand froze on the dog’s head and her face turned to stone. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I accidentally saw your name while we were there on another matter.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Kim wasn’t deterred. ‘We’re currently working an investigation where some of our victims seem to have a link to that place, and we need to establish whether we’re looking at more than a coincidence.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘We really need to speak to someone who spent time there and isn’t dead,’ Kim said, not unkindly but trying to drive the point home.
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.’
‘Did they help you?’
Stephanie offered no answer.
Kim sighed in frustration. ‘Okay, what prompted you to go?’
Stephanie glanced up and to the left as though checking this was a question she could answer. ‘Okay, my whole life I’ve been a tomboy, always liked wearing trousers, screamed the place down if Mum put me in a dress. I liked playing boys’ games with boys’ toys. Mum bought me a doll every Christmas hoping she’d find one I’d like. Her own brand of subliminal conversion therapy, I suppose,’ she said with a smile.
‘Did she find one?’ Kim asked.
‘Nah, they all met the same unfortunate end.’
Kim waited.
‘Thrown over the fence for next door’s dog. For my tenth birthday she bought me an Action Man with all the army gear. The dog didn’t get that one. From that time, my mum let me be. She allowed me to make my own choices and never once passed judgement on the decisions or choices I made. Of course, that didn’t pan out well for me when I went to high school.’
She paused and took a breath.
‘Even before I knew myself that I was gay, I was taunted and called names. Every day for five long years. Any friends I made were scared away by the bullies. Not a time in my life I want to dwell on,’ she said.
Kim nodded her understanding.
‘All I could see was my entire future stretching out in front of me like my school years. I didn’t want to be gay. I didn’t want to be called names or singled out my whole life. I had no wish to be different.’
Kim’s heart ached for the cruelty of kids and the long-lasting effects of bullies who probably hadn’t given Stephanie a second thought once they’d left the premises for the last time.
‘What did you do?’
‘I conformed. I grew my hair long and changed the way I dressed. I got a job at a small roofing company and saved my money.’
‘Did you already know about the Change Clinic?’
She nodded. ‘I looked it up when I was sixteen. I did all the usual teenage things. I learned to drive, bought clothes, gave my parents board but always saved something for the fund. The time I waited was spent getting by, blending in, being part of the more widely accepted collective. By the time I was twenty-one, I had enough money for a month-long stay. I was sure that was long enough for them to fix me.’
‘Is that really how you saw your sexuality – as a part of you that was broken?’ Kim asked.
‘Absolutely.’
‘You didn’t consider counselling to help you accept your identity?’
‘Wouldn’t have stopped the name calling, would it? Wouldn’t have stopped the “lesbo” slurs shouted at my back. Wouldn’t have stopped me feeling frightened that every day those calls would develop into something physical. Living with that kind of fear isn’t living at all. I didn’t want to stand out. I just wanted to be normal.’