If I’m not, I’ll have to talk not just about what happened to this boy, but what happened to me. I will have to tell them everything I know about two awful things that happened at the same time, in two different rooms. Me in one, him in the other, the walls so thin I could hear him while I pressed my eyes shut and tried to pretend I was somewhere other than in my own body.
-- Graciela (Section 1)

Importance: When Graciela brings Lock to the hospital after the party, she feels she cannot wait with him and help him because she will also have to face what has happened to her. In leaving him at the hospital, Graciela is doing her best to ignore the trauma of her assault. She ultimately will learn that there is no way to escape from the trauma without acknowledging the way it has affected...